“At the close of the war,” according to Mr. Judson’s narrative, “he spent a few months at a large village in the neighborhood of Shwa-doung, and there, devoting himself to the preaching of the word, he produced a very considerable excitement. Several professed to believe in the Christian religion; and three of the most promising received baptism at his hands. Some others requested the same favor; but he became alarmed at his own temerity, and declined their repeated applications. The villagers, in time, returned to the vicinity of Rangoon, whence they had fled at the commencement of the war. He also returned to Rangoon, his former residence, and continued to disseminate the truth, but in a more cautious and covert manner.” Ko Thah-a visited Mr. Judson at Maulmain in order to be instructed as to what he should do with those whom he had persuaded to accept of Christ, and who wished to be baptized. It was thought best to ordain him as pastor of the church in Rangoon. What a stubborn vitality there is in that seminal divine idea, a local church! Mr. and Mrs. Judson formed such a church, when, in 1813, they made their home at the mouth of the Irrawaddy, and all by themselves shared in that Holy Supper which was instituted to commemorate the Saviour’s dying love. The church of two slowly grew into a church of twenty. Then came the war, and the long imprisonment of the pastor at Ava. The church was hewed to the ground. Only four members could be found, and these were transplanted to Amherst. More than two years later Ko Thah-a, who had been lost sight of in the interior of the country, makes his appearance in Maulmain. He has all along been secretly preaching the good news, and now he wants to go back to Rangoon and baptize the converts whom he has won. Out of the stump of the tree cut down there springs a shoot which has bloomed and flourished even to the present time. The Rangoon mission of 1881 now embraces eighty-nine churches and thirty-seven hundred members. “There shall be a handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon.” Ko Thah-a, the first Christian pastor among the Burmans, proved to be an able minister. Of him Mr. Judson wrote: “His age (fifty-seven), his steadiness and weight of character, his attainments in Burman literature, which, though not, perhaps, necessary, seem desirable in one who is taking up arms against the religion of his country, and his humble devotedness to the sacred work, all conspire to make us acquiesce with readiness and gratitude in the divine appointment.”