with hardly a rebuff or a single instance of coldness or indifference. They seem to have been in a waiting posture for the revelation that had reached them; and the truths of Christianity came to them more like revived reminiscences of a preexistent state, than like a system adapted to revolutionize their former ideas and conceptions.

"Among the illustrations of their singular susceptibility of moral impressions, Mr. Boardman relates an account of a book which had been left at one of their villages twelve years before, by a travelling Mussulman, who told them it was sacred, and commanded them to worship it. The person to whose charge it was delivered, though ignorant of its contents, wrapped it in folds of muslin and enclosed it in a case, or basket, made of reeds covered over with pitch. It was henceforth a deified book, and an object of religious veneration. The keeper of it became a kind of sorcerer, and all the people of his village firmly believed that a teacher would at length come and explain the contents of the mysterious volume. When the arrival of Mr. Boardman was reported in the village, the guardian of the deified book came with a chief of the tribe to the mission house, to obtain his opinion respecting its character. The missionary, after hearing their story and speaking to them of the nature of Christianity, proposed that they should return to the village and bring him the book, that he might judge of its contents. Accordingly, after several days, the sorcerer returned, attended by a numerous train, and bringing with him the venerated volume. All seemed to anticipate Mr. Boardman's opinion as decisive of its character, and were wrought to a high pitch of expectation of its announcement. The sorcerer,

at his request, stood before him, with the basket containing the mysterious treasure at his feet. He carefully unrolled the muslin and took from its folds an old, tattered, worn-out volume,' which, creeping forward, he reverently presented to the missionary. It proved to be no other than the Book of Common Prayer and the Psalms,' of an edition printed in Oxford. It is a good book,' said Mr. Boardman; 'it teaches that there is a God in Heaven, whom alone we should worship. You have been ignorantly worshipping this book; that is not good. I will teach you to worship the God whom the book reveals. Every Karen countenance was alternately lighted up with smiles of joy, and cast down with inward convictions of having erred in worshipping a book instead of the God whom it reveals. I took the book of Psalms in Burman, and read such passages as seemed appropriate, and having given a brief and easy explanation, engaged in prayer. They stayed two days, and discovered considerable interest in the instructions given them.' The aged sorcerer, on hearing

Mr. Boardman's decision respecting the book, seemed readily to perceive that his office was at end, and at the suggestion of one of the native Christians, he disrobed himself of the fantastical dress which he had been accustomed to wear, and gave up the heavy cudgel or wand, which for twelve years he had borne as the badge of his spiritual authority."

Mr. Boardman, who is mentioned in the preceding extract, devoted himself with peculiar zeal and perseverance to the Karen department of the mission. Wherever he went, the tidings of his progress preceded him, and in every village he found deeply interested crowds awaiting his arrival. He was, indeed, a picked man among that company of chosen. ones, endowed with a noble nature, enriched by a liberal course of study, with tastes and capacities that would have ensured him happiness and eminence in whatever sphere of life he might have chosen. He had hardly become interested in Christianity for its own sake and for his own sake, before he conceived the purpose of abandoning the congenial pursuits and flattering prospects that opened before him, and consecrating the residue of his days to a ministry of mercy in whatever unevangelized country needed him the most. His thoughts were directed to Burmah chiefly by the death of Colman, whose fine powers and burning zeal had given the richest promise of usefulness in that region, but whom the fever of the climate swept away on the very threshold of his mission. Boardman at once determined to take up the banner that Colman had dropped in dying, and seems from the first to have had a clear presentiment, that his own term of service could not much exceed that of his departed brother. He carried with him the seeds of consumption, which germinated beneath the tropical sun no less surely, though less rapidly, than they would in the colder climate of New England. As his disease became apparent, it only aroused him to more earnest and vigorous effort. He traversed the Karen wilds with fast wasting strength, and the rude natives felt the majesty and beauty of his entire self-surrender for their good. Multitudes were won to the seemingly sincere profession of his faith by his tender and touching exhibitions of the truth, doubly eloquent and efficient as uttered from a pulpit so near the grave. When he had lost the power of locomotion and of self-help, he was still borne about on his Master's work,

and gathered numerous audiences around his couch to catch the few broken words of counsel and encouragement which he could still offer, and to join in those last prayers so soon to be merged in the worship of heaven. His death was that of the Christian hero on the field that he had won; and we know not where to look for more of moral grandeur, both in the manifestation of character and in its environments, than in the narrative of his last day's work upon earth.

"His constitution was now rapidly yielding to the inroads of the disease which had so long been consuming his strength, and it was evident that his labors were nearly at an end. The eager Karens, fearing he might not be able to fulfil the promise he had long ago made them, had built a zayat for his reception, and offered to come to the city and carry him in a litter on the journey, in order that they might secure his presence among them. He had just decided to yield to their pressing importunities, and to spend the latest effort of his strength in making the visit, when Mr. and Mrs. Mason arrived at Tavoy, as auxiliaries to the mission. He knew, by a fatal intuition, that he had no time for delay, and on the 31st of January, a few days after the arrival of Mr. Mason, he set out upon the journey. He was borne in a cot, on the shoulders of the Karens, and was accompanied by Mrs. Boardman and the newly arrived missionaries. At the end of three days they reached the zayat, which stood on the margin of a beautiful stream, at the foot of a range of mountains, whose sloping sides were lined with the villages of the strange people whom they had come to visit. More than a hundred were already assembled at the zayat, nearly half of whom were candidates for baptism. Aided by Mr. Mason and the native Christians who were present, he examined them in the history of their Christian experience, and in the doctrines of the gospel. But his strength was exhausted, and he could do no more. At the close of the day, just as the sun was sinking behind the mountains, his cot was placed at the river side, in the midst of the solemn company that was gathered to witness the first baptism which that ancient mountain-stream had ever beheld. Thirtyfour native converts, whose examination had been approved, were baptized by Mr. Mason. As he gazed in silent gratitude upon the scene, he felt that his work was finished, his last promise to these scattered disciples was now fulfilled; and he was ready to depart in peace. He met them again at their evening meal, and still reclining upon his couch, uttered to them a few words of parting counsel and took leave of them forever.

"On the following morning the missionaries set out on their

return to Tavoy, hoping that he might survive the journey, and die at last beneath his own roof. But the hope was disappointed. Ere the second day had passed, his eyes were closed upon the scenes of earth, and his spirit was in heaven with God.

"Thus ended the consecrated life of this noble-hearted and intrepid minister of Christ. He lived to witness a glorious triumph of the faith which he taught, and died as every missionary might well wish to die, in the service of his Master, and surrounded by those whom he had been instrumental in converting from heathenism, and in reclaiming from barbarism. His tomb is at Tavoy, in the midst of what was once a Buddhist grove, and beneath the shadow of a ruined pagoda. It is covered by a marble slab, placed there as a tribute of respect by three gentlemen who at that time occupied the highest posts in the provincial government, and inscribed with a simple epitaph, which points the traveller who visits it to the Christian villages that skirt the neighboring forests and mountains, as the true memorials of his useful and devoted life."*

But Boardinan was only one among a band of equally heroic spirits. In not a few of its chapters Prof. Gammell's unostentatious narrative rolls on with a more than epic majesty and a more than tragic interest. It belongs to an era of Christian history, on which future generations will look back as the heroic age of the Church, and which future poets may commemorate with a far loftier inspiration than that with which classic bards celebrated the times when men welcomed demigods to their tables, and everywhere encountered "divis permixtos heroas."

We have spoken admiringly of the dying missionary. We know not how to express our reverence for his young widow, a woman of tender sensibilities and cultivated tastes, left with her infant boy, in a region of which her whole experience had been one of incessant suffering, privation, and peril. Who would not have bidden her seek the shortest passage to the embrace of the friends at home, whose hearts and arms were open to receive her? But she had learned the language

*The following is the inscription referred to above.

"Sacred to the memory of George D. Boardman, American Missionary to Burmah. Born Feb. 8, 1801 - Died Feb. 11, 1831. His epitaph is written in the adjoining forests. Ask in the Christian villages of yonder mountains - Who taught you to abandon the worship of demons? Who raised you from vice to morality? Who brought you your Bibles, your Sabbaths, and your words of Prayer? Let the reply be his eulogy. A cruce corona."

of the country, had become intimate with its customs and institutions, and had already won a large place in the affections of the Karens who had sought her husband's tuition; and she felt that this vantage-ground forbade her leaving the field, and placed her under a sacred obligation to the poor mountaineers whose tears had fallen with hers over the mis

sionary's grave. She therefore assumed at once the full charge of the station, established and superintended schools, sat in the zayat, (or place of worship,) for the instruction of novices in the faith, and at times conducted the public Sabbath services of large Karen congregations. She made frequent tours in the wilderness, over rude mountain passes, across perilous fords, and through the thickly matted underbrush of the jungle. Her services failed not of their immediate reward in the strong attachment to her of the whole Karen population in her district, and in the rapid increase of intelligence and steadfast converts to Christianity. At the close of the year following that of her husband's death, the church, of which a native teacher was the nominal pastor, but she herself the virtual head, consisted of more than a hundred members, many of whom attested their sincerity by walking forty or fifty miles, and crossing swollen streams on trees that they had first felled, in order to attend public worship.

Our mention of the Karens led us to anticipate, in the order of time, the incidents connected with Boardman's death and his widow's solitary labors. But we should do equal injustice to our author and our readers, did we make no record of the sufferings of Dr. Price, and Mr. and Mrs. Judson at Ava, the capital of the Burman empire. They were endeavoring to establish a missionary station in this place, under shelter of the medical reputation of Dr. Price, who had been regarded with marked favor by the King and his court. Just at this crisis of their affairs, war broke out between the Burman government and that of the British in Bengal, and the capture of Rangoon spread consternation through the capital. The missionaries had been known to receive money from a certain English resident, who had kindly officiated as their banker; and the officers of the government, ignorant of the system of exchange, inferred that this was secret service-money from the English authorities. Hence the barbarous treatment described in the following extract.