From her voyage across the ocean she suffered less than was apprehended, and for a time she found the climate of India rather congenial than otherwise to her constitution.  Her short residence at Rangoon, whither her husband removed with his family soon after reaching Burmah, was indeed a period of great suffering, and would have given a shock to a much hardier constitution.  Her narrative of their sufferings there, contained in the life of her husband, by Dr. Wayland, excites our wonder that she survived them.  But after their removal to Maulmain, she was restored to comparative health.

A letter from her husband, written in the latter part of 1848, when her little Emily Frances, her “bird,” was one year old, gives a glowing picture of their happiness and their labors.  He playfully says:  “Even ‘the young romance writer’ had made a little book, (Scripture questions,) and she manages to conduct a Bible class, and native female prayer-meetings, so that I hope she will yet come to some good.”

But a letter written to Miss Anable, Philadelphia, in the spring of 1849, is in a different strain:  “A dark cloud is gathering round me.  A crushing weight is upon me.  I cannot resist the dreadful conviction that dear Emily is in a settled and rapid decline.”  After speaking of the many means he had unsuccessfully employed for her restoration, he says “The symptoms are such that I have scarcely any hope left. * * * If a change to any place promised the least relief, I would go anywhere.  But we are here in the healthiest part of India, in the dry, warm season, and she suffers so much at sea that a voyage could hardly be recommended for itself.  My only hope is, the doctor declares her lungs are not seriously affected. * * * When at Tavoy, she made up her mind that she must die soon, and that is now her prevailing expectation; but she contemplates the event with composure and resignation. * * * Though she feels that in her circumstances, prolonged life is exceedingly desirable, she is quite willing to leave all at the Savior’s call.  Praise be to God for his love to her.”  Some days later he adds:  “Emily is better. * * * But though the deadly-pressure is removed from my heart, I do not venture to indulge any sanguine hopes after what I have seen. * * * Do remember us in your prayers.”

The doctor’s predictions proved correct; Mrs. Judson partially recovered from this attack, although in August her husband writes:  “Emily’s health is very delicate—­her hold on life very precarious.”

Alas! his own hold on life was more precarious still.  In the following spring, the heart that had beat for her so fondly and truly was consigned to its “unquiet sepulchre;” “the blue waves which visit every coast” his only and “fitting monument;” while the object of his tender solicitude was compelled to endure four months the agony of suspense as to his fate, terminated by the sad certainty of his death.[12]