Adoniram JUDSON 
 
 By WM. WISTER HAMILTON 
 
 “Is it pleasing to God? ” “ Is it pleasing to 
 
 God? ” Any soul will have a safe and prosperous 
 voyage, if the quiet power which holds the needle 
 of its compass true be the devotion of a heart which 
 invariably asks at every reckoning, “Will it please 
 Him?” The life of Adoniram Judson was beset by 
 many calms and many adverse currents and many 
 storms, but, after a long and trying voyage on an 
 unexplored sea, this Christian Columbus discovered 
 for American Baptists a new world, and planted the 
 banner of the Cross on those needy and hostile shores 
 so successfully that after thirty-two years’ absence 
 he once more set sail for his native land with a ship 
 of glorious cargo, with happy passengers, with 
 bronzed and experienced and victorious crew, and 
 with an open door in the Far East for the messengers 
 of salvation. 
 
 ^,^In the Baptist church building in Malden, Mass., 
 one of Boston’s suburban towns, there is a marble 
 tablet, on which have been inscribed these words: 
 
 “ IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 REV. ADONIRAM JUDSON. 
 Born Aug. 9 , 1788 . 
 
 Died April 12 , 1850 . 
 
 MALDEN, HIS BIRTHPLACE. 
 THE OCEAN, HIS SEPULCHRE. 
 CONVERTED BURMANS AND 
 THE BURMAN BIBLE 
 HIS MONUMENT. 
 
 HIS RECORD IS ON HIGH.” 
 
2 
 
 ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 In the New England environment Adoniram 
 Judson, whose father was a Congregational minis¬ 
 ter, began a hfe which was to be one of the instru¬ 
 ments in God’s hands for transforming the ideal 
 of Baptist church life in America, and the centennial 
 of his going out to foreign fields promises to mark 
 the greatest forward step which these same churches 
 have taken in fulfilling their responsible and glo¬ 
 rious mission. What a tribute to this pioneer of 
 faith, this father of American Baptist missions, it 
 will be if Southern Baptists who enjoy so many 
 comforts and so many luxuries, will contribute the 
 million and a quarter dollars, to the cause for which 
 the Judsons of to-day are giving their lives, and for 
 which our God gave His only begotten Son, 
 
 Since this is to be an “Annus Mirabilis” in our 
 history, and since it is to gather in part about the 
 life, the faith, the work, the sacrifice of Adoniram 
 Judson, it is fitting here and everywhere that we 
 acquaint ourselves with the man upon whom God 
 so definitely and wonderfully laid his hand, and 
 whose labors have been so abundantly rewarded. 
 Standing out clearly, as we study him, are certain 
 characteristics which cause us to say of him, as the 
 angel long ago prophesied of another faithful and 
 fearless pioneer, “He shall be great in the sight of 
 the Lord.” 
 
 1. He was a man of unusual culture. His birth 
 and childhood marked him as a child of peculiar 
 gifts and many advantages. His home was one of 
 genuine piety, of inflexible integrity, of noble as¬ 
 pirations, of great hopes. Here were laid deep 
 those foundations upon which he was afterward 
 to build so stable a structure in those far-away 
 lands. His father, from the first, expected the boy 
 to become a great man, and so often spoke of it 
 
ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 3 
 
 that in his early years Adoniram was filled with 
 worldly ambition, but in his later years he triumphed 
 over this desire and gave the Cross of Christ first 
 place, and then, in his mature years, had added unto 
 him all these things. In him was exemplified the 
 statement, so true, that, '‘if a man can sink the 
 desire to be great in a passion for doing good, then 
 his greatness really begins.” 
 
 When only three years old he surprised his father 
 by reading a whole chapter in the Bible. In the 
 grammar school he was so proficient in languages 
 that he was nicknamed “Virgil.” At fourteen 
 years he entered Providence College, now Brown 
 University, and at the age of nineteen graduated 
 with the highest appointment in the commencement 
 exercises as valedictorian of his class. He was a. 
 lover of books, and when eleven years old heard 
 some visitors speak of a new exposition of the 
 Apocalypse, and was grieved and mortified that 
 the great man in the neighborhood refused to lend 
 it to him. He was gratified, however, when his 
 father said, “Not lend it to you! I wish he could 
 understand it hah as well. You shall have books, 
 Adoniram—just as many as you can read—and I’ll 
 go to Boston for them myself.” 
 
 This ability to master languages, this fondness 
 for literary pursuits, just as with William Carey 
 could have been turned to his own financial ad¬ 
 vantage as an employee of the Governments where 
 he labored, but, instead of so doing, Judson and 
 Carey dedicated these talents to the King of Kings. 
 In translation of the Scriptures, in the preparation 
 of dictionaries, in the production of Christian 
 literature, and in the proclamation of the Gospel, 
 they gave these gifts their greatest glory. 
 
4 
 
 ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 It is told that twenty years after Adoniram 
 Judson reached Burma the New Testament was 
 translated into the Burmese tongue. In 1824, 
 when war was waged between England and Burma, 
 Mr. Judson was thrown into prison, and Mrs. 
 Judson buried the precious manuscript, just ready 
 for the printer, in the earth beneath their house. 
 But, as mold was gathering upon it, on account of 
 dampness, caused by heavy rains, with a woman’s 
 ready wit, she sewed the treasure inside a roll of 
 cotton, put on a cover, and took it to the jail to be 
 used by Mr. Judson as a pillow. 
 
 In nine months he was transferred to the inner 
 prison, where five pairs of fetters were put upon his 
 ankles, and it was announced that he, with a hun¬ 
 dred others, fastened to a bamboo pole, were to be 
 killed before morning. During this terrible night 
 much prayer ascended for the precious pillow. It 
 had fallen to the share of the keeper of the prison, 
 but Mrs. Judson, producing a better one, induced 
 him to exchange. 
 
 Mr. Judson was not killed, but hurried away to 
 another place, and again the pillow was his com¬ 
 panion. But one of the jailers untied the mat 
 that served as its cover and threw the roll of cotton 
 into the yard, worthless. Here a native Christian, 
 ignorant of its value, found and preserved it as a 
 relic of his beloved master, and with him, months 
 afterward, its contents were discovered intact. 
 After the close of the war this New Testament was 
 printed, and in 1834 the whole Bible was trans¬ 
 lated into the Burmese language—a language 
 pecuharly difficult on account of its construction 
 and curious combinations. 
 
 God takes care of His Word. Let us do all we 
 can to furnish it to people of every land. 
 
ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 5 
 
 2. He had a definite experience of grace. Like 
 many a messenger of the Cross, he did his first 
 preaching in childhood. His sister recalls that 
 when he was only four years old he would gather 
 the children from the neighborhood, to play church. 
 He usually did the preaching, and his favorite hymn 
 was, “Go preach My gospel, saith the Lord.” He 
 tells in his diary that it was in November, 1808, 
 when twenty years old, “he began to entertain a 
 hope of having received the regenerating influences 
 of the Holy Spirit.” 
 
 At fourteen he was seriously ill, and, while sick, 
 meditated much on his expected greatness. Even 
 if he should be great, as the world counts greatness, 
 what then? Could he keep his honors forever? 
 He compared in his thought “the great worldly 
 divine, toiling for the same perishable objects as 
 his other favorites, and the humble minister of the 
 Gospel, laboring only to please God and benefit his 
 fellow-men,” and came to the conclusion that the 
 world was all wrong or this second man would be 
 its hero of all heroes. During his college life, how¬ 
 ever, when in that age through which all must pass 
 who are to make truth personal and real, he un¬ 
 fortunately had as an intimate friend one who had 
 caught the contagion of French infidelity. This 
 young man was unusually attractive and versatile 
 and amiable, and young Judson found in this com¬ 
 panion so many similar tastes and sympathies 
 that he caught the subtle infection, from which he 
 himself later recovered, but which was the ruin 
 of his friend. 
 
 Just here comes the darkest chapter of his history. 
 In it are to bo found the restlessness of one who is 
 seeking to discover his place in life, the wanderings 
 of an ambitious man who is not willing for God to 
 
6 
 
 ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 have His way with him, the excursion into sin of one 
 who is endeavoring to drown the voice of the highest 
 calling, the natural severity of a father who knows 
 the folly of such a wayward course, and the distress 
 and prayers and expostulations of a devoted and 
 godly mother, from whose pleadings he could not 
 escape and for whose tears he had no answer. 
 
 He became “Mr. Johnson” and attached himself 
 to a theatrical com^pany, partly with the purpose 
 of knowing better how to write the plays which he 
 had planned. He, in telling this to a fellow prisoner 
 in Ava, said, “In my early days of wildness I joined 
 a band of strolling players. We lived a reckless, 
 vagabond life, finding lodgings where we could, 
 and bilking the landlord where we found oppor¬ 
 tunity—in other words, running up a score, and 
 then decamping without paying the reckoning. 
 Before leaving America, when the enormity of this 
 vicious course rested with a depressing weight on 
 my mind, I made a second tour over the same 
 ground, carefully making amends to all whom I 
 injured.” 
 
 Young Judson was pursuing his way on horse¬ 
 back from Sheffield, westward, in a tour which he 
 was making, and came once more upon his young 
 infidel student friend, who was still to have a place 
 in his career. Judson, in the home of his uncle, 
 had been in conversation the day before with a 
 young man whose godly sincerity greatly impressed 
 him, and on the next night was stopping at a country 
 inn. The only room left was one next door to a 
 young man who seemed near to death and whose 
 groans he heard many times during the night. He 
 was restless and wakeful and thoughtful, and, as he 
 heard the watchers moving about in the room, he 
 wondered if the stranger was prepared. In im- 
 
ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 7 
 
 agination, he placed himself upon this bed of death 
 and thought of his own condition. The long night 
 was gone at last, and he went in search of the land¬ 
 lord, to ask after the sick man. The reply was 
 “He is dead. Yes, he is gone, poor fellow!” “Do 
 you know who he was ? ” inquired young Judson. 
 Imagine his surprise at the answer : “O yes; it was 
 a young man from Providence College—a very fine 
 
 fellow^; his name was E-. ” Over and over 
 
 came the words, “Dead! lost! lost!” The shock 
 turned his face toward home and his heart toward 
 God. 
 
 This was in September, 1808, and in October 
 of that same year we find him enrolled as a student 
 of theology at Andover, though he was neither a 
 professed Christian nor a candidate for the minis¬ 
 try. In December he made a solemn dedication 
 of himself to God, but did not join the Third Con¬ 
 gregational Church, in Plymouth, until the 28th of 
 May, 1809. His conversion meant a surrender 
 to the ministry and it also brought to him a hfe of 
 joy and growth and service, for he resolved that he 
 would avoid everything displeasing to God. He 
 modestly says, “I have some hope that I shall be 
 enabled to keep this in mind, in whatever I do— 
 Is it pleasing to God? To assist my memory, I 
 have used the expedient of inscribing it on several 
 articles which frequently meet my sight. Is it not 
 a good plan? But, after all, it will be of no use, 
 unless I resolve, in Divine strength, instantly to 
 obey the decision of conscience.” He says much 
 in his letters about being happy in his religious life. 
 He speaks of how many cheat themselves of real 
 happiness by preferring some trifle to God, and of 
 how we refuse to open the window-shutters and then 
 complain that it is dark. He is at once seized with 
 
8 
 
 ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 the fact that a life once spent is irrevocable, and 
 then narrows that same fact down to each day. 
 Thus he began his Christian journey with a definite¬ 
 ness most marked and in a direction always answer¬ 
 ing to the question, “Will it please God?” 
 
 3. He was held by firm convictions. About the 
 time of his conversion there came into his hands 
 a sermon by Dr. Claudius Buchanan, who had been 
 a chaplain for the British East India Company. 
 “The Star in the East” was its title, and it showed 
 the evidences of the power of Christianity in the 
 East. This was the spark which set to flame his 
 missionary convictions and produced the heat 
 through which his life’s purpose found its mold. 
 It was six months later that the final resolve was 
 made. About this time, also, God’s confirming 
 providence threw into that side of the scales five 
 other young men of like purpose and consecration. 
 The Lord was bringing together widely-separated 
 thinkers, whom He had raised up for the great work 
 of evangelizing the heathen, and “when a man is 
 rocking in the trough of the sea of indecision, it is 
 very reassuring to have his interior conviction 
 matched by an external Providence.” 
 
 Many obstacles and many temptations presented 
 themselves, but in the face of them all he was still 
 held true by his firm conviction. He was offered 
 a tutor’s appointment in Brown University, Dr. 
 Griffin desired him as his colleague in the “largest 
 church in Boston, ” the ambitions and regrets of his 
 immediate family stood mountain high in his way, 
 there was no foreign missionary society in America 
 to w'hich he could offer his services, and there seemed 
 little prospect of any English society being wilhng 
 to accept him. The appeal which Judson and Nott 
 and Mills and Newell and Rice and Richards made 
 
ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 9 
 
 was soon answered by the Congregationalists, and 
 there was organized the American Board of Com¬ 
 missioners for Foreign Missions. This was in 1810, 
 and Carey had gone to India in 1792. 
 
 An even greater test as to his loyalty to convic¬ 
 tions and to truth came after he and his young wife 
 had left America. These two, together with Mr. 
 and Mrs. Newell, had set sail on the brig “ Caravan,” 
 on the 19th of February, 1812, bound for Calcutta, 
 and with Captain Heard in command. Mr. Judson 
 expected to meet the eminent English Baptist 
 missionaries in India, and he thought it the part 
 of wisdom “to arm himself beforehand for the 
 encounter with these formidable champions.” 
 Long and increasingly anxious became the dis¬ 
 cussions on board the “ Caravan,” for they both were 
 afraid that the Baptists were right and that they 
 were wrong. After landing they continued their 
 investigations, and were finally compelled, from a 
 conviction of truth, to embrace the teaching that 
 faith must precede baptism, that only immersion 
 is baptism, and that, if baptism is a symbol, then the 
 form is of great importance. They tried to rest 
 satisfied in their old sentiments, but were finally 
 baptized in the Baptist chapel at Calcutta, on the 
 6th of September. They had arrived June 17th, and 
 had let no one know of their heart-searching and 
 Bible searching struggle until they asked for 
 baptism. 
 
 It is hard for a preacher to make such a surrender 
 to his conviction here in his own land, but how 
 much more so must it have been when there had 
 been organized a society for his support, when so 
 much had been said and done for the work which 
 he himself had launched, when his own people had 
 been so distressed over his devotion to missions. 
 
10 
 
 ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 ■when he must part from the companions who had 
 come out with him, when he must turn his back 
 on the only support which he had in view', when 
 he must turn his ship on a new course because 
 his compass needle so indicated, when the Baptists, 
 to wdiom his convictions led him, were few in number, 
 and when he had no reason to believe that they 
 - w'ould welcome his coming into their ranks or rally 
 to his support. 
 
 4. He enjoyed unusual consecration. Will it 
 please God? Then it will be a pleasure to do any¬ 
 thing, go anywhere, to endure any privation, to 
 make any sacrifice. Here is the secret of his 
 devotion to his work and the tenacity with which 
 he held to it when once it became to him a con¬ 
 viction, He loved the work, because it was for the 
 Saviour that he was doing it. He loved the heathen, 
 and, though he never saw a ship sail for America 
 that he would not have wished to be aboard, yet, 
 because of his devotion to Jesus, one room in 
 Rangoon was more to be preferred than six in 
 Boston, Every opportunity for financial gain 
 or for earthly preferment was refused, and even 
 ‘The biggest church in Boston” could not tempt 
 him from those who needed him most. 
 
 This same consecration was his stay through the 
 trying ordeals of the years. In toils, in privations, 
 in disappointments, in bereavements, in imprison¬ 
 ments, in every conceivable trial which could come 
 to shake the loyalty and devotion of a servant of 
 God, his definite caU to God’s service on the foreign 
 field and his loyalty to conviction held his ship 
 as do great anchors within the veil. 
 
 It is hardly within the power of human language 
 to describe the sufferings of body, mind, and soul 
 through which Mr. and Mrs. Judson passed in 
 
ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 II 
 
 these awful months of persecution and imprison¬ 
 ment, and the Christian soul marvels that human 
 beings could ever be so cruel and so brutal as were 
 these for whom these devoted missionaries were 
 thus giving their lives. Even the description of 
 the prisons in which Mr. Judson was incarcerated 
 are enough to sicken the heart, and the anguish, 
 the sufferings, the self-sacrificing devotion of Mrs. 
 Judson call for all the sympathy and admiration 
 of which the soul is capable. While he, for twenty- 
 one months, was enduring the squalid prisons, the 
 galling fetters, the benumbing sameness of position, 
 the constant expectation of death, the anguish of 
 unknown cruelties to the gentle companion of his 
 life, she was threading alone the hot and crowded 
 streets, was exposed to insults from officials who 
 should have been her protectors, was pleading for 
 the release of her husband with such pathetic 
 earnestness as to melt to tears even the old governor 
 of the prison, was giving birth to her babe during 
 a confinement of only twenty days, was carrying 
 the little one in her arms to that filthy den of 
 incarceration, was caring for the native children 
 who were sick with small-pox, and, at last, was 
 at death’s door from the sarne dread disease, which 
 was followed by the dreaded spotted fever. 
 
 After the English soldiers, under General Camp¬ 
 bell, had brought deliverance, and when the Bur¬ 
 mese commissioners were being given a display of 
 English splendor and wealth, they were surprised 
 at seeing the great General give Mrs. Judson the 
 place of honor at the feast. He noticed their 
 confusion, and said to Mrs. Judson, “I fancy these 
 gentlemen must be old acquaintances of yours, 
 and, judging from their appearance, you must have 
 treated them very ill.” When questioned by Sir 
 
12 
 
 ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 Archibald about one in particular, who seemed 
 seized with an ague fit, she told of how she had 
 walked several miles to this man’s house to ask 
 a favor, and when her husband was suffering from 
 fever in the stifled air of the inner prison and from 
 the galling bondage of five pairs of fetters about 
 his ankles. She had left him in the early morning, 
 but was kept waiting so long that it was noon 
 before he gave his rough refusal. As she turned 
 disappointedly away, he siezed upon the silk um¬ 
 brella which she carried, and would not even fur¬ 
 nish her a paper one to protect her. He laughed 
 at her fear of the scorching heat, and told her that 
 the sun would not find her, that only heavy people 
 were in danger of a sun-stroke. 
 
 They were like the early English missionary, 
 who, when driven by a snow-storm upon the coast 
 of Fife, said, ^^The snow closes our way along the 
 shore, the storm bars our way over the sea, but 
 there is still the way of heaven that lies open.” 
 They were so bound to heaven by that “threefold 
 cord” of “secret prayer” and “self-denial” and 
 “doing good,” that no created thing could separate 
 them from the love of God, which is in Christ 
 Jesus, our Lord. 
 
 5. He was not conquered by his conquests. 
 
 His victories did not spoil him, his triumphs did not 
 fill him with pride, the honors heaped upon him 
 by his own people did not turn his head. 
 
 On board ship, when at last he visited America, 
 he felt considerable anxiety as to where he should 
 find a home in Boston, and was amazed to find 
 homes without number were open to him, that he 
 was to bear the pain of being the hero of great 
 gatherings throughout the land, that the very 
 sight of him was to be cherished as a special privilege. 
 
ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 13 
 
 and was to be handed down from generation to 
 generation as a blessed memory. 
 
 No one except a man of conviction and conse¬ 
 cration could go on for more than seven years 
 without a convert, and still have it said of him, 
 '‘His subhme faith in God never faltered.” Back 
 of every sermon, of every letter, of every act, lay 
 the reservoir of a great character. Through the 
 power of Christ he was master of himself, of his 
 every faculty. He had no desire to be honored 
 or considered great. “He often remarked that 
 Christ was the model preacher, and that he never 
 preached great sermons.” So intent was he upon 
 the message that his earnestness of manner was 
 most impressive, and no hearer was able to escape 
 the conviction that his soul was in his work. Dr. 
 D. W. Faunce tells of his keen disappointment as 
 a boy when Judson first began his address in the 
 old church, crowded now to standing room to 
 welcome home this distinguished son. He expected 
 great oratorical flights, loud voice, commanding 
 tones and dramatic positions, and resistless elo¬ 
 quence. As Mr. Judson went on, in simple lan¬ 
 guage, to unfold his thought, and over and over 
 again repeated his one theme, pleasing Jesus, 
 somehow the boy forgot all about eloquence, and 
 began, as his eyes filled with tears, and his heart 
 was in his throat, to ask if he, too, might not do 
 something to please Jesus. 
 
 No wonder, then, that this missionary, whom 
 Christ had so conquered, should win the Burmans 
 to himself and to his Saviour. He was such a 
 combination of the ideal and the concrete, he was 
 so great that Eastern minds were no match for 
 him in any encounter, and yet so humble as to be 
 the unfailing friend of the poorest servant. His 
 
14 
 
 ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 first tract to the Burmans caught and held the 
 attention of their deepest thinkers, and is still 
 worth any man’s study, and yet, in a private talk 
 with a native Christian woman, he made truth so 
 simple that she never forgot it. He seized the 
 ruler from the table, stood it on the floor, and said, 
 “Here you stand. You know where this path 
 leads—you only want to step aside to catch the 
 bubble, and you think you will come back again, 
 but you never will. Woman, think! Dare you 
 deliberately leave this straight and narrow path, 
 drawn by the Saviour’s finger, and go away for 
 one moment into that of your enemy? Will you? 
 Will you? WILL YOU?” She was sobbing as he 
 spoke, and says that ever after, when tempted, she 
 could see that ruler on the floor, that path marked 
 out by Christ, and could hear that question, “Will 
 you?” 
 
 No wonder that on board one ship, as he con¬ 
 ducted worship, the big tears would roll down the 
 cheeks of his sailor auditors, and that before they 
 landed three of the seamen had given evidence of 
 salvation. No wonder that in Burmah, before 
 his death, there were sixty-three churches and 163 
 workers, and that though he had early expressed 
 the hope of having as many as an hundred native 
 converts, there were about 7,000. 
 
 The victory over himself through Christ, and 
 the conquest of Burmah, through Christ-like living 
 and teaching and suffering, made easy the winning 
 of the Baptists and of all Christians everywhere 
 who have ever known of the life and labors of 
 Adoniram Judson. To him all was as bright as 
 the promises of God. Wherever he went, at 
 home or abroad, he was as sympathetic as if he 
 were the pastor, and as interested as if he were a 
 
ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 15 
 
 member of the family. In the Colby home, in 
 Boston, at the family altar, he prayed: “May they 
 and their children, and their children’s children, in 
 every generation to the end of time, follow each 
 other in uninterrupted succession through the 
 gates of glory.” 
 
 A New York merchant, in his boyhood, read a 
 “ Life of Judson,” and went out into the field on his 
 father’s farm, and dedicated his life to the service 
 of God. “Just as a steamer in its course along a 
 river generates a wave which will lash the shore 
 long after the disturbing force has passed, so the 
 words and behavior of a good man will sometimes 
 set in motion streams of influence in the most un¬ 
 looked-for places.” 
 
 This Judson Centennial Year of 1912 is going to 
 mark not only a great forward movement for 
 Southern Baptists, and an enlargement of their 
 gifts to the work of missions, but it is going to mean 
 the dedication of many a young life to God, the 
 strengthening of many whose doctrinal knees have 
 been weak, and the call for some real sacrifice by 
 those who have hitherto never been stirred by the 
 study of the life of a really great soul devoted to God. 
 
 Who that has ever looked upon Adoniram Judson 
 in that loathsome prison, who that has ever beheld 
 his ankles weighted and bruised with those five 
 pairs of fetters, who that has ever imagined the 
 anguish of his gentle soul amid such injustice and 
 degradation and brutality, who that ever followed 
 Mrs. Judson in those twenty-one months of in¬ 
 describable anxiety and angelic seK-sacrifice and 
 devotion, who that ever has stood and wept at 
 the lonely grave there under the hopia-tree, who 
 that ever has worked and waited, and believed, and 
 suffered, and wept, and rejoiced with the Judsons, 
 
16 
 
 ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 
 can ever again be mean, and little, and selfish, and 
 cowardly? 
 
 There is only one course for those of us who 
 study the life of such a man; there is only one 
 resolve for the denomination to whom God so 
 wonderfully gave him, and that is to expect great 
 things from God, and attempt' great things for 
 God. Enlarge the place of thy tent, O Baptists 
 of America; stretch forth the curtains of thine 
 habitations; spare not, lengthen thy cords, and 
 strengthen thy stakes. 
 
 Think never of retreat while the graves of our 
 missionaries adorn the lands of heathenism! Think 
 only of conquest while Christian soldiers are ready 
 to five or die for the King of kings! Think only of 
 asking, whether we stay or go, whether we work or 
 pray, whether we give or withhold, whether we 
 preach or practice, “Will it please Him? Will it 
 please Him? WILL IT PLEASE HIM ? » 
 
 FOREIGN MISSION BOARD, 
 SOUTHERN Baptist Convention 
 RICHMOND, VA.