Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons | Page 8

on board until he should reach a tavern sixteen miles
further down the river. Mrs. Judson also remained in the ship until it
came opposite the tavern, "where," she says, "the pilot kindly lent me
his boat and a servant to go on shore. I immediately procured a large
boat to send to the ship for our baggage. I entered the tavern a stranger,
a female and unprotected. I called for a room and sat down to reflect on
my disconsolate situation. I had nothing with me but a few rupees. I did
not know that the boat which I had sent after the vessel would overtake
it, and if it did, whether it would ever return with our baggage; neither
did I know where Mr. Judson was, or when he would come, or with
what treatment I should meet at the tavern. I thought of home and said
to myself, _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