Adoniram judson biography summary worksheet

Adoniram purposed to go to the capital of Ava to petition the emperor himself for permission to propagate Christianity. On two occasions he made the long journey up the Irrawaddy River to Ava only to receive rejection of his petitions, but some favorable contacts were made. He eventually determined to move his mission to Ava. He arrived there in January ofbuilt a small house near the city, began his ministry, and continued his translation work of the Old Testament.

Satan was not about to abdicate his dominion. On June 8,Adoniram was suddenly arrested and taken to the infamous Let-may-yoon Prison. He was imprisoned in a most vile place, made to go through great indignities, and suffered much sickness, torture, hunger. Had it not been for his faithful wife Ann, he most certainly would not have survived. Day after day she brought food to him and importuned the vile keeper of the prison to let her have a small shelter constructed under which he could rest from the sun.

Again and again the death threat hung over him, but the love of Christ sustained him. Apparently the reason for this imprisonment was due to an impending conflict with Britain, and it was thought that Judson was an emissary of the British crown. During Judson's imprisonment, he was often heard to repeat the verse of Madame Guyon:. Throughout this time Ann continually made intercession with various palace authorities, hoping to get his release, but to no avail.

It was 20 days before Ann was able to recover from this delivery and bring the new babe to the prison for Adoniram to see. He beheld Ann standing in the doorway for she was never permitted to enter the prisonher little blue-eyed blossom wailing upon her bosom. The chained father crawled forth to the meeting. He composed a beautiful poem at that time.

I'll read only a few of the 14 verses:. Sleep, darling infant, sleep. In order to preserve the precious manuscripts of the Burmese New Testament, they were hidden in a pillow. This was taken from him by the jailer; but by the clever work of Ann, it was exchanged for a better pillow, thus preserving the valuable documents. Even these were left behind when on May 2,Judson was very quickly removed from the death prison to the prison in Oung-pen-la, some eight miles' distance.

The pillow with the manuscripts was thrown away when he was removed to the second prison, but a servant of the Judsons found it and buried it by their house, preserving it until he was finally released from imprisonment. Thus, by very unusual means, the precious manuscripts of the New Testament translation were preserved. The second prison was, if anything, more vile than the adoniram judson biography summary worksheet.

For a while Adoniram was kept in a cage that once housed a lion—not high enough to stand up in, not broad enough to lie down in. Here he was kept for an additional six months, during which time both Ann and Maria were very ill; and yet Judson was kept alive by Ann's efforts in begging food to provide nutrition for him. Finally, in November ofhe was taken out of prison and, under guard, sent to the headquarters of the Burmese army where he was able to serve as interpreter in the negotiation of the peace treaty with the British.

Upon his return to Ava, he found Ann and the baby both desperately ill.

Adoniram judson biography summary worksheet: He was through life esteemed

Through his tender care, they were able to improve and to eventually return to Rangoon. Judson had two master goals passions : 1 translate the Bible into the Burmese language, and 2 live to see converts. As mentioned earlier, it was six long years of witness before the first Burmese soul came to know Christ. By the time of Judson's death, there were 63 churches and 7, converts.

Of the Karen peoples, there were churches andbelievers. Over the years, largely through the influence of Luther Rice who never returned to the field but was representing the mission in Americanew missionaries arrived on the field for various aspects of the ministry. One of these couples was George and Sarah Boardman. They, along with others of the newer missionaries, were targeting the tribal people, particularly the Karen, a predominately pagan, animistic tribes adoniram judson biography summary worksheet.

Another such missionary was Elisha L. Abbott, who has been credited as the creator of the indigenous policy. He arrived in Burma sometime around and was a contemporary of Adonirom Judson. The thing that particularly distinguishes Mr. Abbott was his vision of self-support of these churches. He was the instrument God used to raise up 50 churches and thousands of believers.

His motto was "American support for Americans; Karen support for Karens. In fact, he twice returned half of the gifts back to America, but the American Baptist Missionary Union was never in agreement with this indigenous policy. Neither was the aging veteran, Adoniram Judson, who felt it would give support to the "good works" philosophy of Buddhism.

Looking back over the ministries causes us to reflect on whether the rapid growth of the ministry among the indigenous tribes people which has continued right down to the present time is related to the indigenous principles founded by Mr. Today there is virtually no church of a Fundamental nature among the Burmese per se that is the outgrowth of Adoniram Judson's ministry.

Adoniram left Ann and the infant Maria in a more healthful location and was summoned back up to the British camp as an interpreter in the ongoing negotiations with the Burmese. Ann died at the age of 37 at Amhurst, a British settlement, on October 14, Adoniram did not learn of her death until a month later. The infant Maria was cared for by some fellow missionaries but also died about six months later at the age of 27 months and was buried beside her mother.

This was due, in part, to the radical difference in structure between Burmese and Western languages. He found a tutor and spent twelve hours per day studying the language. He and his wife firmly dedicated themselves to understanding it. During this time they were almost entirely isolated from contact with any European or American. Four years passed before Judson dared even to hold a semi-public service.

At first, he tried adapting to Burmese customs by wearing a yellow robe to mark himself as a teacher of religion, but he soon changed to white to show he was not a Buddhist. Then, he gave up the whole attempt as artificial and decided that, regardless of his dress, no Burmese would identify him as anything but a foreigner. He accommodated some Burmese customs and built a zayatthe customary bamboo and thatch reception shelter, on the street near his home as a reception room and meeting place for Burmese men.

Adoniram judson biography summary worksheet: Soon after his marriage he settled

Fifteen men came to his first public meeting in April He was encouraged but suspected they had come more out of curiosity than anything else. Their attention wandered, and they soon seemed uninterested. Two months later, he baptized his first Burmese convert, Maung Naw, a year-old timber worker from the hill tribes. First attempts by the Judsons to interest the natives of Rangoon with the Gospel of Jesus met with almost total indifference.

Buddhist traditions and the Burmese worldview at that time led many to disregard the pleadings of Adoniram and his wife to believe in one living and all-powerful God. Their second child, Roger William Judson, died at almost eight months of age. Judson completed the translation of the Grammatical Notices of the Burman Language the following July and the Gospel of Matthewin Judson began public evangelism in sitting in a zayat by the roadside calling out "Ho!

Every one that thirsteth for knowledge! InJudson and a fellow missionary named Colman petitioned the Emperor of Burma, King Bagyidawin the hope that he would grant freedom for the missionaries to preach and teach throughout the country, as well as remove the sentence of death that was given for those Burmese who changed religion. Bagyidaw disregarded their appeal and threw one of their Gospel tracts to the ground after reading a few lines.

The missionaries returned to Rangoon and met with the fledgling church there to consider what to do next. The adoniram judson biography summary worksheet of Christianity would continue to be slow with much risk of endangerment and death in the Burmese Empire. It took Judson 12 years to make 18 converts. His wife, Ann, was even more fluent in the spoken language of the people than her more academically literate husband.

She befriended the wife of the viceroy of Rangoonas quickly as she did illiterate workers and women. A printing press had been sent from Serampore, and a missionary printer, George H. Hough, who arrived from America with his wife inproduced the first printed materials in Burmese ever printed in Burma, which included copies of Judson's translation of the Gospel of Matthew.

The chronicler of the church, Maung Shwe Wa, concludes this part of the story, "So was born the church in Rangoon—logger and fisherman, the poor and the rich, men and women. One traveled the whole path to Christ in three days; another took two years. But once they had decided for Christ they were his for all time. One of the early disciples was U Shwe Ngong, a teacher and leader of a group of intellectuals dissatisfied with Buddhism, who were attracted to the new faith.

He was a Deist skeptic to whose mind the preaching of Judson, once a college skeptic himself, was singularly challenging. After consideration, he assured Judson that he was ready to believe in God, Jesus Christ, and the atonement. Judson, instead of welcoming him to the faith, pressed him further asking if he believed what he had read in the gospel of Matthew that Jesus the son of God died on the cross.

U Shwe Ngong shook his head and said, "Ah, you have caught me now. I believe that he suffered death, but I cannot believe he suffered the shameful death on the cross. I now believe the crucifixion of Christ because it is contained in scripture. The essence of Judson's preaching was a combination of conviction of the truth with the rationality of the Christian faith, a firm belief in the authority of the Bible, and a determination to make Christianity relevant to the Burmese mind without violating the integrity of Christian truth, or as he put it, "to preach the gospel, not anti-Buddhism.

Byten years after his arrival, membership of the little church had grown to 18, and Judson finished the first draft of his translation of the New Testament in Burmese. Two opposite hungers triggered the First Anglo-Burmese War of Burma's desire for more territory, and Britain's desire for more trade. Burma threatened Assam and Bengal ; Britain responded by attacking and absorbing two Burmese provinces into her India holdings to broaden her trade routes to East Asia.

The war was a rough interruption of the Baptists' missionary work. English-speaking Americans were too easily confused with the enemy and suspected of spying. Judson was imprisoned for 17 months during the war between the United Kingdom and Burma, first at Ava and then at Aung Pinle. Judson and Price were violently arrested. Officers led by an official executioner burst into the Judson home, threw Judson to the ground in front of his wife, bound him with torture thongs, and dragged him off to the prison of Ava.

About 6, Burmese people came to the mission house to find out more. Judson reported in his journal:. We are afraid of it. Do give us a writing that will tell us how to escape it.

Adoniram judson biography summary worksheet: Use these Scripture references

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. Give us a writing that tells about Jesus Christ. He married two more times and had 10 more children, six of whom survived into adoniram judson biography summary worksheet. When Adoniram died inBurma had about churches and 8, Christians.

Today, there are more than two million evangelical Burmese Christians. Were the gains worth the cost—disease, torture, and death? 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. View Cart. Judson hoped to devote himself unreservedly to missionary work.

But at the solicitation of Mr. Crawfurd, commissioner of the British East Indian government, he accompanied an embassy to Ava for negotiating a commercial treaty, to procure, if possible, the insertion of a guaranty for religious freedom in the king's dominions. This, which alone reconciled him to so long an absence from his chosen work, and from a home that claimed his presence more imperatively than he conceived, entirely failed, and after several months' detention he returned to Amherst,—to find his house desolate.

Judson, very soon after his departure, had been seized with a fever that her enfeebled constitution was ill-fitted to resist, and sunk into the grave after an illness of eighteen days. The dreadful tidings were conveyed to him at Ava,—the more insupportable because he was wholly unprepared for them, his last intelligence having assured him of her perfect health.

From the native Christians who surrounded her deathbed, and the physician, who did all that skill could do for her recovery, he heard of the celestial peace that sustained her departing spirit. His only child soon followed her mother, and he was left a solitary mourner. His cup of sorrow seemed full. The heart which had sustained all that barbarian cruelty could inflict, was well-nigh crushed by this total bereavement.

Though the life of Mrs. Judson was, as it seemed, prematurely closed, it was long enough to exhibit a character which, in some of its elements, has no parallel in female biography. Capacities for exertion and endurance, such as few men have brought to great enterprises, were united to the most engaging feminine qualities, fitting her at once to cheer the domestic retirement of her husband, and to share his most overwhelming trials and dangers.

The record of her deeds and sufferings has moved the hearts of myriads in this and other lands, and her memory is immortal as the sympathies of our common humanity. But the bereaved missionary sank not in inconsolable grief. Looking to the eternal hills for help, he nerved himself anew to the fulfilment of his appointed ministry. Wade had reached Amherst shortly before the return of Mr.

Judson from Ava, and with them Rev. George D. Boardman and wife, who had arrived in Bengal during the war. Besides the original population of British Burmah, the provinces were the resort of constant emigration, and Amherst grew rapidly into a considerable town. But the government was soon transferred to Maulmain, on the east bank of the Salwen, about twenty-five miles from its mouth.

The mission followed in the course of the yearand has since been permanently established in that city. There the work went rapidly forward. Schools were set up, two or three houses of worship were opened, and during the years andbetween thirty and forty converts were added to the church. The Tavoy station was commenced by Mr. Boardman, under whose auspices Christianity began to be communicated to the Karens, among whom it has since made such progress as to astonish the Christian world.

Judson continued at Maulmain till the summer of Note: The degree of Doctor in Divinity was conferred on Mr. Judson by Brown University in He subsequently declined the title, but its application to him was continued, and during the later years of his life was silently acquiesced in, though he never retracted his original declination. Besides the ordinary duties of preaching and teaching, he thoroughly revised the New Testament, and prepared twelve smaller works in Burmese.

In the spring ofMr. Wade visited Rangoon, the success of a native preacher having made the presence of a missionary desirable. His health did not admit of a residence in that climate, and Dr. Judson, who had not ceased to cherish a deep interest in the progress of Christianity in Burmah Proper, repaired thither in May. He found a prevalent spirit of inquiry, and resolved to penetrate into the interior.

He accordingly went up the Irrawadi to Prome. His boat at every landing was visited by persons eager for books. Converts whom he had lost sight of for years greeted him at one or two places as he passed, and he heard of the conversion of others whom he had never seen, but who had derived their knowledge of the truth indirectly from his instructions.

For a month or two he had numerous auditors, a few of whom seemed to have cordially received the word. Then came a sudden and mysterious reaction. The zayat was nearly deserted. People seemed afraid to converse with him. This state of things continuing till autumn, he regarded his work in Prome as finished for the present, and returned to Rangoon, confident that the now rejected truth would bear fruit in due season.

It appeared that the king had given orders for his expulsion, but that the governor, under the influence of some unaccountable awe of him, had not ventured to execute them. At Rangoon he gave himself to the translation of the entire Scriptures. He shut himself into an upper chamber, leaving a native evangelist to receive inquirers, admitting only the most promising to his own apartment.

In spite of the known displeasure of the king, nearly half his time was absorbed in these interviews. The spirit of inquiry deepened and widened through all the surrounding country. During the great festival in honour of Gaudama, held near the close of the following winter, there were as many as six thousand applications at his house for tracts.

Some came from the borders of Siam or the far north, saying, "Sir, we have seen a writing that tells about an eternal God. Are you the man that gives away such writings? Pray, give us one, for we want to know the truth before we die.

Adoniram judson biography summary worksheet: but the habits of self-dependence, which

Give us a writing that tells about Jesus Christ. In the summer ofin consequence of the infirm state of Mr. Wade's health, he removed to Maulmain, and Mr. Wade, after a few months' respite, took his place at Rangoon. At Maulmain Dr. Judson prosecuted the work of translation, but still preached in the city and the jungles. On the last day of January,he completed the task with which he might have rejoiced to seal up his earthly mission,—the Bible in the Burmese language.

No words can more fitly describe the emotions of that hour than his own: "Thanks to God, I can now say, I have attained. I have knelt down before Him, with the last leaf in my hand, and imploring his adoniram judson biography summary worksheet for all the sins which have polluted my labours in this department, and his aid in removing the errors and imperfections which necessarily cleave to the work, I have commended it to his mercy and grace.

I have dedicated it to his glory. May he make his own inspired word, now complete in the Burman tongue, the grand instrument of filling all Burmah with songs of praise to our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. The kneeling missionary alone, with the last leaf of the translated Bible, humbly and gratefully offering it before the Divine Majesty, has been suggested as a subject for the pencil.

But he must be an artist elevated to more than a common measure of celestial sympathy, who shall worthily represent to our senses a triumph so purely spiritual. In April of this year, Dr. Judson was united in marriage with Mrs. Boardman; who, after the lamented death of her husband, had given herself with unyielding devotion to the blessed work in which he so triumphantly passed away, and through all her missionary career showed a spirit nearly kindred to that of the "ministering angel" to the prisoners of Ava.

For some years he was engaged in the revision of the Scriptures, dividing his time between this and the superintendence of' the native church at Maulmain. The steady increase of the churches in numbers and in knowledge was an ample reward for all his toils, while the reinforcement of the missions, and their extension into Siam and Assam, filled him with gladness in the prospect of the future.

The arrival of fourteen missionaries inaccompanied by Rev. Malcom, who was commissioned by the Board to visit their stations in Asia, was an occasion of special joy. The conferences held, the plans devised, the recollections and hopes awakened at this season, must have made it memorable to them all. Since the lonely pioneer landed in doubt and apprehension at Rangoon, more than twenty years of labour and suffering had passed over his head.

Not one witness of his earlier struggles, not one sharer of his many fears and sorrows and of their precious compensations, stood by his side. But a host, comparatively, had succeeded, to carry forward by their united strength the work begun in weakness, and not less than a thousand souls redeemed from the bondage of idolatry attested the divine presence and benediction.

In his enfeebled health compelled a change of air, and he visited Bengal. But the ardour of his spirit drove him back to his station without any visible change for the better. The Board invited him to visit the United States, which he gratefully but firmly declined. The revision of the Scriptures was finished inand a second edition was put to press.

A recent writer in the Calcutta Review, understood to be well qualified to pass judgment in this matter, hazards "the prediction, that as Luther's Bible is now in the hands of Protestant Germany, so, three centuries hence, Judson's Bible will be the Bible of the Christian churches of Burmah. In the summer of he found it needful, for the sake of his family and himself, to make another voyage.

They went to Bengal, where he was compelled to bury his youngest child, proceeded to the Isle of France, and thence returned to Maulmain, where they arrived, much invigorated, in December. The next year saw him engaged in another important undertaking,—the compilation of a complete dictionary of the Burmese language. He was reluctant to be diverted from his ministerial labours by any further literary tasks, but yielded to the solicitation of the Board, and to a adoniram judson biography summary worksheet of the importance of the work His plan contemplated two complete vocabularies—Burmese and English, and English and Burmese.

It was interrupted by the illness of Mrs. A voyage along the Tenasserim coast proved ineffectual for her recovery, and in the spring of her helpless state appeared to demand a visit to the United States. In announcing this purpose Dr. Judson warned the Board that he must not be expected to address public assemblies, as the weakness of his lungs forbade such exertion, and for a reason which shall be stated in his own words: "In order to become an acceptable and eloquent preacher in a foreign language, I deliberately abjured my own.

When I crossed the river, I burnt my ships. Taking with him his family, and two native assistants to carry forward his dictionary during his visit, he embarked for Boston on the 26th of April. On arriving at Mauritius, Mrs. Judson was so far revived that it was thought she might safely proceed without her husband. The assistants were sent back, and he was about to follow them, but the day before her reembarkation she suffered a relapse, which determined him to go on with her.

She grew weaker from day to day, and it seemed that she must find a grave in the deep, but her life was spared till they reached St. With an unclouded prospect of the heavenly felicity, her soul parted serenely from earth and all earthly ties. Her mortal remains were committed to the dust on the first of September, and the twice-widowed missionary tore himself away, to guide his motherless children to the land of their fathers.

He arrived at Boston on the 15th of October. A thrill of solemn and grateful emotion was felt in every part of the land, and found expression in countless forms. On the evening of the third day after he landed, a large assembly was gathered, and the venerable President of the Board, Rev. Sharp, addressed him in appropriate words of welcome.

More touching was the hearty embrace of Rev. Samuel Nott, jr. Pressing through the congregation, he made himself known. Who can guess what thoughts of the past crowded their minds and subdued their hearts, at this unlooked for meeting! Judson attended a special meeting of the Baptist General Convention, called together in consequence of the separation of the Southern churches,—his first interview with a body called into existence by his instrumentality,—and there received a more formal and memorable welcome.

Though forbidden to speak in public, a proposition to abandon the Arracan mission drew from his lips a fervent protest, which, seconded by other missionaries present, determined the Convention to retain all their stations in the east. By other public assemblies in the principal cities, he was received in a manner that told how deeply the story of his labours and sufferings had imprinted itself on the hearts of the people.

Thus attracting to himself the affectionate sympathy of thousands, and kindling higher by his presence the flame of missionary zeal, refreshing his spirit by the amenities of friendship, and recalling the memories of youth by visiting its most cherished scenes, he continued in the land of his nativity till the 11th of July,when he once more set his face toward the field of his struggles and triumphs.

He went not alone. A third gentle spirit gave her affections to soothe and her energies to sustain his soul, in the years of labour and suffering that awaited him. Note: Dr. This is not the place or the time to do honour to the living;—may it be long before the pen shall be summoned to recall into memory the departed! Several new missionaries accompanied them, and they arrived safely at Maulmain in December.

A revolution having taken place in Burmah, Dr. Judson removed to Rangoon, the only city in the king's dominions where foreigners were permitted to reside. He found it impossible to do anything efficiently unless he could obtain some countenance at Ava, but having no means at his disposal to undertake the journey at that time, he was obliged to resign all hope in that quarter, and go back to Maulmain, and to his dictionary.

Besides his literary tasks, he assumed the pastoral care of the Burman church, and preached once on a Sabbath. In these pursuits he continued with his wonted diligence, till disease laid its hand upon him in the autumn of Note: The English and Burmese Dictionary was finished, and has been printed. The Burmese and English Dictionary was considerably advanced, and the manuscripts have been placed in the hands of one of his younger colleagues, Rev.

Stevens, for completion. A severe cold in the month of September was followed by a fever that prostrated his strength.