Her decision to become a foreign missionary must have required great heroism, for, thus far, no woman had ever left America as a missionary to the heathen. Public sentiment was against her going. It was thought to be wild and romantic. One good lady said to another, “I hear that Miss Hasseltine is going to India! Why does she go?” “Why, she thinks it her duty. Wouldn’t you go if you thought it your duty?” “But,” replied the lady, with emphasis, “I would not think it my duty!”[5]
On the 5th of February, 1812, Mr. Judson was married to Ann Hasseltine, at Bradford. Two days before, at Plymouth, he had taken final leave of his parents. His brother Elnathan accompanied him to Boston. The journey was made on horseback. Elnathan had not yet been converted. While on the way the two dismounted, and among the trees by the roadside they knelt down and Adoniram offered a fervent prayer in behalf of his younger brother. Four days later they parted, never to meet again on earth. The wayside prayer was not unheeded in heaven. Years afterward Adoniram was permitted to have the assurance that the brother over whom his heart so fondly yearned became an “inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.”
On the 6th of February he received ordination at Salem from the Rev. Drs. Spring, Worcester, Woods, Morse, and Griffin; on the 7th he bade good-bye to his younger sister and companion of his childhood; and on the 19th embarked at Salem with Mrs. Judson and Mr. and Mrs. Newell, on the brig _Caravan_, Captain Heard, bound for Calcutta.
-----
Footnote 4:
Whittier’s “The Missionary.”
Footnote 5:
For further particulars concerning Miss Hasseltine’s early life the reader is referred to her biography, by the Rev. J. D. Knowles.