denomination, as a teacher among the Ojibwas, at Sault de Ste. Marie, in
Michigan. This was her first missionary work, and she continued engaged in
it nearly four years, when, in the mysterious providence of God, her health
failed, and she was obliged to return to her friends. But the great Head of
the church, in removing her from one field of labor, was only preparing her
for another. In 1836 she became connected with the Karen mission, and a
more extended field of usefulness was thrown open before her. She sailed
from this country in the ship Louvre, and arrived in Maulmain in the autumn
of the same year.
After her arrival she was stationed at Dong-Yahn, about thirty-five miles
from Maulmain. Here she lived and labored almost alone, doing the great
work which was assigned her. In the midst of discouragements she fainted
not, but performed labors and endured afflictions almost incredible. When
she arrived at the scene of her future labors her heart was affected at
what she saw. Vice and sin reigned triumphant. The most odious, disgusting,
and blasphemous crimes were committed. On every hand intemperance and
sensuality were observable. She immediately commenced in their midst the
worship of God. On the Sabbath the people were drawn together to hear
about the blessed Jesus; and the story of the cross was told with all the
sweetness of woman's piety. During the week her house was thrown open
for morning and evening prayers. A school was soon gathered under her
persevering labors: ten or twelve pupils gathered into it.
Mr. Osgood, who accompanied Miss Macomber from Maulmain to her field of
labor, and whose duty required him to leave her there, an unprotected
stranger, in the midst of a brutal, drunken community of heathen
barbarians, writes as follows of her place of toil and her feelings on her
arrival:--
"We ascended the Salwen River about twenty-five miles, and slept in our
boats the first night. On the morning of the next day, December 20, we
procured a guide and proceeded overland, following the line of the Zuagaben
Mountains, to the house of one of the chiefs, about ten miles. The chief
and most of the inhabitants were absent, attending the burning of a Burman
priest. I immediately despatched a messenger for him, and in the mean time
took up lodgings in his house, to wait his return. Two or three men and
several females and children spent the greater part of the afternoon and
evening with us, hearing sister M. read from the books which have already
been written in their language. We, however, soon found that we had arrived
in a most unpropitious time; for almost every man in the vicinity was in a
state of beastly intoxication.
"On the morning of the 21st, as the chief did not arrive, we concluded to
return about half way to the river, with a view to exploring the country,
and in hopes of meeting the chief on his return, and holding a conference
with him and several other principal men relative to the objects of the
mission. Having proceeded as far as we intended, and waited some time in
vain for his arrival, I concluded to go in person and endeavor to prevail
upon him to return, as my business would not allow of protracted absence
from home. On arriving at the place of the feast we found a large concourse
of people, consisting of Burmans, Peguans, Karens, and Toung-thoos, who
were assembled upon an extensive plain to pay the last tribute of respect
to a Burman priest that had been some months dead and was now to be burned.
The body was mounted upon an immensely large car, decorated according to
Burman custom, to which were attached ropes, made of grass, three or four
hundred feet long. With these the car was drawn about the plain, levelling,
in its course, every obstacle.
"After some little search we found the chief men, the objects of our
pursuit, but so completely drunk that all attempts to induce them to return
with us were entirely fruitless. We immediately returned to the house of
the chief where we had lodged the previous night. In the evening the chief
returned, but so intoxicated as to be entirely unfit for business.
"We rose early on the morning of the 22d to take advantage of the effect
of the night's rest upon our host, and obtained the privilege of a few
minutes' conversation. He gave us permission to build in any place we saw
fit to select; but before I had fixed upon a place he was again missing.
After selecting a place and making the necessary preparations for building,
I prepared to return to Maulmain. Until this time our dear sister Macomber
had borne the trials of the journey and the prospect of being left
alone without the least appearance of shrinking; but when the moment of
separation came, the thought of being left, without a friend in the midst
of a drunken people, and even in the house of a man completely besotted
with ardent spirits, and at a distance of thirty miles or more from any
civilized society, with scarcely a sufficient knowledge of the language to
make known her wants, was too much for the delicate feelings of a female
to endure; and she could only give vent to the emotions of her heart by
a flood of tears. She soon, however, recovered her self-possession, and
resolved to cast herself upon the merciful protection of her heavenly
Father, and to pursue what seemed to her to be the path of duty."
But the laborer did not long toil in vain. In less than one year, a church
of natives, converted through her instrumentality, was formed and placed
under the care of Rev. Mr. Stephens. The people changed beneath the
influence of divine grace. Intemperance, sensuality, and other vices
gradually disappeared; and morality, solemnity, virtue, and religion took
their places. The Sabbath day was respected; and in the jungle and thicket
the voice of prayer was often heard. Jesus and the cross received thought;
and the great idea of salvation by grace was pondered and believed.
In a few months the little church planted through her instrumentality
numbered more than twenty persons, who continued faithful in the duties
and practices of the disciples. Her feelings towards the little band of
Christians gathered by her in the very wilderness of sin are represented as
having been very strong and earnest. Her language was, when speaking of the
church,--
"For her my tears shall fall,
For her my prayers ascend,
To her my toils and cares be given,
Till toils and cares shall end."
She was an _intelligent_ missionary. Her mind was of superior order, and
reason held even balance. Her zeal for the truth was not a blind, headlong
enthusiasm, which sparkles, and glitters, and comes to an end, but a zeal
founded on the wants and woes of a perishing world. She measured the depths
of heathen degradation and estimated the worth of souls, and went to work
calmly, philosophically, and earnestly.
The faith which she carried forth was well studied and fully understood.
She had a reason to give for the hope which was in her and which she so
fondly cherished. She was able to defend it--to develop its glories--to
show its superiority to any and all the forms of heathenism. The kindness
of her own heart led her not only to appreciate the superior excellence of
the gospel, but also to feel most deeply for the degraded Karens. Towering
far above them in the majesty of intellect and the grandeur of thought, she
sought to inspire them with feelings kindred to her own. Her high ambition
was, to lift the race from its fallen position, save the people from
their prevalent vices, enlighten the minds of the young, and improve and
regenerate the hearts of all.
She thought it not inconsistent with her true dignity, as a woman
possessing a high order of intellect, to bring her mind into contact with
the most degraded of the human family, if by so doing she could be the
means of saving some and improving others. Hence she _studied_ to do
good. The energies of her mind were placed under contribution to furnish
arguments by which the heathen mind might be convinced and the heathen
heart subdued. She met the strongest objections to the new faith; she
answered the questions of the cavilling priest; she reasoned with the
common people from the law and the gospel, until enough were converted to
form a church of our Lord Jesus.
She was a _laborious_ missionary. All our missionaries are laborers. The
work itself compels toil; and it cannot be avoided. But few go into it with
an idea of ease and personal aggrandizement; and that few are disappointed.
The great enterprise is in itself a hardship; and however cheerfully it
may be borne for Jesus and a dying world, it cannot be carried on without
immense labor and sacrifice on the part of the missionaries.
But the noble woman of whom we write was in labors more abundant. She
even went beyond what was expected of a most faithful servant of God: she
exerted herself to an extent which but few others have done, and gathered
a reward in proportion to her labors. Others have suffered more and had
a more checkered life; but none have put forth greater exertions to
accomplish a given result.
Indeed, the spectacle of a weak, friendless, lone woman removing from
Maulmain to Dong-Yahn, and there, with no husband, no father, no brother,
establishing public worship, opening her house for prayer and praise, and
gathering schools in the midst of wild and unlettered natives, is one full
of moral grandeur. The idea of performing such a work alone, the idea of a
defenceless woman going into a besotted nation, among a drunken, sensual
people, and lifting them up to the privileges of a refined faith, a pure
religion, is an idea worthy of an angel. This idea entered the mind of our
subject, became a part of herself, and was carried out in her life.
Not content with sitting down and teaching all who came to her, she went
out to the surrounding tribes, and, for miles around, preached salvation
to the dying. In these excursions she was generally attended by one or two
converts, who formed her escort and guard, and performed that part of the
labor which could not be brought within the province of woman. In this
heroic and romantic manner she travelled from place to place, fording
rivers, crossing deep ravines, climbing high hills and mountains, entering
the dwellings of the poor, sitting beside the bed of the dying, rebuking
the sinful, and every where preaching the doctrines of salvation.
The spectacle was one which affected even the heathen heart; and this
estimable woman was respected and loved even by those who scorned the
gospel and hated Christ. She had "a more excellent way;" and that
excellence was exhibited in every step of her progress. As she approached
the towns and villages, on her excursions of mercy, she was often met by
enthusiastic crowds, who welcomed her with joy, and led her to the homes of
the dying, and besought her aid. Most females would have fainted under her
toils and turned back from the amount of work to be performed; but gifted
with wisdom and strength from on high, endowed with powers not her own,
she continued until a church was gathered and the foundation laid for a
prosperous mission.
She was a _pious_ missionary. Doubtless much of the success which crowned
the efforts of Miss Macomber must be attributed, not to the brilliancy
of her intellect, not to the vigor of her mind, not to the vast labor
performed, but to the _piety_ of her heart. It was this which induced her
to go out; she had no other motive in leaving home and all the joys of
kindred and native land. It was this that induced her to plant the cross
where the name of Jesus had not been preached; to go alone, a friendless
woman, in the midst of savages; to brave sickness, disease, and death
itself, in order to utter notes of salvation which should fall on dying
ears like strains from heaven. It was this which sent her, like an angel of
mercy, to the homes of the weary, to the abodes of sickness, to the hovels
of want, to dens of crime, to whisper rebuke in one place and consolation
in another.
She gave ample evidence that her heart had been baptized in the Holy
Spirit; that her mind had come into contact with the great truths of
revelation; that she had been to the cross and received an impulse from the
spectacle of death there witnessed; that her heart had bled at scenes of
woe which every where abound on heathen soil; that, in the majesty of
humble faith and trust in the Divinity, she had resolved to die in the holy
work to which God and the church had assigned her.
We not unfrequently behold the most lovely exhibitions of piety in
Christian communities. We see religion doing its holy work in the lives of
its professors; we contemplate instances of piety and devotion which seem
to be more of heaven than earth; but never can be witnessed in Christian
lands those sublime trophies of godliness which we find on shores which are
covered with heathen abomination. We must leave home, we must cross the
ocean, we must follow Harriet Newell through all her sufferings, until she
finds an early grave. We must follow Ann H. Judson to the dungeons of Ava,
to the damp, cold prisons of the East, to her home of suffering and
death. We must trace the course of Miss Macomber from Maulmain to her
new residence at Dong-Yahn; we must see her on her excursions into the
surrounding province, and listen to her teachings as around her a rude
group gather to hear of Jesus.
Here is piety in its most lovely form. Here is godliness in its most divine
attire. Here is pure religion, which is undefiled before God. In these
cases we see what cannot be witnessed at home, and what thousands of pious
women would shrink from as impracticable and impossible.
Amid such scenes as these Miss Macomber seems to rise above the measure of
a human being, and gain a likeness to Him who went about doing good. She
appears superior to the infirmities of humanity, because she was engaged in
an employment so nearly resembling that of her divine Master, and performed
it with so much of the excellence and beauty of his spirit and grace.
Perhaps no better description of Miss Macomber as a laborer in the vineyard
of her Lord can be given than she herself furnishes in her printed
letters, which are found scattered through the missionary magazines of the
denomination to which she belonged.
"DONG-YAHN, April 15, 1837.
"A line to you the last of December left me at this place, in the house
of a Karen chief, waiting the building of my own, and giving what little
religious instruction my knowledge of the language would admit. I have now
the happiness to inform you that the excitement, which I then attributed
wholly to novelty, proved to be a gracious influence of the Holy Spirit. A
number of these poor, dark heathen, who were then bound in Satan's double
chain, (idolatry and drunkenness,) have been liberated and brought into the
glorious liberty of the gospel of Christ, and are now rejoicing in hope of
the glory of God. Ten have been baptized, four men and six women; and a
number of others, I trust, will ere long seek the blessed privilege. Many
are still inquiring, and some, I trust, earnestly seeking. But many
are opposing, reviling, and persecuting; and a few are indifferent and
unconcerned.
"The progress of the work has been deeply interesting to all who have been
acquainted with it, and particularly so to myself. Never were the power
and mercy of God more manifestly displayed, and never did his saving grace
shine through a more feeble instrumentality. But God can work according to
his will; and, blessed be his name, the heathen shall be given to his Son.
"Our first baptism was on the 12th of January. Chung-pau, a man rather
advanced in years, but of a sound, good mind, and who has thus far
manifested a most devoted spirit, had from the first listened with uncommon
interest; and I think I shall never forget the sensations it gave me when
he would come and sit down by me, and, with a countenance which bespoke a
soul awakened to the interest of eternal realities, would ask, 'What is it
to believe? What can _I_ do to believe? I want to escape hell and obtain
heaven. I wish to trust in Jesus Christ. What shall I do?' O, what would I
have given in that moment for an easy use of the language! But I said what
I could; and the Spirit taught him as man could not.
"On the 21st of January brother Osgood came up again, and had the happiness
to baptize six more; viz., Ah-wah and wife, Bah-mee and wife, and Ko-pee
and wife; and Mr. Judson baptized three of the chief's daughters on the
16th of March, one only about twelve years old. All gave good evidence of a
gracious change, and have since manifested a growing devotion to the
cause. A number of others of the chief's children, I trust, have been made
partakers of divine grace, and will ere long enter the visible church. One
of those baptized was married; and although her husband made no objections
to her baptism, yet he immediately left her. She has two young children,
whom her father has added to his eleven; and it is truly interesting to see
the care he personally takes of them. Bah-mee has also been turned off by
his widowed mother without a spoonful of rice for his family, (wife and two
children;) and yet I hear not a hard or murmuring word. They seem to take
it as a thing of course, that, if they _will_ be disciples, they must
suffer persecution.
"When I consider these and many other things which these dear Christians
meet with, I cannot but admire the power of divine grace, and find new
cause to bless God for light and civilization.
"The men baptized all expressed a great desire to devote their future lives
to the service of God in making known his great salvation to those who were
ignorant of it. They have uniformly manifested the same spirit ever since,
and have been very useful so far as they knew. I have spared no pains in
giving them every opportunity in my power for religious instruction; and
their progress has been truly pleasing. The chief and Bah-mee both read
Peguan well, and Burman some; and have now learned to read and write
their own language. The former is about forty, of respectable talents and
considerable influence. Bah-mee, who I think is an uncommonly able man, is
about thirty; was in the priest's office three years, but left them some
years ago; and when I came here was fast pursuing the drunkard's road with
all the others. Ko-pee is but little over twenty, but has a wife and two
children. He knows nothing of letters, but possesses a quick, discerning
mind, and a lovely disposition. He is learning to read; and I am making
great efforts to have the old man (Chung-pau) learn to read. I hope to get
them all to Maulmain during the rains, that they may have better advantages
for religious instruction, and that those who can may get a good knowledge
of Burman books. They all understand considerable of the language; and it
will be long before there will be books to any extent in their own. It has
all the time seemed to me an indication of designs of great mercy towards
this people that men of such qualifications should be called just at the
commencement of labors amongst them; and I trust that God will so direct
that they may accomplish much for the salvation of their countrymen and the
glory of his name.
"I have had two or three Burman assistants constantly, who not only go out
in the vicinity, accompanied by some of the Karens, and preach daily,
but make excursions of four or five days in the villages, amongst the
mountains, preaching the gospel to Toung-thoos, Peguans, or Burmans, as
they happen to meet with them. I have made it my personal business to go
with some of them; so that I have visited all the families within six or
seven miles once or twice. I trust that these labors, though feeble, have
not been in vain. I can speak but little of the language; but keeping a
Karen with me, who is accustomed to my broken speeches, I give him ideas
which he explains; and have been comforted and happy in the work, though
attended with much fatigue and exposure.
"These things have not gone forward without opposition, as you will readily
suppose. Besides all that would be expected from a numerous and deeply
interested priesthood, we have had the fierce and violent opposition of a
young prophet, who started up just before my arrival, and is located about
a mile from me. He renounces a little of Boodhism and adds some other
things; is unlettered and of no marked character; and yet he has many very
devoted adherents. It is believed, however, by the best judges that he will
be of short continuance. He effectually evades every effort to make him
hear the gospel. His followers do not permit us to ascend the ladder into
his house; and I have been out sometimes two or three days in succession,
and have not been permitted to enter more than ten or twelve houses. It was
fatiguing and painful to be exposed to the sun or hot air so long, and
to find a seat as I could on the ground; but I was never comfortless or
unhappy, assured that I was going at the bidding of Him who exposed his
life unto death for a guilty world.
"We have had morning and evening worship from the first, and four or five
exercises on the Sabbath, usually in Peguan, interpreted into Karen.
I often ask questions at the close. A school has been sustained by my
teacher, who, though very incompetent, has done very well. We have about a
dozen scholars, as none will come who are opposed to us."
The following letter was written at Dong-Yahn February 5, 1838, and
published shortly afterwards in this country:--
"The work of God is still going on here. Three men requested baptism
last Sabbath, and a number more will soon come forward. This is the more
encouraging, as, just now, there is an unusual effort of the adversary to
put the cause down. It is the season for funeral festivals; and for fifteen
or twenty days they have been in constant celebration, which of course
attracts much attention. But the priests, not finding their coffers so well
filled as usual, have seemed to make an effort as for life; and there is no
end to the fog of worthless stuff which comes from them. It would seem that
there was very little else said or done than what their violence called
forth. No one of the Christians can go abroad but they hear from every
quarter '_Jesus Christ_,' by way of contempt; and all who attend our
meetings receive the same treatment unless they join the rabble. So that
when any of them decide to come out and face the whole, which to a heathen
is mountainous, there is strong evidence that divine grace has taken
possession of their hearts.
"One woman had made up her mind to come forward, but said she feared she
could not endure to be cast off, not only by her parents and relatives, but
by the whole village, as they had told her they would do. So she concluded
to wait and see how her mind was when the others were baptized.
"Have been absent considerably of late, wishing to visit all the villages
just about the mountain. Found ten or twelve places of some importance:
this, however, is the largest and most important, except Tun-pah-tine,
where we have one convert, and where I spent four days last week. There are
some encouraging indications there; but the chiefs will not yet consent
to my building a zayat. I am trying to get some of the converts to go and
build there; but they are so timid and deficient in energy that, if left to
themselves, I do not know that they would ever go out of their own village;
though they never hesitate to go wherever I direct them. But in this case I
wish them to take some responsibility.
"We have now an applicant for baptism from Puh-ong, a young man who has
some excellent qualifications for usefulness. There are also two or three
encouraging cases in Tun-loh, five or six miles distant, as also in some
other directions; but the future is unknown.
"Our meeting is beginning to attract more attention, so that our room is
often crowded; consequently I have engaged the chief to put on an addition
of a few feet, which will be done this week.
"All the Christians seem to be getting on well, Bah-mee is my principal
preacher. He certainly does admirably, considering what he was a year ago;
but I find it necessary to see him, look over every subject, and give him
all the ideas I wish to have advanced.
"There are constant rumors of robberies on the river, which of course
prevent our doing any thing here."
Under date of July 30, 1838, we find the following article:--