i p •_ 1 I r 
 
 Aixmtram lainson 
 
 c_y4n address delivered by" 
 Rev. O. P. GIFFORD, D.D. 
 on the occasion of the 
 
 Judson Centennial 
 
 Celebration 
 
 in Tremont Temple 
 Boston, Mass., June 24, 1914 
 
 □ 
 
 American Baptist 
 Ford Building : : 
 
 Foreign ^Mission Society 
 : : Boston, ^Massachusetts 
 
 3 El a Rr=l L”35Si-=I E 
 
 3E1E 
 
2 
 
A&ontram 3Ja&smt 
 
 T HE name of a babe is sometimes a prophecy 
 fulfilled by the character of the man. Isaac 
 called his second-born Jacob, supplanter. 
 He supplanted Esau twice. Mary named her 
 babe Jesus, Saviour. He saved his people from 
 their sins. In ancient Israel Abda named his 
 son Adoniram, “ the lord of exaltation.” Solo¬ 
 mon sent a levy of thirty thousand men to 
 Lebanon to cut timber for his building. Adoni¬ 
 ram was over the levy. A man who can manage 
 thirty thousand laborers for months without 
 a strike may well be called “ the lord of ex¬ 
 altation.” Rehoboam succeeded Solomon and 
 sent Adoniram to collect tribute. The people 
 stoned him to death. Thus he gave his life in 
 service and sacrifice to his king. In Malden, 
 Massachusetts, in the Congregational parson¬ 
 age, a babe was born and named Adoniram — 
 “ the lord of exaltation.” He gave his life in 
 service and sacrifice to a greater than Solomon 
 and to the building of a kingdom that has no 
 frontier. 
 
 3 
 
Heredity and environment have much to 
 do with shaping character. The web of life 
 is spun of threads woven by heredity and en¬ 
 vironment. Adoniram’s father was a stern 
 disciplinarian of the Puritan type. His mother 
 was one of the finest products of New England 
 home life. Strength and beauty were the two 
 pillars in Adoniram’s temple. 
 
 The traveler in London seeks St. Paul’s 
 Cathedral, an island of silence in a sea of sound. 
 Tired of the strife of tongues, he finds rest 
 under the shadow of the Eternal Presence in 
 the great cathedral. The massive walls and 
 springing dome shelter the bodies of men who 
 helped to make England great. Nelson made 
 her mistress of the seas. Wellington broke the 
 spell of Napoleon and freed Europe from the 
 power of France. Greater than either Nelson 
 or Wellington is Sir Christopher Wren, who 
 rebuilt St. Paul’s and the city of London after 
 the great fire. In greater London are sixty 
 parish churches planned by the great architect. 
 On the wall of St. Paul’s is a memorial tablet 
 to the memory of Sir Christopher Wren, “ If 
 you would behold my monument, look about 
 you,” — on the beauty of the cathedral; on 
 the city, the capital of an empire; on the sixty 
 parish churches nourishing the soul of the 
 
 4 
 
city, and on the score of churches in the Ameri¬ 
 can Republic built after the model of the parish 
 church. 
 
 In the city of Malden, Massachusetts, is a 
 noble meeting-house. On one of the walls is 
 a tablet: 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 REV. ADONIRAM JUDSON 
 BORN AUGUST 9, 1788. 
 
 DIED APRIL 12, 1850. 
 
 MALDEN, HIS BIRTHPLACE 
 THE OCEAN, HIS SEPULCHRE 
 CONVERTED BURMANS, 
 
 THE BURMAN BIBLE, HIS MONUMENT. 
 
 HIS RECORD IS ON HIGH. 
 
 At three years of age, Judson, taught to read 
 by his mother, read a chapter in the Bible to 
 his father. At four years of age he gathered 
 the neighboring children and preached to them. 
 At seven years of age he studied and settled 
 the question of the motion of the earth and 
 sun. At sixteen years of age he entered Provi¬ 
 dence College, now Brown University, a year 
 in advance. He was graduated three years 
 later as valedictorian. 
 
 5 
 
There are mental maladies, as well as physi¬ 
 cal diseases. Young men have mental mumps, 
 “ swelled head.” In college Judson became a 
 French infidel. Our fathers imported their 
 political principles from France; the same 
 ships brought over French infidelity. Few 
 college students in those early days were Chris¬ 
 tians. Judson was led into the field of religious 
 speculation by one of the most brilliant students 
 in college. Reaching home he revealed his 
 spiritual vacuum. His father reasoned with 
 him, his mother wept and prayed, in vain, for 
 what is unreasonable cannot be reasoned away; 
 what is not of the heart cannot be wept away. 
 Germ diseases have their run,—if the man is 
 in good health, he conquers; if in poor health, 
 they conquer. Much depends upon mental 
 fiber whether a man is conquered by or conquers 
 infidelity. Following his graduation Judson 
 taught school a year and wrote text books. 
 His father was a wise man and sent him on a 
 year of travel, hoping that meeting men would 
 brush away the webs woven by speculation. 
 Infidelity comes of overmuch thinking and too 
 little action. Real life destroys unbelief as the 
 sun burns off mists. Infidelity is born of books; 
 religion is the life of God in the soul of man. 
 There are inventors of religion as of machinery. 
 The patent office is crowded with inventions 
 
 6 
 
that do not work, and the test of reality proves 
 the worthlessness of many inventions and more 
 speculations. During his year of wandering, 
 Judson joined a strolling band of actors and 
 with them cheated the landlord of his just 
 dues again and again — practical infidelity. 
 If a man does not believe in God, why should 
 he treat men honestly? (He afterward retraced 
 his steps and paid the bills.) On his return 
 trip he was a guest in a wayside inn. A dying 
 man was in the next room. The groans of the 
 sufferer, the noises made by the nurse, made 
 sleep impossible. He began to think, “ Sup¬ 
 pose I were the dying man; am I ready? Sup¬ 
 pose the dying man were my friend the infidel, 
 is he ready?” The noises stopped; silence 
 fell upon the house. In the morning the land¬ 
 lord told him that the man was dead. “ Do 
 
 you know who he was? ” “ Yes; Mr.-, 
 
 the most brilliant student ever graduated from 
 Providence College.” Two words flashed 
 through Judson’s mind. “Dead! Lost!” Turn¬ 
 ing his face toward home he entered Andover 
 Seminary as a special student. He was not a 
 Christian, but a seeker for the truth. In the 
 Gulf Stream of seminary life the iceberg of his 
 infidelity melted. Unbelief in phrases could 
 not withstand the power of religion in life. A 
 sermon by Rev. Claudius Buchanan turned 
 
 7 
 
his mind toward the mission field and with 
 five other young men he pledged his life to the 
 foreign field. 
 
 There was then no foreign missionary or¬ 
 ganization in the young republic. The states 
 were a mission field, not a missionary force. 
 Four of the young men formulated a petition 
 and signed it, pleading with the churches to 
 organize a foreign missionary board and send 
 them to the foreign land. Young men, who 
 have a long lease of life, are short on patience. 
 Older men, with a short lease of life, are long 
 on patience. We pay years and acquire patience. 
 These elderly men advised the young men 
 to wait, and they would do the best they could. 
 But Judson grew impatient and took an Eng¬ 
 lish ship for London that he might interest the 
 
 English Christians in the missionary move- 
 
 _ • 
 
 ment. There was a war on between France 
 and England. The ship bearing the young 
 missionary was seized by a French privateer 
 and he was thrust into the hold with the com¬ 
 mon sailors. Seasickness is the mother of 
 pessimism. During the seminary course, Jud¬ 
 son had received an invitation to become a 
 tutor in English literature in Providence Col¬ 
 lege and also a call to be the associate pastor of 
 Dr. Griffin in Park Street Church, Boston. In the 
 
 8 
 
hold of the ship, a prisoner with the common 
 sailors, sick unto death, he began to question 
 the wisdom of his choice. To save himself 
 from insanity, he began to translate the He¬ 
 brew Scriptures into Latin. The ship surgeon, 
 finding the book, asked for the owner. They 
 conversed in Latin and Judson was moved to 
 the officers’ quarters. Landing in Bayonne, 
 France, he marched through the street toward 
 the prison, in company with the common sailors. 
 He lifted up his voice in the little French he 
 knew, to attract attention. The people laughed 
 at him. He then tried English by way of 
 attracting attention. A gentleman from 
 America stepped up to him and warned him: 
 “ Be quiet, or you will get into trouble.” Jud¬ 
 son replied, “ I have accomplished my pur¬ 
 pose, I will now be quiet.” He told his story. 
 The American made him a visit, secured his 
 release from prison, got him a pass from Napo¬ 
 leon to London, and Judson crossed over to 
 England. There was trouble then between 
 England and the United States, and the Eng¬ 
 lish Christians did not care to assume the sup¬ 
 port of the American missionaries. Judson 
 took ship for America. There he found that 
 the Congregational Church had organized their 
 foreign missionary work. Four of the young 
 men were ordained to the foreign field. Judson 
 
 9 
 
and Newell were married and set sail from 
 Salem on the Caravan for India. Luther Rice 
 sailed from Philadelphia. England had closed 
 all American ports and under special permit 
 the vessels were allowed to sail on condition 
 that they would not salute any ship on the 
 high seas. 
 
 “ New occasions teach new duties. 
 
 Time makes ancient good uncouth; 
 
 They must upward still and onward, 
 
 Who would keep abreast of truth; 
 
 Lo! before us gleam her camp fires, 
 
 We ourselves must pilgrims be, 
 
 Nor attempt the future’s portals 
 With the past’s blood rusted key.” 
 
 Judson was facing a new problem. In a 
 Christian country the children of Christian 
 parents were baptized, but he was facing the 
 heathen world. Could he baptize the children 
 of heathen parents? Should he baptize the 
 heathen parents when they became Christians 
 by sprinkling or immersion? What was the 
 primitive form? The early Church baptized 
 adults on confession of faith. Seventeen weeks 
 on his way from America to India he studied 
 the question and made up his mind that he 
 must become a Baptist. He conferred with 
 his wife and, with a. woman’s conservatism, 
 
 io 
 
she refused to go with him. He might become 
 a Baptist; she never would. They reached 
 Calcutta to find a number of books in the 
 library discussing the question on both sides. 
 They read the books carefully and soon after 
 their arrival both applied for membership in the 
 Baptist church. 
 
 Luther Rice, sailing from Philadelphia, faced 
 the same problem. He applied for member¬ 
 ship in the Baptist church. They were thou¬ 
 sands of miles from home, separated from the 
 churches of which they were members, cut 
 off from the source of supplies, without an or¬ 
 ganization guaranteeing support. Accordingly 
 Rice took ship and returned to America to 
 arouse the Baptist churches and organize “ The 
 General Missionary Convention of the Baptist 
 Denomination in the United States of Amer¬ 
 ica for Foreign Missions,” which is today 
 known as the American Baptist Foreign Mission 
 Society. 
 
 The country of the Indias was under the 
 control of the British East India Company, 
 a corporation organized for .revenue only. 
 They said, “ The Indians have religions enough 
 of their own. They do not need Christianity, 
 and we do not need American missionaries,” 
 
and bade the American missionaries take their 
 return ship for home. Judson and his wife 
 drifted around for many months. Luther 
 Rice returned with the pledged support of the 
 Baptist churches, and the new mission struck 
 root in Rangoon. You cannot teach eight 
 million people English. One man can learn a 
 foreign language. Judson bent his energies 
 to the mastery of the Burmese language. He 
 spent seven years before he baptized the first 
 convert, and translated the Burmese Bible, 
 so that he could teach it to the people. It 
 took long years to drive a tunnel through the 
 Hoosac Mountains. It took seven years to 
 tunnel the Burmese language, but once the 
 work is done, a precious freight of truth can 
 be shipped through. 
 
 War sprang up between Burma and England. 
 The Burmese king could not distinguish be¬ 
 tween the Americans and the English. They 
 were of the same color, spoke the same lan¬ 
 guage, worshiped the same God. The Ameri¬ 
 can missionary drew his money from the Eng¬ 
 lish bank. The king reasoned that he was an 
 English spy. He was seized and cast into prison. 
 For nine months he wore three pairs of fetters. 
 It might be well for men who believe in the 
 dignity of human nature and the divinity of 
 
 12 
 
man, to take a course in a heathen prison 
 where human nature, untouched by the light 
 of revelation, expresses itself in terms of prison 
 life. American prisons feed the prisoners. 
 Heathen prisons do not. If a man is poor, he 
 may starve. If he has rich friends, they may 
 buy the privilege of feeding him. Heathen 
 prisons are unspeakably filthy. Heathenism 
 knows not the alphabet of sanitation. The 
 prison keepers are unspeakably cruel. Jud- 
 son was as dainty as a woman in the care of 
 his person. He was thrown into a prison whose 
 floors were covered with filth, a fellow prisoner 
 with groups of Burmese heathen whose minds 
 were as filthy as the soil they trod on. Some 
 one had given the king of Burma a lion. When 
 he learned that the English had a lion on their 
 flag, he had the lion moved to the prison and 
 starved, surrounded by the prisoners. 
 
 Mrs. Judson begged the use of the empty 
 cage for her husband’s room. The noble 
 woman visited him day after day and week 
 after week, bringing him clean clothes and 
 needed food. She was absent from the prison 
 some weeks and returned bearing a babe in 
 her arms. 
 
 As the English soldiers pressed more and 
 more closely on Ava, the capital, the king moved 
 
 13 
 
the prisoners from Ava to Aungbinle. Judson 
 wrote the story of the travel in blood on the 
 white manuscript of the Burmese road. The 
 servant of a fellow prisoner tore his turban 
 from his head and gave half to his master and 
 half to Judson and bandaged their feet. Reach¬ 
 ing Aungbinle, they were thrown into a more 
 cruel prison and five pairs of fetters put on the 
 missionary’s ankles, a long rod thrust between 
 the manacled legs, and he was suspended for 
 hours until his shoulders only touched the soil. 
 His wife followed him and ministered to him. 
 Her sufferings had dried the springs of food, 
 and the missionary, with manacled ankles, 
 carried the starving child from Burmese woman 
 to Burmese woman begging her to feed and 
 thus save the life of his babe. 
 
 The English were successful, conquered the 
 Burmese king and made it a condition of peace 
 that all prisoners should be released, and Jud¬ 
 son became the translator of the new treaty. 
 The government offered him $3,000 a year 
 to serve as an English officer. He refused the 
 offer and returned to his missionary work. His 
 wife’s health failed. She died and he buried 
 the body under a hopia tree. The babe soon 
 followed the mother and the body was buried 
 beside her. He returned to his work of trans- 
 
 14 
 
lation and teaching, living in an attic over the 
 recitation room. 
 
 Some years later, he married the widow of 
 George Dana Boardman. The work was car¬ 
 ried on for many years. Her health failing, he 
 started for America with his wife and growing 
 family. She died on the journey and was buried 
 at St. Helena. He resumed his voyage with 
 his children and reached home at the end of 
 thirty-two years’ absence, a broken man, his 
 voice a whisper. But the Christians of America 
 greeted him as the tide answers to the call of 
 the moon. He went from church to church, 
 missions his message. Dr. Wayland and Dr. 
 Kendrick stood by his side and repeated the 
 message. 
 
 a 
 
 After recovering his health and strength, 
 he married Miss Emily Chubbuck, June 2, 
 1846, and started for his field. One hundred 
 and thirty-nine days from Boston, he sighted 
 the mountains of Burma again. After eighteen 
 months he took up the task to which he had 
 dedicated his life. The work at Moulmein wel¬ 
 comed him, but he longed for Rangoon. Within 
 a year they sailed for and settled in Rangoon, 
 leaving their treasures in the house in Moul¬ 
 mein. Fire destroyed the house and contents. 
 
 15 
 
He wrote to a fellow missionary, “ The Lord 
 gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed 
 be the name of the Lord.” The new Burman 
 king was a bigoted Buddhist and blocked the 
 work in every possible way. The English flag 
 no longer protected them. Mission work was 
 carried on in secret. Mr. Judson toiled on 
 with his dictionary and met a few converts and 
 inquirers in secret. Ten Burmans, one Karen, 
 and two Americans gathered at the Lord’s 
 Supper. Eleven disciples and four inquirers 
 met him in secret. In 1813 he entered Ran¬ 
 goon and in 1847 he re-entered Rangoon and 
 taught eleven disciples. His great work was 
 translation and making the dictionary. Hunted 
 like a wild beast, watched by the government, 
 plotted against by Catholic priests, he was at 
 last driven back to Moulmein. He toiled like 
 a galley slave at his task of translation. No¬ 
 vember, 1849, he caught a severe cold, followed 
 by dysentery and a congestive fever. A sea 
 voyage was the last resort. Within a week 
 of the time he bade his wife farewell he died 
 after intense agony and his body was com¬ 
 mitted to the deep. Three weeks after the part¬ 
 ing the second child was born; the day of his 
 birth was the day of his father’s death. Ten days 
 after the burial of the father the son sought 
 him in the land of life. 
 
 16 
 
Four choices were possible for Adoniram Jud- 
 son. He might have remained an infidel, lived 
 and died a strolling actor. When the last cur¬ 
 tain fell and the lights were cut off, no one 
 would have honored him. He might have re¬ 
 turned to Providence College, become a tutor, 
 a professor, or possibly, with his splendid 
 powers, the president of the college. He might 
 have spent his years setting the veneer of 
 culture on the coarser grain of student life. 
 His life work ended, death would have been 
 followed by a quiet funeral, a white slab, and 
 forgetfulness. He might have become asso¬ 
 ciate pastor of the leading church of Boston 
 and, in time, full pastor. He might have given 
 his years to the local church, doing a needed 
 but a narrow work. At the end of life he would 
 have been buried on the edge of Boston, with 
 a polished shaft, a month of memory, and 
 forgetfulness. He stood on the firing line for 
 thirty-two years. He has become a world 
 power. The eyes of Christendom are turned 
 toward the restless sea that covers the quiet 
 body, and the heart of Christendom honors 
 the man who counted not his life dear to him¬ 
 self but gave his powers to his King. The 
 sea has his body in trust. Christ has his spirit. 
 We have the inspiration of his life. Another 
 generation in Burma waits for the gospel; 
 
 17 
 
another generation in America is responsible 
 for giving the gospel. We can trust the sea 
 to guard her treasure, we can trust the Christ 
 to guard his spirit; can the Christ trust us to 
 do our duty as Judson did his and honor his 
 memory by carrying on his work and doing 
 Christ’s will? 
 
 ' of the ... 
 
 Baptist General Convention 
 < in the .United Stales, to the 
 ' BORMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 . She wis Bora at.Bradford, : 
 in the State of 
 
 Massachusetts North America.: ' 
 
 ■ V, 'Dec, 22,1789. 
 Shiiarrived Kith her husband 
 ' Rangoon,in July, 1613:. ■ 
 And there Commenced those 
 MISSIONARY TOILS 
 which she sustained with such i 
 , -Christian Fortitude,Decision 
 a nd Persey eranc e, a mid scene s 
 yf :%yil C'umMotiuu 'ah^piSrsonal 
 Affliction,as won for her 
 Universal Bespect and Affection. 
 - ,‘Sne!Died at Amherst,Oct.24. 
 
 18 
 
The illustration on the opposite page 
 shows the new monument to be placed 
 at the grave of Ann Hasseltine Judson. 
 It was recently sent to Burma and will 
 replace the older stone now worn and 
 crumbled by the action of eighty-four 
 years of weather. 
 
 19 
 
Zf'OR additional literature or any other 
 ^ information regarding the work of 
 the American Baptist Foreign Mission 
 Society, write to any of the following: — 
 
 1. The nearest District Secretary. 
 
 2. Department of Missionary Edu¬ 
 cation, 23 East 26th Street, New York 
 City. 
 
 j. Literature Department, Box 41, 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 1054-5-20-14-10M 
 
 20