It was plain that the mission had little chance of succeeding, unless some sanction could be obtained from royalty; and Mr. Judson therefore determined to go to Ava and petition the Emperor to grant him permission to teach at Rangoon. So he obtained a pass from the Viceroy "to go up to the golden feet, and lift up our eyes to the golden face," and hired a boat to take him and Mr. Colman, with ten oarsmen, a headman, a steersman, a washerman, and two cooks, of whom Moung Nau was one. They had invited Shwaygnong to accompany them, but he refused, though he appeared waving his hand to them on the bank as they pushed off from the land. They took with them, as the most appropriate present, a Bible, bound in six volumes, in gold leaf, intending to ask permission to translate it.
They arrived at Ava on the 28th of January, 1820, and beheld the gilded roofs of the pagodas and palace. Two English residents welcomed them, and Mya-day-men, the Viceroy who had been their friend at Rangoon, undertook to present them to the Emperor.
They were taken to the palace, and were explaining their wishes to the Prime Minister, Moung Zah, when it was announced that "the golden foot was about to advance," and he had to hasten to attend the Emperor. The dome whither the missionaries followed him was dazzling with splendour, very lofty, and supported on pillars entirely covered with gold, and forming long avenues, through one of which the Emperor advanced alone, with the proud gait and majesty of an Eastern monarch, with a gold-sheathed sword in his hand. Every one prostrated his forehead in the dust except the two Americans, who merely knelt with folded hands. He paused before them, and demanded who they were.
"The teachers, great king," replied Mr. Judson.
"What? You speak Burmese-the priests that I heard of last night? When did you arrive? Are you like the Portuguese priests? Are you married?" and so on, he asked; then placing himself on a high seat, with his hand on the hilt of his sword, he listened to the petition read aloud by Moung Zah. He then held out his hand for it; Moung Zah crawled forward and gave it; the Emperor read it through to himself, and held out his hand for the little tract which was handed to him in like manner. The hearts of the missionaries throbbed with hope and prayer; but, after reading the two first sentences, the Emperor threw it from him, and when the gift was presented would not notice it. The answer communicated through Moung Zah was: "In regard to the objects of your petition, his Majesty gives no order. In regard to your sacred books, his Majesty has no use for them; take them away." Something was said of Colman's skill in medicine; upon which the Emperor desired that both should be taken to the Portuguese priest, who acted as his physician, to ascertain whether they could be useful in that line, and then lay down on his cushions to listen to music.
They were taken two miles to the residence of the Portuguese, who of course perceived that they brought no wonderful secret of medicine, and then returned to their boat. They afterwards saw Moung Zah in private, and heard that the Burmese laws tolerated foreign religions, but that there was no security for natives who embraced them, and that it was an unpardonable offence even to propose it. The English collector went to the Emperor, but could obtain nothing from him but permission for them to return to Rangoon, where they might find some of their countrymen to teach. There was no actual prohibition against teaching Burmese subjects, but there was no security that the converts would not be persecuted; and the collector told them that fifteen years previously a Burmese teacher who had been converted by the Portuguese, and had even visited Rome, was denounced on his return by his nephew and commanded to recant. On his refusal, he was tortured with the iron mall-hammered, namely, from his feet upwards till he was all one livid wound as far as his breast, pronouncing the name of Christ at every blow. Some persons at last told the Emperor that he was a mere madman, on which he was spared, and the Portuguese contrived to send him away to Bengal, where he died. The nephew was high in the favour of the present Sovereign, who was besides far more attached than his grandfather had ever been to the Buddhist doctrine. Only four Portuguese clergy were in the country, and they confined themselves to ministrations to the descendants of the converts of the old Jesuit mission, instead of attempting to extend their Church. Nothing was to be done but to return to Rangoon, and for this a passport was necessary, the obtaining of which cost thirty dollars in presents. Mr. Judson was advised also to procure a royal order for personal protection, otherwise, when it became known that the royal patronage had been refused, he might be molested by ill-disposed persons; but finding that this would be exceedingly costly, he preferred "trusting in the Lord to keep us and our poor disciples."
It was encouraging that at Pyece, a place on the banks of the Irrawaddy, the missionaries met Shwaygnong, who had come thither to visit a sick friend, and came on board eagerly to know the result of their journey. They told him all, even of the good confession beneath the iron mall, and he seemed less affected and intimidated than they expected, though he had nearly made up his mind to cast in his lot with them. "If I die, I shall die in a good cause," he said. "I know it is the cause of truth." And then he repeated his actual faith: "I believe in the Eternal God, in His Son Jesus Christ, in the Atonement which Christ has made, and in the writings of the Apostles as the true and one Word of God." He also said he had never, since their last conversation, lifted up his folded hands before a pagoda, though on the day of worship, to avoid persecution, he would walk up one side of the building and down the other. To this Mr. Judson replied, "You may be a disciple of Christ in heart, but you are not a full disciple. You have not faith and resolution enough to keep all the commands of Christ, particularly that which commands you to be baptized though in the face of persecution and death. Consider the words of JESUS-'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.'"
He listened in profound silence, and with the manner with which he always received what he considered deeply; but there was still a long struggle to come, and many fluctuations, and the simpler minds were the stay and comfort of the missionaries, when on their return to Rangoon they considered what steps to take. Their first proposal was to move to a district between Bengal and Arracan, where were several Christian natives now destitute of a pastor, and where the language was very like Burmese, though the place was beyond the power of the Emperor, and to take their three baptized converts with them. Nau and Thaahlah were ready to follow them everywhere, but Byaay was married, and no Burmese woman was allowed to leave the country. He, with several others who were on the point of conversion, entreated the missionaries not to leave them, and Thaahlah made a remarkable speech. "Be it remembered," he said, "that this work is not yours or ours, but the work of God. If He give light, the religion will spread."
It was decided, according to the earnest wish of these poor people, that they should not be deserted till there were enough of them to form a congregation and have a teacher from among themselves set over them, and this-as the sect to which the Judsons belonged has no form of setting apart for the ministry-was all that they regarded as requisite. The Arracan converts were not, however, to be neglected, and Mr. Colman therefore was to go to Chittagong, and there establish a station, which might receive those from Rangoon in case it should become needful to leave the place. He was doing well there, when he died from an attack of fever.
The Judsons remained, and held their worship in the zayat on Sunday with the doors closed and only the initiated present; but it seemed as if the fear of losing their teachers quickened the zeal of the Christian converts in bringing their friends to inquire. Shwaygnong had long been unconsciously preparing the way by his philosophical instructions, going so much deeper than the popular Buddhism, and he brought several of his pupils, both male and female, telling them that "he had found the true wisdom;" but he still hung back. {f:137} Mr. Judson suspected him of wanting a companion of his own rank to keep him in countenance, and doubted whether it were fear of the world or pride of heart that kept him back; but he seems to have had a genuine battle with his own sceptical spirit, and the acceptance of such ordinances as the Baptists required was a difficulty to him. Four or five later converts were baptized before him, and at last he kept away from the mission for so long that Mr. Judson thought they had lost him; but when he reappeared it turned out that he had been ill with fever, and had had much sickness in his family, and had meantime fought out his mental conflict, and made up his mind to the full acceptance of Christianity at all risks.