skill of a foreign disputant.” But the chief hindrance to preaching the Gospel to the Burmans was the _danger of persecution_. Mr. Judson found himself in the dominions of a monarch upon whose slightest nod depended the life of each subject. Every convert knew that in adopting this new religion he was encountering the risk of confiscation of property, imprisonment, torture, or death in its most shocking form. But in spite of these great difficulties, and even in the face of the fact that many of his brethren and sisters in his own, distant, native land regarded the undertaking as hopeless, and looked upon him as an obstinate and chimerical fanatic, he never for a moment lost hope. He felt as sure that Burmah would be converted to Christ as that it existed. He was buoyed up by the same faith that caused him to answer many years after, when he was asked whether he thought the prospects bright for the speedy conversion of the heathen, “As bright as the promises of God.” And in the darkest period of the history of our missions, he sounded the bugle-call, which will inspire the heart of the Christian missionary until that day when “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.” _To the Rev. Luther Rice._ “RANGOON, _August_ 3, 1816. “I have completed a grammar of the Burman language, which I hope will be useful to you; also a tract, which I hope to get printed as soon as Mr. Hough arrives. “If any ask what success I meet with among the natives, tell them to look at Otaheite, where the missionaries labored nearly twenty years, and, not meeting with the slightest success, began to be neglected by all the Christian world, and the very name of Otaheite began to be a shame to the cause of missions; and now the blessing begins to come. Tell them to look at Bengal also, where Dr. Thomas had been laboring seventeen years (that is, from 1783 to 1800) before the first convert, Krishna, was baptized. When a few converts are once made, things move on; but it requires a much longer time than I have been here to make a first impression on a heathen people. If they ask again, What prospect of ultimate success is there? tell them, As much as that there is an almighty and faithful God, who will perform His promises, and no more. If this does not satisfy them, beg them to let me stay and try it, and to let you come, and to give us our _bread_; or, if they are unwilling to risk their bread on such a forlorn hope as has nothing but the WORD OF GOD to sustain it, beg of them, at least, not to prevent others from giving us bread; and, if we live some twenty or thirty years, they may hear from us again.