The Frightened Skeptic
Adoniram Judson
"Jacob, I agree with you. The Bible is no different from the Koran or the other sacred scriptures of the world. Jesus Christ was only a good man. But I cannot tell my parents. At least, not for a while."
Adoniram Judson, honor student at Brown University, was talking to his closest friend, Jacob Eames. Adoniram's father, pastor of the Third Congregational Church of Plymouth, had sent him to Brown with great hopes. Adoniram had consistently led his class in grades, but he had also fallen into company with Jacob Eames, a persuasive unbeliever.
At graduation time, Adoniram's parents proudly rode down to Providence to see their nineteen-year-old son receive the valedictory honors. Adoniram dazzled the audience with his valedictory address on the subject of free enquiry, but he never so much as hinted to his parents that he had become an unbeliever.
Back home in the parsonage, young Adoniram opened the Plymouth Independent Academy. Each day after teaching the children of local blue bloods, he turned his energies to writing. By the following summer he had two textbooks ready for publication.
All the while he played the hypocrite, piously taking part in family worship and faithfully attending church
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on Sunday. As he reflected upon his hypocrisy, he felt sickened and bored.
"I should like to go to New York and write for the stage," he announced to his parents one day.
He had anticipated their reaction. New York in 1807, to godly Congregationalists, was the final touch of depravity. They reacted as if he had announced his decision to commit suicide.
They reasoned, begged, and mildly threatened him. Finally, the elder Mr. Judson said with a bit of exasperation, "Why don't you study to be a minister, if you don't like teaching?"
At that Adoniram was infuriated. He poured out the truth that their God was not his God, that he did not believe in the Bible or in the divinity of Christ.
They were shocked and deeply disturbed. His father argued with him. His mother begged and prayed with tears.
In the end, Adoniram won out. Tall and straight he rode toward Albany to take passage to New York.
The steamship on which he booked passage, the Clermont, was the first successful steamboat in American history. But this was no omen for its passenger. There was no fortune or fame for him in New York. After a few weeks of a vagabond's life, he traveled back to an uncle's home, secured a horse, and rode west, sure only that he would not return to Plymouth and his father's parsonage. When night drew on, he took lodging at a village inn.
"I have a room, but it's next to one in which a young man is critically ill," the landlord said. "He might die during the night."
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Adoniram was unimpressed. He needed a place to rest.
But rest did not come for him. Through the night he heard the sounds in the next room — low voices, people moving about on the creaking floor, weird moans and gasps. He could not stop thinking about death. How would he face the enemy which his father would welcome as the doorway to God? His philosophy had no answer, beyond earthly life.
Sleep finally came in the early morning hours. He awoke with sunlight streaming through his window. But there was no sunlight in his heart. He trudged wearily downstairs and asked for his bill.
"How is the sick man?" he asked, trying to sound casual.
"Dead." The innkeeper hardly looked up when he replied.
"Too bad," Adoniram replied respectfully. "Did you know him?"
The innkeeper's words sent Adoniram's mind reeling. "A fellow from the college in Providence. He registered as Jacob Eames."
Adoniram rode away along a country road. Where was his old friend, Jacob Eames, now that he had died? Suddenly he had the feeling that his father's God was true — that Jacob Eames' beliefs had failed him. He reined in his horse, whirled the animal around, and galloped toward Plymouth.
Back home, Adoniram weighed the arguments for the truth of his father's faith. It took several long sessions with some distinguished Christian thinkers, but finally he was assured in his mind and heart that the
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Bible was true. On a bleak day in December — one he never forgot — he dedicated himself fully to God.
His dedication led him into the ministry. The largest church in Boston sought his services. But his dedication went further than Boston.
Twelve days after his marriage to beautiful Ann Hasseltine, he sailed with his bride to Burma.
There he toiled for six years before rejoicing in his first convert. He labored on despite the death of his loved ones, and despite imprisonment and torture by the Burmese king.
In 1850, the year of his death, he completed the first Burmese Bible and finished most of the first Burmese-English dictionary. In the years afterward, abundant fruit came from his labors. By the one-hundredth anniversary of his death, missionaries had counted almost two hundred thousand Christians in Burma — a glorious tribute to the young scholar who had found faith after the death of his skeptical college friend.
