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
It was encouraging that at Pyece, a place on the banks of the Irrawaddy,
the missionaries met Shwaygnong, who had come thither to visit a sick
friend, and came on board eagerly to know the result of their journey.
They told him all, even of the good confession beneath the iron mall, and
he seemed less affected and intimidated than they expected, though he had
nearly made up his mind to cast in his lot with them. "If I die, I shall
die in a good cause," he said. "I know it is the cause of truth." And
then he repeated his actual faith: "I believe in the Eternal God, in His
Son Jesus Christ, in the Atonement which Christ has made, and in the
writings of the Apostles as the true and one Word of God." He also said
he had never, since their last conversation, lifted up his folded hands
before a pagoda, though on the day of worship, to avoid persecution, he
would walk up one side of the building and down the other. To this Mr.
Judson replied, "You may be a disciple of Christ in heart, but you are
not a full disciple. You have not faith and resolution enough to keep
all the commands of Christ, particularly that which commands you to be
baptized though in the face of persecution and death. Consider the words
of JESUS--'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.'"
He listened in profound silence, and with the manner with which he always
received what he considered deeply; but there was still a long struggle
to come, and many fluctuations, and the simpler minds were the stay and
comfort of the missionaries, when on their return to Rangoon they
considered what steps to take. Their first proposal was to move to a
district between Bengal and Arracan, where were several Christian natives
now destitute of a pastor, and where the language was very like Burmese,
though the place was beyond the power of the Emperor, and to take their
three baptized converts with them. Nau and Thaahlah were ready to follow
them everywhere, but Byaay was married, and no Burmese woman was allowed
to leave the country. He, with several others who were on the point of
conversion, entreated the missionaries not to leave them, and Thaahlah
made a remarkable speech. "Be it remembered," he said, "that this work
is not yours or ours, but the work of God. If He give light, the
religion will spread."
It was decided, according to the earnest wish of these poor people, that
they should not be deserted till there were enough of them to form a
congregation and have a teacher from among themselves set over them, and
this--as the sect to which the Judsons belonged has no form of setting
apart for the ministry--was all that they regarded as requisite. The
Arracan converts were not, however, to be neglected, and Mr. Colman
therefore was to go to Chittagong, and there establish a station, which
might receive those from Rangoon in case it should become needful to
leave the place. He was doing well there, when he died from an attack of
fever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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