by Gregory A. Smith
Editor’s Note: 2012 marks the 200th anniversary of Adoniram Judson’s inaugural missionary journey, first to India and later Burma (modern Myanmar). To commemorate that event, the Tribune is republishing a biographical article about Judson (May 1998, Tribune) and an article about Ann Hazeltine Judson, whom Adoniram married in 1812 (April 2008, Tribune).
We must understand, of course, that Judson’s missionary career was the product of several earlier events as the other Tribune articles will show. In the summer of 1806, a group of students from Williams College planned to meet and pray about the subject of foreign missions in a grove of trees in Sloan’s Meadow near Williamstown, MA. During the meeting, a thunderstorm caught the five young men and they sought shelter in a haystack. The event was known thereafter as the Haystack Prayer Meeting, and historians speak of it as the beginning of American-based foreign missionary work. These students formed a group called “The Brethren,” and they began to spread their missionary zeal on other campuses. Four of the original Haystack participants — Samuel Mills, James Richards, Luther Rice, and Gordon Hall — visited Andover where Adoniram Judson was a theology student. As they told the story of their commitment, Judson, already moved to compassion on those without Christ overseas, heard them and responded. In 1810, he helped found the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and two years later he was among the first American missionaries sent by the new board.
ADONIRAM JUDSON (1788-1850) was a pioneer American missionary to Burma. His surrender to missionary service in 1810 started a chain of events that led to making the United States “the dominant world force in missions” a century later.1 His influence among Baptists has been summarized as follows: “Having sustained such hardship and loss in pursuit of his calling, Judson became an inspiring example of missionary sacrifice and dedication for several generations of young people.”2 His legacy of faithful service and commitment to spiritual values merits our attention on the threshold of the third millennium.
Background and conversion
Adoniram Judson was born in Malden, Massachusetts, on August 9, 1788. He was the oldest child of Adoniram Judson, Sr., a Congregational minister in Malden, and Abigail (Brown) Judson. As might be supposed, young Adoniram was influenced by devout Christians throughout his childhood and adolescence. He did not, however, choose to follow Christ in his early years.
Being a bright young man, he entered Brown University as a sophomore at the age of 16. His skeptical attitude toward the religion of his parents grew during his years at Brown until his graduation as valedictorian in 1807.
Uncertain as to his purpose in life, Adoniram opened a school and taught for a year. By the summer of 1808, he had become weary of pretending to agree with his parents’ belief system. When he made public his revolt against their views, emotional chaos was unleashed in the Judson household. The conflict was enough to drive Adoniram to leave home in search of his destiny.
His destiny would turn out to be much different from what he had imagined. He found little excitement in New York’s theatrical world. He discussed religion with a young minister who, though devout, was less austere than his father. Perhaps most importantly, he was confronted with the reality of death. As the hand of providence would have it, Judson spent the night at a Massachusetts inn across a partition from a dying man. Through the night he tried to convince himself that death meant nothing to a skeptic like himself. In the morning he was startled to learn the identity of the man who had died. It was Jacob Eames, a classmate from Brown who had encouraged him to reject Christianity for deism.
This strange turn of events led Adoniram to enroll as a special student at the Andover Theological Institution in the fall. There, under the influence of godly professors, he turned his life over to Christ within just a few months.3
Surrender to the missionary call
Judson grew quickly in his new faith. He was both an intelligent student and a man of spiritual fervor. Over the course of about a year he encountered several influences that led him to believe he should dedicate his life to foreign missionary service. This was a bold venture since no American church had ever sent a missionary overseas.
When he announced his decision at the seminary, he encountered unexpected support from his peers. In the sovereign design of God, several other students at Andover were contemplating the same calling.
Preparation for missionary service
Following graduation in 1810, Judson and his enthusiastic classmates began to prepare in earnest for foreign service. The budding missionary movement would require planning and organization, as there was no existing infrastructure to support the cause.
The efforts of Judson and his comrades resulted in the founding of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The next two years were a flurry of activity for Judson. He visited the London Missionary Society to discuss the possibility of international cooperation in missions. When this idea was rejected, he returned to New England. Support was quickly raised with the aid of several influential pastors.4 In the month of February, 1812, Adoniram married his first wife, Ann “Nancy” Hasseltine; he was ordained to the Congregational ministry; and he set sail with another missionary couple, Samuel and Harriet Newell.5
A physical journey, a spiritual journey
There was some question as to where the missionaries would actually settle. Their initial destination was India, but there was in Adoniram’s heart a strange allurement to Burma.
During the four-month voyage to India, the Judsons began to study the Baptist position on baptism, anticipating the need to defend the sprinkling of infants in the course of their ministry, particularly when interacting with Baptists. Their honest examination of the Scriptures led them to accept the biblical pattern of believer’s baptism by immersion. Some time after their arrival in Calcutta, they were baptized by British Baptists.6
While their arrival and change of sentiment were well received by the Baptist missionaries in India, they faced immediate political opposition from the British East India Company. This led them to flee India in order to avoid deportment. For several months, they wandered from port to port wondering where God would lead them. When God’s direction was made clear they set sail for Burma and reached its shores in July of 1813.
The Judsons’ decision to adopt Baptist views resulted in the severance of some of their personal associations as well as the erosion of their support base. They were not forsaken, however, for American Baptists accepted them with open arms. By 1814, the Triennial Convention had formed for the purpose of advancing Baptist missions.7
Missionary work in Burma
Upon arriving in Rangoon, the Judsons immediately set out to begin translation work. This was a laborious but essential process. It was complicated at times by Adoniram’s poor health. His efforts resulted ultimately in the printing of a complete Burmese Bible in 1834 and an enlarged English-Burmese dictionary in 1849. These works were part of “the monumental translation and literary work that became Judson’s legacy to the church in Burma.”8
Vast differences in language, culture, and religion separated the missionaries from the Burmese people and made soulwinning a slow process. Nevertheless, the Judsons were faithful and began to see progress in this area after several years.
Tragedy and hardship
Missionary service definitely took its toll on Judson. He was imprisoned for over a year-and-a-half during a war between Burma and England. Disease claimed the lives of Nancy and her two children. Nevertheless, Nancy’s devotion to her Master’s calling was steadfast. In a letter to her parents, she penned the following words: “We will … spend the remainder of our days [in Burma], though deprived of health and strength, in assisting [other missionaries] to acquire the language and encouraging them in their arduous work. No, my dear parents, our hearts are fixed on this mission, and with grace assisting us, we shall relinquish it only with our lives.”9
Adoniram remarried in 1834, taking as his wife the widow of a deceased colleague, Sarah Hall Boardman. Sarah gave birth to several children, three of whom died in infancy. She proved to be as much of a complement to Adoniram as Nancy.10 Sarah’s health declined and she died en route to the United States in 1845.
In 1846, having returned to the United States, Adoniram married a young writer by the name of Emily Chubbuck (also spelled Chubbock). She accompanied him to Burma and assisted him in his ministry until his death in 1850. In 1848 Emily published a memoir of Sarah Judson. Later, she contributed to the preservation of her husband’s memory by assembling materials which Francis Wayland used to write a definitive description of his life.11
Judson’s accomplishments
Judson’s labors were not in vain. “The concrete results of his work were … impressive, as he left a flourishing church of 7,000 members and more than 100 national ministers among both the Burmese and the tribal peoples of the country — a church that has continued in unbroken succession since his death.”12 He served as an example to his own generation and to generations to come.
Lessons to be learned from Judson
There are many important lessons to be learned from Judson’s life. First, he recognized the value of education for ministry. He excelled while pursuing college and seminary degrees. He must have realized that a sound mind is a powerful thing when it is surrendered to the Lord’s use. Likewise, we should value proper academic preparation for ministry.
Second, Judson was a man of intellectual and spiritual integrity. Indeed, his whole life exemplified this virtue. His integrity was perhaps best demonstrated when, compelled by scriptural evidence and the direction of the Holy Spirit, he risked his reputation and financial security by severing his ties with Congregationalism. We need men and women of his caliber today!
Third, Judson’s life demonstrated that unity among believers is strongest when they share a common cause. American Baptists were arguably never more united than in 1814, when they banded together on a national level to support missions through the Triennial Convention. We need to recognize that our shared interest in fulfilling the Great Commission should be a source of cohesion rather than division.
Fourth, Judson practiced sound principles of missionary work. He recognized that mastery of the Burmese language was essential to cross-cultural communication. He understood that the success of his work would depend on the availability of the Scriptures in the language of the people. Accordingly, he devoted 20 years of his ministry to translation. He also recorded linguistic notes for the benefit of missionaries who would follow in his footsteps. Finally, he realized that the continuation of the Lord’s work could only be ensured through the training of national leadership and the planting of churches.
Perhaps the greatest lesson Judson modeled was that of self-sacrifice and determination to serve God. The depth of his commitment is illustrated in a letter he wrote to Luther Rice in 1816: “[This] is a most filthy, wretched place. Missionaries must not calculate on the least comfort, but what they find in one another and their work. However, if a ship was lying in the river, ready to convey me to any part of the world I should choose, and that too with the entire approbation of all my Christian friends, I would prefer dying to embarking.”13
ENDNOTES
1 Harvie M. Conn, “Missions, Evangelical Foreign,” in Dictionary of Christianity in America, ed. Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1990), 750.
2 Everett A. Wilson, “Judson, Adoniram (1788-1850),” in Dictionary of Baptists in America, ed. Bill J. Leonard (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 159.
3 Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972), 36-50.
4 Anderson., 115.
5 William H. Allison, “Judson, Adoniram,” in Dictionary of American Biography, ed. Dumas Malone (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961), 5:234.
6Anderson, 127-29, 143-46.
7“Judson, Adoniram, D.D.,” in The Baptist Encyclopaedia, ed. William Cathcart (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1880), 626.
8 Wilson, 158.
9 Nancy Judson, Letter to her parents, 18 July, 1816, The American Baptist Magazine, and Missionary Intelligencer, n.s., 1 (Nov. 1817): 222.
10 Allison, 235.
11 Paul Clasper, “Judson, Emily Chubbock,” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 346.
12 Wilson, 159.
13 Adoniram Judson, “Letter to Luther Rice,” 3 Aug. 1816, The American Baptist Magazine, and Missionary Intelligencer, n.s., 1 (Sept. 1817): 184.