Adoniram Judson

The son of a pastor, Adoniram broke his parents’ hearts at age 20 when he told them he no longer believed Christianity. He was led astray from the truth of the Bible by a friend named Jacob Eames.

One evening, Adoniram was spending the night at an inn and could hear a man who was terribly ill. With the sound of every groan and struggled breath, Adoniram feared the thought of death and what came afterwards. The next day, the noise had stilled, and Adoniram asked if the sick man was better. “He is dead,” came the reply. The dead man’s name? “Eames, Jacob Eames.” This startling experience of his friend’s death drew Adoniram on the path back to faith in Jesus and the Bible.

Judson desired to share the gospel with people in faraway lands who had never heard of Jesus. Before he sailed from America, he wrote to the father of Ann Hasseltine, asking for permission to marry her. Knowing he and Ann would face many troubles, he wrote:

I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world? Whether you can consent to her departure to a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life? Whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death? . . .

Adoniram and Ann Judson did suffer much. Their firstborn baby was born dead on the way to Burma in 1813. The government of Burma threatened missionaries with the death penalty. And the Burmese people resisted leaving their religion of Buddhism. Adoniram’s language teacher warned him that the Burmese would rather dwell in hell with their families than go to heaven alone.

Adoniram Judson, portrait by George Peter Alexander Healy, 1846.

Terrible sicknesses like dysentery, malaria, and cholera often endangered the Judsons. Their second child, Roger, died before his second birthday. Other missionaries would come to join them, but many got sick and died. Judson wrote in his “Advice to Missionary Candidates”: “Remember, a large proportion of those who come out on a mission to the East die within five years after leaving their native land. Walk softly, therefore; death is narrowly watching your steps.”

The missionaries did not give up, and they saw God begin to change hearts. The first Burmese man to respond was Maung Nau, a poor man with a teachable heart. In 1819, Maung Nau trusted in the Lord Jesus as his Savior from sin, saying:

I believe that the Divine Son, Jesus Christ, suffered death, in the place of men, to atone for their sins. Like a heavy-laden man, I feel my sins are very many. The punishment of my sins I deserve to suffer. Since it is so, do you, Sirs, consider, that I, taking refuge in the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ . . . shall dwell with yourselves, a band of brothers, in the happiness of heaven . . . .

Slowly, more Burmese turned to Jesus, but then a war between the Burmese and the British broke out. Foreigners like Adoniram were seen as spies. On June 8, 1824, the Spotted Faces burst into Adoniram’s house to arrest him. The Spotted Faces were criminals who had been spared execution to serve as cruel prison guards. To prevent their escape, their faces were tattooed with a large spot on each cheek. The Spotted Faces beat Adoniram to the ground and bound him with tight cords that cut into his skin.

Without a fair trial, Adoniram was pronounced guilty and sent to the Death Prison. At night, the prisoners’ bound feet were hooked to a bamboo pole that was lifted in the air. They hung with only their shoulders and heads touching the filthy floor with the smell of rotting food and human waste and the sound of scurrying rats.

Left alone and expecting their third child, Ann worked desperately for her husband’s release and to bring him food, as none was provided at the prison. One day she brought him a pillow, which was so lumpy and dirty that even the Spotted Faces wouldn’t snatch it. She had carefully sewn inside the pillow Adoniram’s Burmese translation of the New Testament that he had labored over for nine years. In January of 1825, Adoniram received a note through the cell door: “Maria Elizabeth Butterworth Judson born today. Thank God we are both alive. Love Ann.”

After 11 months at the Death Prison, Adoniram and the other foreign prisoners were taken on a march in 100-degree heat to a village prison. To Adoniram’s dismay, he was forced to leave behind the pillow with his New Testament translation. At the village prison, they were once again hung up by a bamboo pole at night, and their shoeless feet, bloodied from the march, were targeted by mosquitoes. After several more months, the king of Burma called for the foreign prisoners to come help translate the terms of Burma’s surrender, and in November 1825, they were set free.

Adoniram’s friend, Maung Ing, brought a special welcome-home gift. When Judson had been taken on march from the Death Prison, Maung Ing had come to look for any memento to remember his friend by, and he found an unwanted old pillow that had been tossed over the prison wall. When Maung Ing brought it home to wash, he felt the lumps and discovered the New Testament translation, which he kept safe for Adoniram.

The difficult days were not behind the Judsons, however. Ann, weakened by the stress of her husband’s imprisonment, died October 24, 1826. Six months to the day after her mother’s death, little Maria also died.

Adoniram fell into a deep sadness. He couldn’t stop questioning his reasons for becoming a missionary—had he just been pridefully seeking the praise of men? He went away to live alone in a jungle hut. He wrote, “My tears flow at the same time over the forsaken grave of my dear love and over the loathsome sepulcher of my own heart.” But God brought him out of this form of suffering also, and Judson returned to translating the Old Testament from the Hebrew into Burmese.

During a festival in 1831, the missionaries gave out almost 10,000 tracts. About 6,000 Burmese people came to the mission house to find out more. Judson reported in his journal:

Some [inquirers] come two or three months’ journey, from the borders of Siam and China—"Sir, we hear that there is an eternal hell. We are afraid of it. Do give us a writing that will tell us how to escape it.” . . . “Sir, we have seen a writing that tells about an eternal God. Are you the man that gives away such writings? If so, pray give us one, for we want to know the truth before we die.” Others come from the interior of the country, where the name of Jesus Christ is little known—"Are you Jesus Christ’s man? Give us a writing that tells about Jesus Christ.”

Adoniram pressed on in being “Jesus Christ’s man” for the Burmese people. He married two more times and had 10 more children, six of whom survived into adulthood. When Adoniram died in 1850, Burma had about 100 churches and 8,000 Christians. Today, there are more than two million evangelical Burmese Christians.

Were the gains worth the cost—disease, torture, and death? The answer can be found back at the end of Adoniram’s letter asking for Ann’s hand in marriage:

Can you consent to all this, for the sake of Him [Jesus] who left His heavenly home and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with a crown of righteousness brightened by the acclamations of praise which shall resound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?

The answer is yes. Many people groups still need to hear about Jesus, the only way to heaven. May we pray, give money to missions, and be willing to go tell the good news about Jesus, whatever the cost.

Fun Facts About Adoniram Judson

• Adoniram learned how to read at the age of three. At the age of 16, he was accepted to college and later graduated at the top of his class. God gifted Adoniram for the difficult job of translating the Bible into Burmese.
• Judson completed his mission of translating the Burmese Bible on January 31, 1834. To this day, Adoniram’s Bible translation remains the preferred Burmese translation.

Resources:

• Anderson, Courtney, To the Golden Shore. Little, Brown and Company, 1956.
• Benge, Janet and Geoff, Adoniram Judson: Bound for Burma. YWAM Publishing, 2000.
• Piper, John, “How Few There Are Who Die So Hard! Suffering and Success in the Life of Adoniram Judson: The Cost of Bringing Christ to Burma,” Desiring God, February 4, 2003, https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/how-few-there-are-who-die-so-hard.