The population at Maulmain was now increasing, and that at Amherst diminishing so rapidly, that Mr. Judson and Mr. and Mrs. Wade thought best to remove from the latter station to the former, and arrived at Maulmain in October.  Two houses of public worship were erected during the year, where Messrs. Judson and Wade were daily employed in proclaiming religious truth, and such was their success, that within a few months they admitted to the church several native members.  As many native converts with their families had removed with the Missionaries from Amherst to Maulmain, Mrs. Wade and Mrs. Boardman united their schools into one, which was attended with the most gratifying success.  Moung Shwa-ba and Moung Ing, who have often been mentioned in the former memoir, read the Scriptures and other religious books to all who would hear, at a sort of reading zayat, built for the purpose.

In March, 1828, our friends were delivered from a danger not unknown in our own country.  One evening, they were startled by a roaring like that of flame, and on going to the door, discovered the whole jungle to the eastward of them enveloped in sheets of flame, which was rapidly approaching their frail cottage.  Seeing no hope that their house could escape, they rapidly collected a few valuables, and with their infant prepared to flee towards the river, though in much terror lest their path should be beset by leopards, tigers, and other animals, driven from their haunts by the fire.  But when within a few feet of the houses, the flames were arrested by a sudden change of the wind, and the dwellings were unhurt.  “Thus again are we preserved,” says Mr. B. “when no human arm could have saved us!” Truly,

    “The hosts of God encamp around
    The dwellings of the just.”

Truly “the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly.”

CHAPTER VI.

REMOVAL TO TAVOY.—­IDOLATRY OF THE PEOPLE.—­LETTER FROM MRS. B.—­BAPTISM OF A KAREN DISCIPLE.—­SOME ACCOUNT OF THE KARENS.

The permanent collection of so many Missionaries at a single station was not approved by the Board, nor was it deemed desirable by the Missionaries themselves.  In accordance, therefore, with instructions received from America, it was decided that Mr. and Mrs. Boardman should remove to Tavoy.  This city is situated on the river Tavoy, 150 miles south of Maulmain, and had at that time a population of 6000 Burmans and 3000 foreigners.

The city was the stronghold of the religion of Gaudama, and the residence of two hundred priests.

On every eligible point stood an emblem or image of idolatry.  Tall pagodas crowned every eminence, and humbler ones clustered around them, while thickly set groves of banyan and other sacred trees, sheltered shrines and images of Gaudama, and on festival days were crowded with devotees, kneeling in the gloomy pathways, or festooning the sacred trees with the rarest flowers.  The tops of some of the thousand pagodas in the city, are hung with innumerable little bells, which, moved by the wind, chime sweetly their calls to devotion, reminding one of a passage in Moore’s description of an eastern city: