From Mr. Boardman’s journal we learn that he remained through the summer and part of the autumn at Tavoy, diligently prosecuting his labors among the Burmese, Chinese, Karens, and Europeans, among all which classes he had singular success.  In the meantime Mrs. Boardman continued at Maulmain, part of the time suffering from illness, and when able, assisting the missionaries there, until October, when she returned again to Tavoy.  The animated and even glowing recital, given by Mr. Boardman in his journals and letters of this year, of the spread of gospel truth among the natives; his records of preaching, travelling, teaching and baptisms, would lead one to suppose that he was in the enjoyment of the most vigorous health, and that his frame was insensible to fatigue.  But careless as he was of his own bodily ease, there was an eye that watched him with the intensest solicitude; a heart that was pierced with anxiety, knowing that though “the inner man was renewed day by day,” the outer man was too surely “perishing,” and would soon be laid aside, forever.

On the 29th of July, 1830, Mrs. Boardman writes to her sister from Maulmain, whither they had gone for the benefit of her children’s health:  “We must look beyond this frail fleeting world for our true peace.  Alas, I know by most bitter experience, that it is in vain to seek for true happiness here below.  My fondest earthly hopes have again and again been dashed.  Torn from the bosom of my dear father’s family, my heart was almost broken; and when I stood by the death-bed of my sweet, my lovely Sarah, I felt indeed that earthly hopes and joys are but a dream.  But a darker cloud hangs over me.  Oh what desolation and anguish of spirit do I feel, when I think it is possible that in a few more months, my earthly guide, supporter, and delight, may be no more!...  He has a cough which has been hanging about him a year, and he is very much reduced by it....  Oh my sister, let us see to it that our affections are set on things above.”

Such “desolation and anguish of spirit” as she here describes, had her husband felt for her in the preceding year, when for some months before and after the birth of her second son she lay struggling with a dangerous disease, which he thought would surely terminate her life.  At that time he wrote:  “She still grows weaker, and her case is now more alarming.  Should our friends for whom I have sent to Maulmain come even immediately, I can scarcely hope for their arrival before the crisis, or probably, fatal termination of my dear partner’s disorder.  My comfort in my present affliction is the thought, that if to our former trials, the Lord sees fit to add that of removing my beloved companion, he does it with a perfect knowledge of all the blessedness which death will confer on her, and of all the sorrows and distresses which her loss will occasion her bereaved husband and orphan children, in our present peculiar condition.  It affords me great relief