women, and children, who were so eager to hear, that
the ruler gave them permission to tear off the front of
the house. As the missionary stopped a moment in
his remarks, we could not but call to mind God's mercy
to Burmah. How changed the scenes ! "

At Maulmain, one summer, the various missionaries
assembled from all parts of Burmah ; and, following up
the views of Judson, they recorded their convictions
thus : " There can be little doubt as to the best mode
of preaching, after a careful examination of the Acts of
the Apostles. The burden of all preaching should be
the way of life through Christ Jesus, as this is the in-
strumentality appointed by Infinite Wisdom for evan-
gelising the world. The language of Paul to believers
in Corinth was, ' I came not with excellency of speech
or of wisdom; my preaching was not with enticing



HOW TO PREACH. 379

words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the
Spirit, and of power/ There was an appeal to the
heart, rather than to the intellect ; to the moral, rather
than to the mental. Paul and his fellow-labourers ad-
dressed themselves to men as poor, and wretched, and
lost, and, telling them how they might be saved,
sought to win their hearts, and, through their hearts,
gained their understandings also. It is our deliberate
conviction, that any other mode of preaching will fail
in winning men to Christ. Other methods may shake
their confidence in heathenism may enlighten their
minds, and there may be so much of clear demon-
stration, that they will accept as true the great doctrine
that there is one living and eternal God. But what
have we gained ? A battle has been fought, and there
is a triumph! but where are the captives ?" These
men, in the presence of such results, were entitled to
speak with authority. " The report," was the lan-
guage of the Church at home, "furnishes the most
gratifying evidence of the enlightened, progressive, and
scriptural piety of the converts, as seen in the fortitude
and firmness with which they have endured trials and
sufferings, and in the zeal and self-denial which they
have manifested for the salvation of their benighted
countrymen. These facts furnish, also, the most
triumphant proof, not only of the power of the gospel
of Christ, but also of the efficiency of the labourers en-
gaged in these missions, and of the wise and judicious
adaptation of the means and instrumentalities employed
in the prosecution of their missionary work."



380 A NATIVE APOSTLE.

Time was now testing the results. One of Jud-
son's earliest converts, Ko-thah-a, is described by a
visitor thus : " He is a venerable old man of eighty.
I have met him repeatedly, and always I have been
constrained almost involuntarily to rise up before him
so apostolic is his bearing and with unaffected
sincerity to do him reverence. He is a good man, full
of faith and of the Holy Ghost. He is too advanced
to lead public worship; but he can counsel, and he
knows both how to live a holy example and how to
pray. At the late ordination of two Karen pastors, he
offered the ordaining prayer ; and it is not difficult to
call up the impressiveness of the occasion, as he laid
his hands and commended them to the one God the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He told me, at
our first interview, that he had been a preacher of Jesus
Christ more than thirty years. During all this period,
he had resided at Rangoon. 'The teachers have come
and gone/ said he ; ' I have always remained here.
When the teachers left Rangoon, the rulers seized me;
they commanded me not to preach. They said, 'Do
you intend to preach Jesus Christ ? ' I said to the
rulers, f I shall preach ; Jesus Christ is the true God/
He did preach, and was cast into prison, and fined one
hundred rupees. Twice he was placed in the stocks,
once with his head downward. But his faith has not
failed. He has baptized at Rangoon more than two
hundred believers, including about eighty Karens. Ko-
thah-a, though making many rich, is exceedingly poor.
His former dwelling was destroyed during the late war.



A VILLAGE SCENE. 381

His present residence is scarcely a coop to creep under.
He says, ' It is enough for me ; the teachers have given
me a support. I do not ask more for myself. The
love of money' this he repeated with emphatic ear-
nestness 'is the root of all evil. But I have been
pastor of the church. Inquirers come to see me. I
have no house to receive them to. I have not enough
to give them food/ I need not say/' the visitor adds,
" that provision will be made for him. A zayat will
be fitted up, with a room annexed; and inquirers may
continue to come and sit at his feet."

In a beautiful village, adorned with fragrant groves,
and the houses clean and tidy, the missionary met, one
day, an old man, with silvery locks and tottering form,
who had read some of the Christian books. "Will
you not remain and instruct us?" said he, with tre-
mulous emotion ; " we are like children who have only
learned their A B C." " No, I must go back," was
the reply ; " but we will send you some teachers ; "
and the venerable man wept for joy. Scarcely had
they parted, however, when, suddenly turning back,
he enquired, with the most searching look, "But has
my wife, who never heard of this God, gone down to
the abodes of misery ?" "I felt sad," the missionary
writes, " for the old man, and tried to explain to him
the wisdom and justice of God, and His love to poor
sinful man. We hope he may yet sing God's love and
mercy." As the visitors wandered through the groves,
and saw the smiling faces of the people, and heard the
joyous peals of laughter from the urchins on the water,



382 FRESH TOKENS OF BLESSING.

the thought of happiness darted on them; but the
next turn in the road presented idols of brick and
stone, and crowds of darkened devotees. " What,"
they enquired of one of them, as he bowed before his
god, "is your hope beyond the grave?" "It is all
dark," he replied, with a look of blank sorrow. Two
days afterwards, as the worshippers were assembled at
Rangoon, the head-man of the village appeared with a
large following of the villagers. And, a week or two
later, the priest came in his yellow robes, and openly
renounced idolatry ; and, the week following, he was
baptized.

Month by month, and on all sides, fresh tokens of
God's presence were seen. " Everything in the jungles,"
writes a missionary, last year, " is in a most interesting
state ; the spirit of investigation is wonderful. Large
companies visit us, saying they intend to worship
the living God. Last Sabbath, a most interesting
man was baptized. He has kept the Lord's day
holy for one year, and seems to be strong in the
Lord. His deep devotion, as he rose from being
baptized, brought tears to many eyes. He raised his
hands according to the Burman custom looked into
the heavens and blessed God for the joys of salva-
tion. The Dagon-pagoda reared its gilded form not
far from us ; and it was beautiful to see that man turn
his back upon these false gods, and avow allegiance
to the God who is not made with hands." And, six
months later, the same visitor writes : " We went
to a town where they had built a chapel for us.



A BEWITCHING. 383

Here we Lad seven Christians, two of them con-
verted through the travels of native preachers. No
missionaiy had ever visited the place ; and, when we
arrived, we found all in readiness for us, and the
chapel completely crammed, Some fifty persons re-
mained all day, save when they went for rice; and
they did not separate till three o'clock in the night.
" How must we pray ? " they enquired eagerly. It
was a melting sight to see these high men bowing
themselves while we taught them to say, ' Lord, teach
us thy way ; forgive our many sins, and save us, for
Christ's sake !' One fine woman came every day to
see us, and never failed to ask us how she must pray.
The last time she came, she said ' I have lost all
confidence in idols and pagodas; and I do feel that
I love the eternal God.' Her husband heard that she
was renouncing idolatry, and came just then, and said
she had friends at the house; and she was called away.
As she went, she said, ' My husband is very angry. I
have no friends at the house.' He told the people that
I had bewitched his wife, and that he feared he might be
the same. Poor man ! he did not know that the spirit
was God's Spirit working in her heart. One evening,
as we were leaving, we saw him at his door, talking
with her. He passed into the house ; she pointed to
heaven ; and, in a moment, both had disappeared."

Setting out, one day, for a town at some distance,
their approach was no sooner known, than some twenty
men started to cut a road for their elephants, the
bamboo-scrub being quite impassable. They met;



384 A FAMILY SCENE IN THE JUNGLE.

and, after joyful salutations, they convoyed them to-
wards their homes. The road was so difficult, and the
mountain so steep, that places for the elephants to step
in had sometimes to be dug in their sides ; whilst, at
other points, the gorges were so narrow that the
animals could scarcely turn aside and pick a practicable
track among the rocks. On the evening of the second
day, they alighted at the door of a convert, who received
them to his hospitable board. After the repast, the
missionary announced prayers; and instantly their
host's only daughter a comely girl of sixteen
brought forward a New Testament and a Hymn-book,
joining most sweetly in the praises of God. " Fancy,"
he writes, " my emotions ! Three years ago, not a
soul in these jungles had heard of the Saviour. Now
the first house I am led to enter is furnished with
a family Bible and a hymn-book, whose owners prize
them as a precious treasure, just as the old Covenanters
did. Surely it is the Lord's doing, and is wonderful
in our eyes."

Another evening found him in a Christian village
perched on a little table-land, in the midst of scenery
grand beyond description. Pile above pile of mag-
nificent mountains rose before the eye; but a feature
more attractive to him was three other Christian
villages visible on these heights. " From one," he
writes, " where I observed the smoke curling in a little
nook, we could not be distant more than four or five
miles in a direct line ; yet I was told it would be as
much as my elephants could do to reach it by tra-



"A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY." 385

veiling all day. On the mountain-range where I stood
are six Christian villages ; and on the range to the
north are no less than fifteen. When I look around,
I find myself in a Christian country, raised up, as if by
magic, from the darkness of heathenism, in three brief
years."

A day or two later, after preaching in another village,
a chief came to him enquiring how many nights he had
slept at Leukla. " Two," was the reply. " Then you
must sleep at least two in my village. I spent a
Sunday in your house at Tounghoo, and there first
heard the gospel from your lips." " But I have dis-
missed my elephants, and I am not able to walk so
far." " We do not want you to walk," said he, with
earnestness ; " we will carry you and all your things,
if you only say you will go." The missionaiy assented ;
and instantly the chief, turning to a man at his elbow,
said, " Make a dooly for the teacher, and bring twenty
men to carry his things ! " In a few hours, he was
on his way across the hills, borne on a couch of
bamboo, on the shoulders of four men, who, relieved
at intervals by other four, trotted along till they
reached the summit of a mountain -spur, on which
stood the hamlet of the chief, and from which was
visible a whole line of villages, where now shone the
lamp of life. One evening, by the wayside, he came
upon a little boy poring over an old smoked catechism,
which, for preservation, he had sewed betwixt two
bits of old Burmese pasteboard, on a kind of spring-
back of a bamboo splint. The youth, not a dozen

c c



336 A BUllMAN MARTYR.

years of age, welcomed the teacher as an angel of
God.

The church of Burrnah has been baptized in
martyr-blood. One day, a native pastor, near Bassein,
was seized, with forty of his people ; and, after being
hooked together with iron hooks, and receiving thirty
lashes, they were hurried off to prison. The next day,
certain old men of their number were liberated, on
condition of paying one hundred and thirty rupees :
the money was paid, but the Burman magistrate put
them again in irons. A day or two afterwards, the
preacher was dragged forth beaten twice pressed
between bamboos then tied by the neck to a mango-
tree, and his hands roped behind to the trunk. " My
lord, my lord," cried the pastor, gently, "do you kill
me?" "Give me/' said the magistrate, "a hundred
and seventy rupees, and you shall be freed." " I have
no silver, my lord." " Give his ransom," resumed the
officer, turning to some converts who were looking on,
" and take your leader. If not, we will slaughter him."
The money was given j but, instead of being set at
liberty, the pastor was led back to prison. A day or two
passed : and the judge appeared at the gaol, and, hauling
him out, said revilingly, " If your God is Almighty, bid
Him take you out of these hooks." The confessor
replied, in a firm tone, "If the eternal God does not
now save me from your hands, He will save me eter-
nally in the world to come." " How do you know
that?" "God's holy book tells me so; and it is
true." Thereupon the magistrate, in a burning rage,



FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH. 387

beat him severely hooked him with five pairs of hooks
and ordered him once more to his cell. Three days
later, he had him dragged out again; and, awed ap-
parently by the prisoner's calm mien, he said "Your
God, you tell me, can save you. Read His book before
me now." "Though I read," replied the preacher,
" you will not believe, but persecute me still. But the
eternal God my Judge and your Judge the Lord
Jesus Christ He will save me." "Command Him,
then, to save you from my hands now."

Another official stepped in the chief judge ; and,
with a cudgel as thick as his wrist, he administered
thirty blows, and had the pastor back to prison. " Kill
these men," said the magistrate, a day or two afterwards,
to the judge ; " and I will give you a viss of silver." " I
dare not kill them," he replied ; but he took the money.
Another day or two elapsed ; and the magistrate was
again with the judge, offering a further bribe of fifty
rupees. The latter looked dissatisfied ; but, at last, with
an inviting smile, he said "If you will marry your
daughter to my son, I will kill them." "Brother,"
answered the magistrate, " I will marry them." The
judge once again had the holy man dragged from prison.
He began with three fearful scourgings. " If, because
I worship God, you torture me," said the martyr, " kill
me at once, I entreat you." The judge beckoned to
the officers to do their office. They took him struck
him sixty times then fastened him to a cross shot
him disembowelled him and cut him in three



388 A STEANGE SCENE.

pieces. It was another Stephen, passing in a chariot
of fire upward into the presence of the Lord.

But the church " lives by all these deaths." The
Burman king now welcomed to his territory the servants
of Jesus Christ. And so mightily does the Word of
God prevail, that, in two provinces alone Tenasserim
and Pegu, the number of hopeful converts has risen to
eleven thousand, nine hundred, and sixty-six, with a
nominally Christian population of at least one hundred
thousand !

One morning, some months ago,* there assembled,
on the crest of a hill in the province of Tounghoo, a com-
pany of two thousand converts, representatives of forty-
five stations, robed in all possible variety of costume,
from the silks of the pure Burmese, to the padded
jackets of the Shans and the red-striped tunics of the
Bghais ; whilst, on the distant margin of the congre-
gation, might be seen sundry groups from the remoter
mountains, listening as they leaned on their spears.
Ninety-five preachers were there ; all of them, with the
exception of about ten, natives of the province, and
converted within the last three years. Not content
with their home-efforts, they longed to evangelise the
other wild tribes in the regions beyond ; and they were
now assembled to pray and to concert a plan. " When
we travel among the heathen," said one of them,
stimulating his brethren to fresh effort, "we are some-
times starved, sometimes sick, sometimes houseless by

* February, 1857.



ANOTHER CONFESSOR. 389

night. Then our hearts are troubled. Why is it so ?
Brethren, it is because we have little love. We ought
to think of the Lord Jesus, who was full of love. He
ruled over all things ; and it was proper for Him to
exalt Himself above all : yet He did no such thing.
How did He exhibit His love ? Oh ! now He hungered
for forty days ; now He suifered till He sweat great
drops of blood; and then He died; and for us all
for us ! Oh ! what love was that of our Lord ! Bre-
thren, we ought to think of these things more, and to
arm ourselves by prayer, and to work. We must go
among the heathen and labour; and then we must
pray, as the disciples did on the day of Pentecost, until
the- Spirit be poured out and all these nations become
Christians."

And another native preacher, that day, told how,
when scourged by the Burmans, he had felt courageous
and happy in God. " When I was tied up," were his
words, " and they were about to beat me, they said,
'Assemble the people together no more. Do what
you do in your own house alone : if we find you going
about again as we have done, we will kill you/ After
I was liberated, San Shai Kyan wrote me, ' Brother,
I have heard of thy suffe rings, and that our Lord Jesus
Christ revealed His power in thee. Because thou didst
suffer for the sake of Christ, I prayed for thee to God
incessantly ; and, when I heard that thou didst pub-
licly make known the things which pertain to our
Lord, I rejoiced greatly.' Subsequently," he continued,
" my mother heard that the Burmans were coining to



390 INDIA'S HOPE.

seize me again ; and she was very sorrowful. She said
to me ' Son, do run away. Stay here no longer/ I
replied ' We suffer on account of our sins. I will not
go away ; it would not be right. Should I go, why,
only one would be delivered. Trust in God, mother !
and go boldly to Him in prayer. Formerly, we had no
books : now, if I die on account of our books, I can
die happy in the hands of Burmans. Happy also to
live. Let it be according to the will of God. If it
pleases God that I should die, I am ready to die. I
am not a thief. Were I to die on account of some
wicked deed, there would be reason for apprehension ;
but, if I die, I shall die for God, so there is no reason
to fear. And, as our Lord Jesus rose again to life, so
also shall I rise again to life/ Thus I replied to my
mother. These persecutions," he added, with energy,
" do not destroy the faith ; on the contrary, they esta-
blish it. A large number of households have become
believers during the present season/'

Who shall say, in the presence of sucli scenes,
that India is not a field " white unto the harvest ? "
Her recent crimes ' at which Humanity has stood
aghast and grown pale are but the unrestrained
outgoings of a heart which the Burman and the
Hindoo share in common with the refined citizen of
our happy land. And shall we, who know the power
of that Word which is " mighty through God to the
pulling down of Satan's strongholds," falter in our
purpose to hold it forth before this bedarkened race ?



"BEGIN AT JERUSALEM." 391

He who commanded His disciples of old to " begin
at Jerusalem/' commands us now to "begin" with
the Hindoo ; for, if his hand is red with the blood of
England's choicest sons and daughters, was not Jeru-
salem's hand red with the blood of Him who is the
Prince of life ?

One day, Henry Martyn, after a season of secret
fasting and prayer, wrote : " May it be sweet to me
to proclaim to sinners like myself the blessed efficacy
of my Saviour's blood ! " And, another day : " How
happy and honoured am I, in being suffered to be a
missionary ! " Shall not the church arise, like him, and
gird herself, giving the Lord no rest in pleading for
souls, and souls no rest in pleading for the Lord ? The
Acts of the Apostles record scarcely any success more
signal than Judson's and Boardman's in Burmah, or
than Johnson's in Regent's Town. With a like
apostolic faith, why not expect NOW a like apostolic
success ?



THE END.



London : Printed by G. BARCLAY, Castie St. Leicester gq.



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