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THE STORY OF A GREAT MISSIONARY- ADONIRAM JUDSON
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Just as the Judsons sat down to supper on June 8, 1824, the door of the mission house flew open, and a dozen Burmese officials rushed in!
“You are called by the king!” said the officer—the dreaded Burmese words spoken at the arrest of a criminal. Immediately, the Spotted Face seized Adoniram, threw him roughly to the floor, and wrapped a metal chain around his arms so tightly that blood began to flow.
Adoniram was dragged to the dreaded Le May-yoon, or “death prison,” where three pairs of iron fetters were riveted to his ankles. Dirty and bleeding from the fetters, Judson was thrown into a dark prison cell along with one hundred other prisoners. The stench of unwashed bodies, rotting food, and human excrement was unbearable, and Adoniram retched from the smell alone!
“Horror of horrors, what a sight!” Judson wrote later. “Never to my dying day shall I forget the scene: a dim lamp in the midst, just making darkness visible, and discovering to my horrified gaze sixty or seventy wretched objects, some in long rows made fast in the stocks, some strung on long poles, some simply fettered; but all sensible of a new acquisition of misery in the approach of a new prisoner.”
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| Adoniram Judson/Wikipedia commons |
As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw Gouger; Dr. Price; a Scotsman, Captain Laird; and several other white foreigners already fettered in a corner of the room. Prison, deprivation, and the unceasing threat of death would be their companions for the next seventeen months!
“He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life” (John 12:25 KJV). Never had this Scripture seemed more real to Adoniram than now.
Each day, at three o’clock in the afternoon, a powerful gong would resonate through the outside courtyard; the guards would march into the deathly quiet room and approach one or two prisoners. Without a word, the chosen ones would follow the guards out of the room, shuffling in their iron fetters to their executions. Each day, the question hung in the air, which prisoners would be chosen next?Ann visited as many government officials as possible throughout the long months of imprisonment, pleading for Adoniram’s release.
Finally, the governor of Ava agreed to see Ann and expressed some sympathy: “I cannot release them from their fetters or from prison, but I can try to make them more comfortable.” But the weeks wore on and nothing changed. With each visit, Adoniram looked more like the living dead.
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| Judson in prison/Wikipedia commons |
Daily, the prisoners heard the guards sharpening their knives for beheadings or talking of hangings in the courtyard. And, daily, Ann arrived with food, reports from the outside, and encouragement for the desolate men.
One morning, the officials informed Ann, “We will be visiting your house tomorrow.” Ann hurried home to hide valuables before they arrived. “I secreted as many little articles as possible,” she wrote later, “together with considerable silver, as I knew, if the war should go on, we should be in a state of starvation without it.”
Carefully carrying the bag of silver to bury in the backyard, Ann remembered their greatest treasure and ran back into the house. She wrapped Judson’s completed manuscript of the Burmese New Testament in a piece of muslin. Ann would not let ten years of Adoniram’s hard work be destroyed in a moment! She buried the bag and prayed for God’s divine protection over the contents.
At the prison, in hushed whispers, she told her husband what she had done. He praised her ingenuity, but they knew that the manuscript would not survive underground. Digging it up in the dark of night, Ann followed Adoniram’s directions. She sewed the manuscript into an old, hard pillow and brought it to him in the death prison. For the next few months, Adoniram slept each day with his head securely nestled on the Word of God. Keeping Adoniram Alive!
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The next months were a blur of petitions, pleadings, and dashed hopes. Ann’s work to free the prisoners and to provide for their needs was relentless. For a short time, she and Adoniram were permitted to spend a few hours a day together in a small hut in the prison yard—a blessing, since she was eight months pregnant. But then, without warning, the hut was destroyed, and the white foreigners were sent to the dark inner prison. The guards ripped Adoniram’s pillow away with no idea of the treasure it held.
Despite Adoniram’s agony in prison, God was faithful to move on the hearts of Burmese officials to keep him alive! The war had been going badly for the Burmese. Panic reached the city of Ava as the British army approached the capital.
On November 5, 1825, the long-awaited orders finally came. A treaty had been signed! Adoniram was released from prison! The little Judson family, all three of them emaciated and ill from seventeen months of sacrifice, was transported to the capital so Adoniram could translate government documents. Their bodies were nearly depleted of all strength, but their hearts were full of joy!
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Adoniram was still a prisoner of the Burmese government, but he was allowed to go to his house in Ava with Ann and little Maria. There, a miracle was waiting for them! Moung Ing had found Adoniram’s old pillow lying discarded in the prison yard. Carrying it home, Ing was astounded to discover the hidden treasure inside—the Burmese New Testament had been protected from discovery or destruction, purely by the grace of God! Adoniram was moved to tears by God’s goodness in the midst of the cruel persecution they had suffered.
In March 1826, Adoniram was finally released to the English; overcome with joy, he wrote, “It was on a cool, moonlight evening, in the month of March that, with hearts filled with gratitude to God and overflowing with joy at our prospects, we passed down the Irrawaddy, accompanied by all we had on earth. Our feelings continually soared: What shall we render to the Lord for all His benefits toward us?”
After all of this pain and suffering, the Judsons were still serving God and one another; they were a living testimony to the value Christian couples should place on their commitment to God and to each other. Their marriage covenant was consecrated to Him and not prone to the breakups we see so often today due to selfishness on the part of one or both parties.
- God’s Generals' ( The Missionaries )
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| The Judson birthplace/Wikipedia commons |
