Recollections of a Long Life eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 292 pages of information about Recollections of a Long Life.

Recollections of a Long Life eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 292 pages of information about Recollections of a Long Life.
harvest.  The colossal work of his life in Burmah was the translation of the Holy Scriptures into the Burmese language.  To this work, which is likely to endure, he added a Burmese-English dictionary.  At length the toils and exposures broke down his health and he was obliged to take several voyages in adjoining waters.  Soon after I saw him he married Miss Chubbuck and returned to Burmah in the following year.  The old conflict between the holy and heroic heart and failing body was soon renewed.  He resorted once more to the sea for relief, but died during the passage, on April 12, 1850.  When crossing the Atlantic in the summer of 1885 I spent much of the time with that noble minister, Rev. Edward Judson, of New York.  A funeral at sea occurred, and as the remains were disappearing in the water Mr. Judson said to me, with solemn tenderness:  “Just so my beloved father was committed to the deep:  his sepulchre is this great, wide ocean,” That ocean is a type of his world-wide influence.  Not only in the priority of time as a fearless pioneer into unknown dangers, but in profound and patient scholarship, and in the beauty of a holy and lovable personality, Adoniram Judson still hold the primacy among our American missionary heroes.

The progress which has been made in Christianizing heathendom during the last century (which may well be called the century of foreign missions) is familiar to every person of intelligence.  The number of converts to Christianity is at least two millions, and several millions more have felt the influence of Christian civilization.  The great mass have not been suddenly revolutionized, as in Luther’s time, but one by one individual hearts yield to the gospel in nearly every land.  As a serious offset to these glorious results the commerce of nominally Christian nations is often poisonous.  Britain carries opium into China and India; America and other civilized nations carry rum into Africa.  The word of life goes in the cabin, and the worm of death goes in the hold of the same vessel!  The sailors that have gone from nominally Christian countries to various ports have often been very far from acting as gospel missionaries.  It is not only for their own welfare, but that they may become representatives of Christianity that the noble “American Seamen’s Friend Society” has been organized.  The work which that society has wrought under the vigorous leadership of Dr. Stitt entitles it to the generous support of all our churches.  If toiling “Jack” braves the tempest to bring us wealth from all climes, we owe it to him to provide him the anchor of the gospel, and to save him from spiritual shipwreck.

To no other benevolent society have I more cheerfully given service of tongue and pen than to this one.  An honest view of the foreign mission enterprises to-day reveals the laying of broad foundations, and the building of solid walls, rather than any completed achievements already wrought.  Blood tells, and God has entrusted his gospel to the Anglo-Saxons and the other most powerful races on the globe.  The religion of the Bible is the only religion adapted to universal humanity, and in the Bible is a definite pledge that to all humanity that religion shall yet be preached.

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Recollections of a Long Life from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.