Pioneers and Founders: or, Recent Workers in the Mission fieldYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
History
Pioneers and Founders: or, Recent Workers in the Mission field
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Missionaries
Meantime, Mr. and Mrs. Judson were working steadily on, and were greatly
cheered by the arrival of a much less barbarous viceroy, named Mya-day-
men. They were invited, with all the Europeans, to a banquet at the new
official's house, and Mrs. Judson was entertained by the wife, who
questioned her eagerly, and asked if she knew how to dance in the English
way; but was satisfied on hearing that the wives of priests did not
dance. As Buddhist priests are celibate, Mrs. Judson must have been
rather a puzzle to the good lady; and all this time the real work of the
mission had not commenced, for the preliminary operation of acquiring the
language had not been completed, and Judson was warned not to attempt
preaching till he was familiar with it, by Dr. Carey having told him that
after some years in Bengal, when he imagined himself to be freely able to
use the language, he had found from the remark of a young man, that he
was really not in the least understood. Private arguments with the
teachers was all that could be attempted, and in these there seems to
have been some forgetfulness of St. Paul's words, "Who art thou that
judgest another? To his own master he standeth or falleth;" since there
was a very free threatening that the souls of the pagans must be lost; to
which the pundits replied with true Eastern calmness, "Our religion is
good for us, yours for you." During this time of perseverance and
preparation, Mrs. Judson's health became so much affected that she was
forced to go to Madras. Heroine as she was, she would not consent to let
her husband break up his work to accompany her; but the solitude of her
absence fell on him most severely. She says, "He had no individual
Christian with whom he could converse or unite in prayer during the six
months of her absence;" but he worked on heartily, and she returned in
perfect health.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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