JUDSON, ADONIRAM
(9 August 1788, Malden, MA-12 April, 1850, at sea, off the coast of Burma). Education: B.A., Brown University, 1807; student, Andover Theological Seminary, 1808-9. Career: Schoolteacher, Plymouth, 1807-8; linguist and missionary to Burma, 1812-50.
In Congregational history the faithful, occasionally, have had an annoying way of becoming Baptists. Congregationalism stressed the idea that communion should be available only to mature converts. This view could easily be extended to baptism, and occasionally was. Henry Dunster* became a Baptist in 1654, ending his distinguished C1ij:eer as president of Harvard, and Adoniram Judson defected in 1812, ending the promising beginning of the first overseas Congregational mission.
After graduating from Brown and teaching for a year in Plymouth, Judson went to Andover, where he became the leader of a group of young men who founded the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Judson was appointed to travel abroad to make contacts with an English mission association, and was captured at sea by a French privateer and imprisoned-the first of many misadventures in his foreign travels. Soon released, he went on to London, where he found the mission society leaders cordial but unwilling to embark on a joint enterprise.
Back in the United States he followed a course soon to be common among Congregational missionaries, receiving ordination, marrying, and boarding ship all within a few days. Thus in 1812 the Judsons and another missionary couple set sail for Calcutta. Along the way Judson read Baptist literature, expecting to encounter English Baptist missionaries, and eager to anticipate and obliterate their arguments. But instead of converting them, he was converted by their tracts, and when he stepped off the ship in Calcutta he was a Congregationalist no more. His wife required further convincing, but after more study, she 100 converted. In September of 1812, seven months and some fifteen thousand miles after his Congregational ordination, Adoniram Judson and his wife were rebaptised.
Judson compiled a distinguished record during almost four decades in Burma, withstanding virulent disease, hostility from the British, and imprisonment by the natives. He translated the Bible and numerous tracts into Burmese and compiled a English-Burmese dictionary. And he initiated missionary efforts that brought thousands of Burmese men and women into the Baptist church.
These achievements were cold comfort to the American Board, which had lost its earliest, and as it would turn out, one of its best missionaries. But the Congregationalists redoubled their efforts to found missions of their own, and were served by men like the Hiram Binghams**, father and son, who managed to preserve their faith on land and sea in places as remote as the Hawaiian and the Gilbert Islands.
Bibliography
A: The New Testament in Burmese (MauImein, Burma, 1832); The Old Testament in Burmese (MauImein, Burma, 1834-35); Dictionary, English and Burmese (MauImein, Burma, 1852).
B: DAB 10, 234-35; Francis Wayland, Memoir of the Life and Labors of the Rev. Adoniram Judson, 2 vols. (Boston, 1853); Edward Judson, Life of Adoniram Judson by His Son (Philadelphia, 1883); Honore Willsie Morrow, The Splendor of God (New York, 1929) [historical novel]; Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson (Boston, 1956).
In Congregational history the faithful, occasionally, have had an annoying way of becoming Baptists. Congregationalism stressed the idea that communion should be available only to mature converts. This view could easily be extended to baptism, and occasionally was. Henry Dunster* became a Baptist in 1654, ending his distinguished C1ij:eer as president of Harvard, and Adoniram Judson defected in 1812, ending the promising beginning of the first overseas Congregational mission.
After graduating from Brown and teaching for a year in Plymouth, Judson went to Andover, where he became the leader of a group of young men who founded the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Judson was appointed to travel abroad to make contacts with an English mission association, and was captured at sea by a French privateer and imprisoned-the first of many misadventures in his foreign travels. Soon released, he went on to London, where he found the mission society leaders cordial but unwilling to embark on a joint enterprise.
Back in the United States he followed a course soon to be common among Congregational missionaries, receiving ordination, marrying, and boarding ship all within a few days. Thus in 1812 the Judsons and another missionary couple set sail for Calcutta. Along the way Judson read Baptist literature, expecting to encounter English Baptist missionaries, and eager to anticipate and obliterate their arguments. But instead of converting them, he was converted by their tracts, and when he stepped off the ship in Calcutta he was a Congregationalist no more. His wife required further convincing, but after more study, she 100 converted. In September of 1812, seven months and some fifteen thousand miles after his Congregational ordination, Adoniram Judson and his wife were rebaptised.
Judson compiled a distinguished record during almost four decades in Burma, withstanding virulent disease, hostility from the British, and imprisonment by the natives. He translated the Bible and numerous tracts into Burmese and compiled a English-Burmese dictionary. And he initiated missionary efforts that brought thousands of Burmese men and women into the Baptist church.
These achievements were cold comfort to the American Board, which had lost its earliest, and as it would turn out, one of its best missionaries. But the Congregationalists redoubled their efforts to found missions of their own, and were served by men like the Hiram Binghams**, father and son, who managed to preserve their faith on land and sea in places as remote as the Hawaiian and the Gilbert Islands.
Bibliography
A: The New Testament in Burmese (MauImein, Burma, 1832); The Old Testament in Burmese (MauImein, Burma, 1834-35); Dictionary, English and Burmese (MauImein, Burma, 1852).
B: DAB 10, 234-35; Francis Wayland, Memoir of the Life and Labors of the Rev. Adoniram Judson, 2 vols. (Boston, 1853); Edward Judson, Life of Adoniram Judson by His Son (Philadelphia, 1883); Honore Willsie Morrow, The Splendor of God (New York, 1929) [historical novel]; Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson (Boston, 1956).
