However, in the meantime, I'm trying to record some good quotes from the life of Adinoram Judson, who set out with the first party of overseas American Missionaries. This is from the book To the Golden Shore by Courtney Anderson (male).
In his younger years, as he was thinking of taking a major pastorate in Boston:
As he [Adinoram] toyed with this pleasing prospect, half-smiling as he imagined the sea of admiring faces staring up as him from the crowded pews, he began to be aware of a feeling of uneasiness. Without realizing how it happened, he found himself comparing this minister with an obscure country pastor, humbly striving only to bring his congregation and himself to God, without any thought of self. The minister in whose place he had imagined himself was really no better than any other ambitious man, anxious only for fame. What would the judgment be on him in the next world? If he achieved heaven, he would certainly not achieve fame in heaven. It would be the obscure country pastor whose fame would ring out there through eternity, even though he were never heard of here. The world was wrong about its heroes. The world was wrong in its judgments. The fame of the unknown country pastor was really the greater - so much greater that any worldly accomplishment shrank into insignificance. This was the only fame that triumphed over the grave...
He had always wanted to be truly religious. He had been learning the lessons of religious since he first understood words. Yet how could he be religious and accomplish any ambition in this world?
And this is an excerpt of the letter that he wrote to the father of his future wife (Nancy), asking for permission to marry his daughter:
I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure of the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degredation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?
I have the sudden urge to do likewise (well, if I had a girlfriend).
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