PREFACE. Ir has occurred to me, in glancing over the little narrative I have prepared, that those friends of Mrs. Judson who have kindly furnished copies of her verses, may be disappointed at seeing so few of them selected for use. Readers of another class will regret that more of the minute particulars of her missionary-life are not given; as, the precise number of schools in which she was at different times engaged, her efforts for individual conversion, &c. &c. Others again, will recollect the letters which were so interesting to them, and, forgetting that very few can read them with their eyes and hearts, will wonder that such pleasant memorials of her they loved should not be placed within the reach of all. To each of these I would reply, that in taking a view of her whole life, my first aim has been to preserve the nice balance, the faultless symmetry of her character; to present her as she appeared under all circumstances-the Woman and the Christian. And, in the second place, I have thought it not amiss to make some sacrifices to brevity. She had a poetic eye and heart-a genial love for the flowers, the streams, the stars, the beautiful in nature and whatever is pure and elevated in man-but she was not a mere poetess. As a Christian, she was most ardently attached to the service which occupied so large a portion of her life; but it would be unjust to represent her in the light of a mere missionary. If she had kept a journal, however, many interesting circumstances, now buried in the grave with her, would doubtless have been elicited; and her missionary course might have been more distinctly traced. The peculiar character of her letters has been mentioned elsewhere; but in recurring to them here, it may be proper to remark, that names and dates have been usually omitted, because the quotations are so short and frequent that their insertion would give the page the air of a chronological table. For brevity's sake, I have taken the liberty, in two or three instances, of incorporating a quotation from one letter with some sentence from another on the same subject; and have sometimes dropped a clause having no direct bearing on the point which I wished to elucidate. Entire letters, however, stand precisely as she wrote them. Yet another reason may be added for having introduced her poems so sparingly. Unfinished as they were, they did not meet the approval of her own cultivated taste; and, after she left America, none were ever published by her permission. My selections have usually been made with reference to some circumstance in her life; and, among the various copies of these in my possession, I have of course preferred that which seemed in my own judgment the best. Rangoon, June 1st, 1847. The Subject. "SARAH BOARDMAN JUDSON, was born at Alstead, in the State of New-Hampshire, Nov. 4, 1803. She was the eldest child of Ralph and Abiah Hall, who still survive her, and at present reside in Skaneateles, in the State of New-York. While Sarah was but a child, her parents removed from Alstead to Danvers, and subsequently to Salem, in the State of Massachusetts. In the latter place she received her education and continued to reside, until she was married to the Rev. George Dana Boardman, July 4, 1825, with whom she embarked the same month for the East Indies, to join the American missionaries in Burmah. After residing some time at Calcutta and Maulmain, they settled in Tavoy, April 1, 1828. During her residence in Calcutta and Tavoy she had three children, of whom one only, George Dana Boardman, Jr., born August 18, 1828, survives her. She lost her husband Feb. 11, 1831, and was married again to Adoniram Judson, of Maulmain, April 10, 1834. At Maulmain she became the mother of eight children, of whom five survive her. After the birth of her last child, in Dec., 1844, she was attacked with chronic diarrhoea, from which she had suffered much in the early part of her missionary life. When in the progress of the disease, it became evident that nothing but a long voyage and an entire change of climate could save her life, she embarked with her husband and three elder children for America, April 26, 1845. The voyage was at first attended with encouraging results, but finally proved unavailing; and she departed this life on ship-board, in the port of St. Helena, Sept. 1, 1845." BAPTIST MISSIONARY MAGAZINE. Memoir. Chapter I.-EARLY DAYS. "Well, let it be, through weal and voe, And thou a thing of hope and change." Joanna Baillie. HERE are many persons yet living, that have a distinct remembrance of a fair young girl, who years ago had her home in the pleasant town She came thither, of Salem, Massachusetts. (to use her own pretty words, penned in early childhood,) from among "beautiful groves, orchards filled with fruit trees, and gently gliding streams;" and she expresses, in the same connection, some dissatisfaction with exchanging all these pleasant things, for "nothing but houses and steeples." If you question those who have her portrait in their hearts, they will speak of faultless features, moulded on the Grecian model; of beautifully transpa |