HOW FEW THERE ARE WHO DIE SO HARD:
THE SUFFERINGS AND SUCCESSES OF ADONIRAM JUDSON
The year was 1850. The Aristide Marie made headway in dark waters, just east of the shadow of the Andaman Islands as it traveled toward the Isle of France. The ship was filled with a hot, salty ocean air, which was intended for the healing of Adoniram Judson’s illness. Writhing in pain, Judson whispered to his companions, “How few there are who…die so hard!”[1] These were among Judson’s last words. With thoughts swimming in his head of his wife and children, and with the ship’s officers gathered at the door of his cabin to watch the end, with a calm, peaceful spirit Adoniram Judson breathed his last. On the night of April 12, 1850, the port door of the ship was opened, and Judson’s coffin slipped into the blackness of the sea.[2]
For what would a man suffer the loss of two precious wives, six wonderful children, his health, and even his own life? Adoniram Judson had spent more than thirty-five years in the country of Burma preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to any who would listen. He was, in fact, the first American foreign missionary, and his dream of converting the Burmese people to Christianity drove him to suffer, as he gave his life to the work of missions. Judson accomplished much in his time in Burma, but not only for Burma. His life and labor inspired many in America and other countries to take up the missionary endeavor. Because of Adoniram Judson’s willingness to leave his life of American comfort in exchange for the sufferings of the mission field, foreign mission societies were started in America among Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians. A great work was started in Burma that would eventually explode among its people, having a tremendous impact on the population of the Kingdom of God. Judson was also the first to complete a Burmese translation of the scriptures, as well as a Burmese-English dictionary that would be used by generations of missionaries after him. Adoniram Judson was indeed one who “died hard,” and his life would touch many more in the years to come who looked to him for inspiration for the work of the gospel all around the world.
Adoniram Judson was born on Saturday, August 9, 1788 to Rev. Adoniram (Sr.) and Abigail Judson, in the town of Malden, Massachusetts. Judson’s father was a prominent minister in the Congregational church, and early in Judson’s life told him that he expected him to be a very great man. At a young age Judson displayed a preference for books rather than play, and had a knack for solving riddles and doing mathematics. As he got older he suspected that he was destined to become a great orator or statesman; perhaps the next John Adams. Judson desired a profession that would allow him to influence the hearts and minds of many people, and win him praise and fame.[3] He dreamed that his name would “ring down the ages.” [4]
When he was sixteen Judson entered Rhode Island College (which would later be known as Brown University), where he was allowed to enter as a sophomore, apparently displaying a tremendous intellect for a boy of his age. Even though Rhode Island College (Brown University) was a Baptist school, Judson’s father, not wanting him to be influenced by liberal Congregationalism, reasoned that because of its conservative nature, and the fact that there were a good number of Congregationalists on the board, young Adoniram would be safe there.[5] At Brown, Judson met a Deist by the name of Jacob Eames. These two would become best friends, and to the Rev. Judson’s dismay, Eames would convince Adoniram to become a Deist. Adoniram had never professed personal faith in Christ, and on his twentieth birthday, in 1808, he revealed his Deist beliefs to his parents and left for New York to study theatre.[6]
New York did not work out according to Judson’s expectations. Greatly discouraged about the direction of his life he left New York with the intention of wandering. As he was staying the night at his uncle’s parsonage, he conversed with a young minister who impressed him with his piety, warmth, and inner peace. As Judson traveled on the next evening he stopped for the night at a small village inn. The only room that was available was next to a room in which a dying man was staying. Judson stayed the night thinking about the man in the next room, and in the morning asked the innkeeper if he had died. The innkeeper said that he had, but also added at Adoniram’s request, that the deceased was a man from Rhode Island College by the name of Jacob Eames. The shock of his friend’s death, coupled with his own inner struggle caused him to question the validity of his Deist beliefs. It seemed that Judson was “in mortal fear for his own soul.”[7] Judson immediately decided to return home to the house of his father.[8]
Judson, convinced that God was speaking to him through the death of Eames, entered Andover Seminary on October 12, 1908.[9] On December 2 of the same year, Judson “made a solemn dedication of himself to God,” [10] bringing to an end the inner struggle for peace that had plagued him for so long.
While at Andover Seminary, Judson was introduced to great stories of missionaries from afar. Among these were stories of William Carey and the Serampore trio in India. In addition, he was greatly influenced by a written sermon entitled Star in the East, which was an appeal for missionary work in India. Adoniram’s imagination was kindled as he thought of himself as one of these foreign missionaries to unreached lands. Judson determined then that he would become the first American foreign missionary.[11]
Despite his sincerity, Judson’s aspirations were met with much ridicule among his fellow students at Andover. This, however, did not sway Judson. He read An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, a book by a British army officer who had been sent to Burma. The book described the mysterious golden kingdom of Burma, and spoke of the pagan practices of its people. From the reading of this book on, Judson’s thought were fixed on Burma. While walking in a snowy grove in February 1810 the command of Christ to preach the gospel to all was presented clearly to his mind.[12] That same day he knelt in the snow and dedicated himself before God to foreign missions.[13]
After this experience, Judson met other Andover students who were interested in foreign missions. On Christmas day, 1810, the newly formed American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions appointed Judson as a missionary. This was the first foreign missions organization in America. Adoniram and his new wife Nancy (Ann Hasseltine) set sail for India on February 19, 1812.[14] During the voyage, Judson sought to find biblical grounds for defending his Congregational belief regarding baptism against the Baptist convictions of William Carey and others. As he read the Greek New Testament, however, he came to realize that the Bible actually teaches baptism by immersion.[15]
As soon as Judson arrived in Calcutta, India, he went to see Carey to seek his advice. Carey never actually attempted to persuade the Judsons of his views on baptism, and Judson was impressed with him, above any man he had ever met. Carey told him of dismal prospects in both India and Burma, but said he would help in whatever way he could. Judson and his company stayed for a few weeks in the Carey household, learned about India and its religion, and made every effort to get acclimated to the new culture. The Judsons later moved in with a family in Calcutta whose home had a great library. Here Judson would find many books on the subject of baptism, and became convinced that immersion was the proper mode of Baptism. On September 6, 1812 the Judsons were baptized by William Ward. Anticipating severe trials such as the loss of friends and reputation at home in America, Judson, compelled by the truth, converted to the Baptist faith.[16]
Now this posed a problem for Judson. His newfound Baptist identity raised questions of affiliation and support. He was now unsure how he would provide for his family, for whom he would be working, and where he would be going; but he had a burning desire and determination to work for the conversion of the lost people of the East. Judson wrote to the American Baptists and suggested that they form a Baptist mission society in America.[17]
Adoniram continued to feel drawn to Burma, despite its many drawbacks. He had heard the warning of William Carey, but he also felt called to translate the Bible into Burmese, a task that had never been done. But after meeting with Carey’s son, Felix (who had been in Burma already), Judson decided to give up on Burma because it remained inaccessible to him. Being forced by the government to leave Calcutta, Judson sailed for the Isle of France in the hope of starting a work there. He arrived January 17, 1813, but was disappointed when he arrived. It seemed that there was no real place to work. Leaving the Isle of France, Judson went to Madras to look for another place to work, but met with disappointment there also. It seemed that there would be no place in the East for him to work, and he contemplated going to England or perhaps returning home.[18]
It was then that Judson happened upon a Portuguese ship called Georgiana that was headed for Rangoon, in Burma. He decided that this turn of luck meant that God wanted him to go to Burma after all. Against counsel that would have them go to England and lose a few years for the sake themselves and their children, the Judson’s followed God to Burma. The only thing now in Adoniram’s and Nancy’s hearts and on their minds was the conversion of the Burmese people. So on June 22, 1813, the Judsons sailed for Rangoon.[19]
The Judsons reached Rangoon on the thirteenth of July, and went to stay with the Carey’s (Felix and his family) in the mission house and immediately began learning the language. The Careys however soon left, Felix taking a position in the Burmese government, and the Judsons were left alone in the mission house trying to understand a people whose language had no words to use for communicating the essential ideas of Christianity. It was extremely difficult to explain the concept of one eternal God to the Burmese people because of the nature of their own pagan Gods who changed form all the time. Judson continued to learn the language as best he could, and by 1815, after they had been in Rangoon for a year and a half, knew enough of the language to begin to speak to the people about religion.[20]
Adoniram produced his first Burmese tract, entitled The Way to Heaven, which spoke of the essential doctrines of Christianity and the purpose for the missionaries being there to preach, and by May 1817 had translated the gospel of Matthew. Judson held his first service in a small hut-like building he had built on the side of one of the main roads in Rangoon on Sunday, April 4, 1819. He continued these services week after week, and struggled to break through to the people who came to hear him preach. It seemed, though, that most were only curious at best, and disinterested at worst.[21]
The Judson had been in Rangoon for six years and had little to show for their work. There were few who came to listen to the gospel seriously and no converts. Then there was Maung Nau. Maung Nau had been to the little hut several times to listen to Adoniram preach the gospel, and on Sunday, May 9, 1819, he professed to be a believer in Christ in the presence of thirty or more people. Maung Nau was baptized the following month. The Judsons were overjoyed. This was only one convert in six hard years, but it was a start.
Judson paused from his work of preaching and teaching only to go to Ava, the Burman capital to seek the favor of the king. This was an endeavor that was met with much frustration, and the king forbid him to preach the gospel to any native. Adoniram returned to Rangoon in February of 1820 and told his three or four converts what the king had said, that the gospel could not be preached to Burmans, and that they could expect persecution if it was. The effect of this was only to increase the native convert’s zeal for the gospel, and by July of 1820, there was in Rangoon a church of 10 native Burmans, including the first baptized Burmese woman.[22]
Life continued to be difficult for the Judons, and at times Adoniram had to be away from Nancy for long periods of time, once for two years when Nancy had to return to America because of illness. The work of the mission was now slower than ever, and twelve years after leaving New England, Judson only had 18 converts. To make matters worse, as a war between Burman and England was developing, Judson was accused of being a spy and imprisoned. Judson had been translating the Bible into Burmese, and now thought that all his work would be lost. But Nancy managed to salvage the manuscript and sneak it in an old pillow to Adoniram at the prison. Each night Judson slept with his head on “the only complete copy of the Burmese New Testament in existence.”[23] For all of this, Judson eventually contemplated suicide as he was being led away to be executed, after having spent eleven months in a harsh prison.[24]
Instead of being executed, however, Judson was summoned to help negotiate peace with the British. This earned him the respect of many in the government of Burma, and he was told that if he stayed in Ava he would become a very great man there. Judson refused this honor, and was allowed to leave with his wife, who was now very ill, and moved the mission center to Amherst, which was one of the coastal territories of Burma now under British control. It was here, at Amherst that Nancy would die on October 24, 1826. Adoniram served the British as a translator and advisor, on the condition that the British commissioner would try to get religious freedom for all of Burma so they could openly return and preach the gospel.[25]
Finally it seemed that, at great cost to the missionaries Adoniram and Nancy Judson, the work was actually increasing in Burma. Judson converted a former murderer by the name of Ko Tha Byu, who went on to become “the father of Karen Christianity.”[26] The Karens were a wild jungle people who lived in the mountains of lower Burma. By 1830 the church in Burma was growing as many among the Burmese increasingly came to faith in Christ, and more missionaries arrived from America. In May of 1830, as Judson traveled the countryside, he reported that all the people of Burma seemed to be interested in Christianity, and by 1831, he saw, despite threats of persecution from the Buddhists, a “spirit of inquiry that is spreading everywhere, through the whole length and breath of the land.”[27] By March of 1831, Judson had given out ten thousand tracts, giving to only those who asked; some people came three months journey saying that they had heard about hell and requesting “a writing”[28] to tell them how to escape it.[29]
Although it took Judson some nine or ten years to convert 18 natives, in the first five years after the war 242 natives had been baptized, plus 113 foreigners, a total of 391 converts. There were 217 converted in 1831 alone. The work was going well now, and by January of 1834, at age forty-six Judson had finished translating the entire Bible into Burmese.[30]
Following the death of his second wife Sarah, Judson returned home to America in October 1845, for the first time in thirty-three years. He found crowds of people on the shore waiting for him, and many homes open to him. Adoniram had become a legendary figure in America, and traveled much and spoke of his journeys to many. His heart, however, was still in Burma. Judson met Emily, who would become his third wife, and on July 11, 1846 the newly- weds sailed for Burma, and returned to Rangoon in 1847, and began rebuilding the church there.[31]
In January 1849, Judson finished the English-Burmese portion of a dictionary he had long been writing, and judged that it would be the basis for “all future work on the language.”[32] This would be Adoniram’s last written contribution to the work in Burma. On April 12, 1850, while on a sea voyage in an effort to cure an illness, Adoniram Judson died and was buried at sea.[33]
Edward Judson (Adoniram’s son), in the preface of his biography of his father, said that Judson’s career “may be justly said to form the main artery of all American foreign missionary endeavor.”[34] “Mr. Judson’s achievements far transcended the wildest aspirations of his youth,” says Edward.[35] At the time of Judson’s death there were over 7,000 native Christians (both Burmese and Karen) in Burma, and 63 churches had been established. There were 163 “missionaries, native pastors, and assistants” who oversaw these churches.[36] Edward Judson went on to praise his father, “it was Mr. Judson’s lot to labor in the hard and obscure period of the first beginnings.”[37] Judson had succeeded in translating both Old and New Testaments into the Burmese language, and “he had laid the foundations of Christianity deep down in the Burman heart where they could never be washed away.”[38]
Adoniram struggled for complete religious freedom for Burma, but never saw this dream become a reality. However, in May of 1978, the Burmese government allowed religious freedom for the first time, and published over 10,000 Bibles in the Burmese language.[39]
In the beginning Adoniram Judson’s missionary zeal had resulted in the formation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions among the Congregational churches in America, and by 1880 it had invested over $600,000 in the work of missions, and had works in Africa, Turkey, India, China, Japan, Micronesia, Mexico, Spain, and Austria. They had started 272 churches, and gained over 17,000 members, and had 1685 missionaries in the field.[40]
Not only did Judson impact the Congregational church in America, but since he had become a Baptist almost as soon as he set foot on the mission field, he had a major impact on Baptists as well. Judson’s charge to the Baptists in America resulted almost immediately in the forming of the first American Baptist Mission Society. By 1880, Baptists had dispensed over $300,000 to the work of foreign missions, and developed works in Burmah, Siam, India, China, Japan, and Europe, claiming 908 native churches, 85,308 members, and 1214 missionaries and native pastors.[41] Today, “the largest Christian force in Burma is the Burma Baptist Convention, which owes its origin to the pioneering activity of…Adoniram Judson.”[42] Patrick Johnstone estimated in 2001, that the Baptist Convention in Burma (now called Myanmar) consisted of over 3700 churches with 617,781 members, and 1,900,000 affiliates.[43]
Judson’s influence was not limited solely to the two denominations of which he had been a part. He also inspired missionary work among American Methodists and Presbyterians. Edward Judson said, “Mr. Judson’s career of heroic action and suffering stimulated Christian activity among all denominations,” both in America and in other countries around the world.[44] It seems that Adoniram Judson’s aspiration to be the first American foreign missionary was realized, but he was not the last. There have been many who followed in his footsteps, looking to his sufferings and triumphs for inspiration.
Adoniram Judson, perhaps disenchanted by his failure during early adulthood, but encouraged by his newfound faith and commitment toward Christ, left the comforts of his life in America and devoted his entire life to a missionary enterprise that would ultimately claim his life. Judson was the first American foreign missionary, and was the first to translate the entire Bible into the Burmese language. By his sufferings and successes, many in the country of Burma came to Christ in his lifetime, and thousands more came to Christ after his death. The Baptists in America were tremendously impacted by Judson’s work. He had caused the formation of the first American Baptist foreign mission society, and in the years following his death, many souls around the globe were added to the Baptist church. His life of suffering and toil in Burma caused a tidal wave of missionary endeavor that outlives him to this day. It is not an understatement to say that the foreign missions movement in America owes its origin to an American, a Baptist, Adoniram Judson.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, Courtney. To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson (Garden City, NY: Dolphin Books, 1961).
Barrett, David, ed., World Chritian Encyclopedia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).
Hall, Gordon Langley. Golden Boats of Burma (Philadelphia: Macrae Smith Company, 1961).
Hulse, Erroll. Adoniram Judson and the Missionary Call (Leeds, England: Reformation Today Trust, 1996).
Johnstone, Patrick; Jason Mandryk, eds., Operation World (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 2001).
Judson, Edward. The Life of Adoniram Judson (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph and Company, 1883).
McBeth, Leon. The Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman, 1987).
Miller, Basil. Ann Judson: Heroine of Burma (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1947).
Stott, John R. W. The Christian Church in Burma, in Christianity Today (vol. 23, Feb. 2, 1979).
Wayland, Francis. A Memoir of the Life and Labors of the Rev. Adoniram Judson, D. D. (Boston: Phillips, Sampson, and Company, 1853), 2 volumes.
[1] Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson (Garden City, NY: Dolphin Books, 1961), p. 488.
[2] Information from Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson (Garden City, NY: Dolphin Books, 1961), pp. 487-489.
[3] Ibid., pp. 19-40.
[4] Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore, p. 40.
[5] Ibid., p. 42.
[6] Ibid., pp. 42-50.
[7] Ibid., pp. 57-58.
[8] Ibid., pp. 52-58.
[9] Ibid., pp. 56, 60.
[10] Ibid., p. 62.
[11] Ibid., pp. 64-65.
[12] Ibid., pp. 66-68.
[13] Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman, 1987), p. 345.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore, pp. 71, 95, 131, 132.
[16] Ibid., pp. 138-149.
[17] Ibid., pp. 149.
[18] Ibid., pp. 150, 152, 163, 166.
[19] Ibid., pp. 167-168.
[20] Ibid., pp. 169-184.
[21] Ibid., pp. 197-198, 215-220.
[22] Ibid., pp. 221-264.
[23] Ibid., p. 314.
[24] Ibid., pp. 278, 299, 314, 331.
[25] Ibid., pp. 350, 355, 359.
[26] Ibid., p. 374.
[27] Ibid., p. 386.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid., pp. 374, 379, 382, 386.
[30] Ibid., pp. 391, 396, 399.
[31] Ibid., pp. 430, 456, 463.
[32] Ibid., p. 478.
[33] Ibid., pp. 489.
[34] Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph and Company, 1883), preface.
[35] Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, p. 552.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Ibid., p. 553.
[38] Ibid., p. 552.
[39] John R. W. Stott, The Christian Church in Burma, in Christianity Today (vol. 23, Feb. 2, 1979), pp. 30-31.
[40] Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, p. 556.
[41] Ibid.
[42] David Barrett, ed., World Christian Encyclopedia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 202.
[43] Patrick Johnstone, Jason Mandryk, eds., Operation World (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 2001), pp. 15-16.
[44]Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, pp. 556-557.
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