“His predilection for neatness, uniformity, and order amounted, indeed, to a passion. Then he had an innate sort of refinement about him, which would subject him to annoyance when a less sensitive person would only be amused—a most inconvenient qualification for a missionary. This passion for order—which I should rather consider an unconquerable love for the beautiful and elegant, studiously perverted—displayed itself rather oddly after the means for its natural gratification and development were cut off. Nobody ever luxuriated more in perfectly spotless linen, though, partly from necessity, and partly because there was a suspicion among his friends that he would wear no other, it was always coarse. The tie of the narrow black ribbon, which he wore instead of a neckcloth, was perfect, and the ribbon itself would not have soiled the purest snow, though it was often limp and rusty from frequent washing. His general dress was always clean, and adjusted with scrupulous exactness, though it often looked as if it might have belonged to some rustic of the last century, being of the plainest material, and in fashion the American idea of what was proper for a missionary, perpetuated in broad caricature by a bungling Bengalee tailor. Most people thought that he dressed oddly from a love of eccentricity; but the truth is, he was not in the least aware of anything peculiar in his costume, never seeing himself in a mirror larger than his pocket toilet-glass. He could see his feet, however; and his shoes never had a spot on their polish, nor the long, white, carefully-gartered stockings a wrinkle, much less a stain. In the construction and arrangement of his unique studying apparatus, which was composed of two long, narrow boxes mounted on a teak table, there was the same mixture of plainness with neatness and order, and, what was rather conspicuous in all his arrangements, a wonderful capacity for convenience. No one ever thought of invading his study corner; for he dusted his books and papers himself, and knew so well where everything was placed, that he could have laid his hand upon the smallest article in the darkest night.”
A nature amply endowed with these fine sensibilities must have instinctively shrunk from the filth of the dungeon and the squalor of the prisoners; while the constrained and crowded position, night and day, and the galling fetters, were almost unendurable.
There was also much to shock his moral nature. He found himself thrown into close association with the basest criminals of the Burman capital. His pure look rested upon their repulsive features, his reluctant ears were filled with their vulgar and blasphemous jests. Besides this, again and again he saw the wretched prisoner tortured with the cord and the mallet, and was forced to hear the writhing victim’s shriek of anguish.
Again, he was a man of the strongest and tenderest affections. What keen mental anguish must he have experienced at the thought of his beloved wife threading alone the hot, crowded streets, hourly exposed to the insults of rude Burman officials; day by day bringing or sending food to the jail; assuaging the wretchedness of the prisoners by bribing their keepers; pleading for the release of her husband with one Burman officer after another, and with such pathetic eloquence that on one occasion she melted to tears even the old governor of the prison; giving birth to her babe during a confinement of only twenty days; carrying her little Maria all the way in her arms to that “never-to-be-forgotten place,” Oung-pen-la, her only conveyance a rough cart, the violent motion of which, together with the dreadful heat and dust, made her almost distracted; nursing her infant and the little native girls under her care through a course of small-pox; and at last, broken down herself, and brought to death’s door by the same loathsome disease, succeeded by the dread spotted fever.