Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons | Page 8

_These are some of the trials attendant upon a missionary life, and which I have anticipated._ In a few hours Mr. J. arrived, and toward night our baggage."
After two or three days of great perplexity and distress, and when they had given up all hope of being able to proceed to the Isle of France, they unexpectedly received from an unknown friend a magistrate's pass to go on board the Creole, the vessel they had left. Their only difficulty now was that she had probably got out to sea, as it was three days since they had left her. However they hastened down the river seventy miles, to Saugur, where, among many ships at anchor, they had the inexpressible happiness to find the Creole, on which they embarked for the Isle of France, their first destination.
Their dangers on the passage to the Isle of France were great, the vessel being old and leaky; and when they reached there, they found little encouragement to remain. While on the island, Mrs. J. had a severe attack of illness, as well as much depression of spirits from the uncertainties of their situation. After much deliberation they determined to establish themselves on an island near Malacca, to reach which they must first go to Madras, and they accordingly sailed for that place. War having broken out between England and America, the hostility of the East India Directors to American missionaries was of course much increased, so that it would be impossible for them to make any stop at all in Madras, without incurring the danger of being sent back to America. What, then, was their distress on their arrival there, to find no ship bound for the island they wished to visit! Their way seemed entirely hedged up, for the only vessel in Madras harbor ready for sea, was destined to Burmah, a country pronounced by all their friends in India, utterly inaccessible.
In her journal, at this time, Mrs. J. writes: "Oh, our heavenly Father, direct us aught! Where wilt thou have us to go? What wilt thou have us to do? Our only hope is in thee, and to thee only do we look for protection. Oh, let this mission live before thee!" "To-morrow," she adds, at a somewhat later date, "we expect to embark for Rangoon, (in Burmah.) Adieu to polished, refined, Christian society. Our lot is not cast among you, but among pagans, among barbarians, whose tender mercies are cruel. Indeed, we voluntarily forsake you, and for Jesus' sake choose the latter for our associates. O may we be prepared for the pure and polished society of heaven, composed of the followers of the Lamb, whose robes have been washed in his blood!"
Everything combined to render the passage to Rangoon unpleasant and perilous;--sickness, threatened shipwreck, and the want of all comforts;--but at length on the 14th of July, 1813, about eighteen months from the time they left Salem, in Massachusetts, they set their 'weary, wandering feet' on that shore which was to be their future home.
Among the depressing circumstances that had occurred in this gloomy period, not the least painful was the death of Mrs. Judson's early friend, and companion in her eastern voyage, Mrs. Harriet Newell. Of less mental and physical vigor than Mrs. Judson, this amiable and ardent Christian had gladly relinquished all other objects in life, for that of sharing the privations and soothing the cares of a husband to whom she was tenderly attached, in his labors among the heathen. But this privilege was denied her; she was not even permitted to reach a scene of missionary labor. Her heart-broken husband was compelled to bury her in a far distant isle of the ocean, and finish his short earthly course alone. But he lived to see the grave of that young martyr missionary visited by many pilgrim feet, and her name embalmed in many admiring hearts.
How keenly Mrs. Judson felt her loss, may be learned from a letter written from the Isle of France, whither she and her husband went on being driven from Calcutta:--"Have at last arrived in port; but oh, what news, what distressing news! Harriet is dead. Harriet, my dear friend, my earliest associate in the mission, is no more. Oh death, could not this wide world afford thee victims enough, but thou must enter the family of a solitary few whose comfort and happiness depended so much on the society of each other? Could not this infant mission be shielded from thy shafts!" "But be still, my heart, and know that God has done it. Just and true are thy ways, oh thou King of saints!"
Another heavy trial, was the separation of herself and husband from the church in which they were both educated, from the missionary association on which they depended for