Chapter 54

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:

"But hark! the vesper call to prayer, --As slow the orb of daylight sets,-- Is rising sweetly on the air From Syria's thousand minarets."

This change in their place of abode could not fail to be a severe trial to our missionaries. To Maulmain they were bound by many ties,--the sweet companionship of fellow-Christians, and the love which attaches the missionary to those spiritual children which the Lord has given him;--moreover it was their first _home_, sanctified by signal deliverances and countless mercies;--nevertheless, like Abraham who at the call of Jehovah, "went out, not knowing whither he went,"--these "followers of them who through faith inherit the promises," obeyed the voice of duty, and feeling themselves "strangers and pilgrims on the earth," went without murmuring to their new sphere of labor. "One thing is certain," says Mr. B. in a subsequent letter "we were brought here by the guidance of Providence. It was no favorite scheme of ours."

On arriving at Tavoy, they were kindly received by Mr. Burney the English resident, and within ten days from their arrival, had procured a house, and begun to teach inquirers in the way of salvation Much as there was to discourage them in this _city of pagoda_, "the missionary looked out on the strange magnificence of shrines and temples that lay around him,--upon the monuments that had perpetuated for many ages this idolatrous worship,--upon the priests who taught it, and the countless devotees who practised it; and as he prepared to strike the first blow at the hoary superstition which they all enshrined, he felt to the full the sublimity and greatness of the undertaking. He stood alone, the herald of truth, before this mighty array of ancient error; but he trusted implicitly in the promises of revelation, and felt assured that the day was at hand when all this empty adoration of Gaudama would give place to the worship of the living God!"[8]

A new difficulty occurred here, which however was speedily surmounted by the diligence and zeal of the missionaries; the dialect of Tavoy was so different from pure Burmese as to be almost unintelligible to those who knew only the latter, but both, fortunately, employed the same written characters. Mrs. Boardman's employments at this time are enumerated in their letters. After unwearied toil, and repeated repulses and discouragements, she succeeded in establishing a girls' school, in which she employed a woman who could read, as an assistant. She describes a visit to her school thus: "I am just returned from one of the day-schools. The sun had not risen when I arrived, but the little girls were in the house ready for instruction. My walk to this school is through a retired road, shaded on one side by the old wall of the city, which is overgrown with wild creepers and pole-flowers, and on the other by large fruit-trees. While going and returning, I find it sweet and profitable to think on the shortness of time, the vanity of this delusive world,--and oh I have had some precious views of that world where the weary are at rest; and where sin, that enemy of God, and now constant disturber of my peace, will no more afflict me."

In another letter of a later date, she describes herself as sitting at her table in a back porch, from which she can see her "dear husband," in a room before her, teaching nine little heathen boys; while in one of the long verandahs on each side of the house, the native Christians are holding a prayer-meeting in their own language, and in the other, a Chinese convert is urging three or four of his deluded countrymen to turn from their stupid superstitions to the service of Jehovah.

She mentions also the baptism of a _Karen_, (the name of a tribe in Burmah,) "a _poor man_, who had been converted while in the service of Mr. Judson;" little knowing the importance of the fact thus recorded. This "poor man," in fact formerly a slave, and whom the writer of an article in a former number of the _Quarterly Review_ would have sneered at as he did at the "fisherman," the _wonderful trophy of divine grace_, mentioned in Mrs. Judson's history of the mission, was the famous Ko-thay-byu, whose life has been written by Mr. Mason, and who, by his zeal and success in missionary labor, obtained the name of "the Karen Apostle." He was the first to introduce to the notice of the missionaries, the tribe to which he belonged, a people so remarkable, that we are unwilling, even in our brief sketch, to pass them over without notice.

The Karens, according to a writer in the _North American Review_, are a savage and ignorant race of men, (their _name_ in the Burman language signifying _wild men_,) scattered in vast numbers over the wilds of Farther India, and inhabiting almost inaccessible tracts, among the mountains and forests. Their peculiar physiognomy, strange traditions, and some of their customs have led to the opinion that they were of Hebrew origin, though some think they are of the Caucasian variety of the human species. They differ much from the Burmans, by whom they are heavily taxed and grievously oppressed, and in every way treated as inferiors.[9] "Their traditions have been preserved, like the poems of Ossian, by fond memories delighting to revive the recollections of former glory and prosperity; repeated by grandsires at even-tide to their listening descendants, and sung by mourners over the graves of their elders.

"They believe in a God who is denominated Yu-wah," a name certainly similar to the Hebrew Jehovah. Some of their traditional songs are curious and interesting. For instance,

"God created us in ancient time, And has a perfect knowledge of all things; When men call his name, _he hears_!"

And again

"The sons of heaven are holy, They sit by the seat of God, The sons of heaven are righteous, They dwell together with God; They lean against his silver seat."

The following stanza, says the writer above referred to, might be mistaken for the production of David or Isaiah.

"Satan in days of old was holy, But he transgressed God's law; Satan of old was righteous, But he departed from the law of God, And God drove him away."

They say that God formerly loved their nation, but on account of their wickedness he punished it, and made them the degraded creatures they now are. But they say "God will again have mercy upon us, God will save us again." One verse of one of their songs is,

"When the Karen king arrives Everything will be happy; When Karens have a king Wild beasts will lose their savageness."

Professor Gammell says, in substance, that they present the extraordinary phenomenon of a people without any form of religion or established priesthood, yet believing in God, and in future retribution, and cherishing and transmitting from age to age a set of traditions of unusual purity, and containing bright predictions of future prosperity and glory.

When Ko-thay-byu, the poor convert already mentioned, was baptized, he naturally carried to his countrymen "the thrilling news, that a teacher from a far distant land had come to preach a new religion, a religion answering to the religion of their fathers." Others came to listen, and to carry back to their secluded hamlets the joyful tidings; until "from distant hills and remote valleys and forests, Karen inquirers flocked to Tavoy, and thronged around _the teacher_;" listening to the new doctrines with childlike simplicity and uncommon sensibility. Among other singular stories that they related to the wondering "teacher," one was, that more than ten years before, a book in a strange tongue had been left among them by a foreigner, who commanded them to worship it; which command they had faithfully obeyed. Mr. Boardman felt the strongest curiosity to see this _deified book_, but owing to the prevalence of the rains, he was not gratified till the following September. He was then waited on by a large deputation of Karens, bringing with them in a covered basket, the mysterious volume, wrapped in fold after fold of muslin; on removing which it proved to be an Oxford edition of the Common Prayer Book in the English language! With the greatest simplicity they asked Mr. B. if this book contained the doctrines of the new religion, and if so, requested to be taught its contents. Mr. B. assured them that the book was good, but should by no means be made an object of worship; and accepting it from them, he gave them in its stead, portions of the Scriptures, translated into a language they could understand. They entreated him to visit them in their own villages, assuring him of the readiness of their tribe to welcome him, and to receive the gospel; and, struck with their earnestness and candor, he promised at some future time to yield to their request.

The sorcerer who had preserved the book, and prescribed to the simple heathen the forms of its worship, threw away his cudgel, or wand of office, and laid aside his fantastic dress; and Mr. Boardman sent the mysterious volume to America, to be deposited in the museum of the Baptist Missionary Society.

Who the "foreigner" may have been, that thus supplied an ignorant people with a Divinity, or object of worship; or what were his motives in so doing, will probably always remain a mystery.

If we have devoted considerable space to this notice of the Karens, their subsequent history will prove that they are not unworthy of such notice.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 8: Gammell.]

[Footnote 9: See Gammell.]