Before proceeding directly to consider Mr. Judson’s life in Maulmain, it may be well to describe a peculiar phase of his mental and spiritual experience, which has been termed _Guyonism_. He seemed at one time to be inclined to embrace the mystical tenets of Thomas à Kempis, Fénélon, and Madame Guyon, and it was feared that he was leaning toward those monkish austerities which belong peculiarly to the spirit of the Roman Church. Certainly there are passages here and there in his writings which point in this direction. And yet, often in these extracts it can be discerned with what cautious and stealthy steps he trod the perilous pathway leading toward monastic asceticism. On the occasion of sending a gift of money to his sister in America, he writes:
“But I give it on the express condition that you appropriate part of it to purchase for yourself the life of Lady Guyon ... and I hope you will read it diligently, and endeavor to emulate that most excellent saint so far as she was right.”
Again, he wrote to a fellow-missionary:
“As to the other matter, the land of Beulah lies beyond the valley of the shadow of death. Many Christians spend all their days in a continual bustle, doing good. They are too busy to find either the valley or Beulah. Virtues they have, but are full of the life and attractions of nature, and unacquainted with the paths of mortification and death. Let us die as soon as possible, and by whatever process God shall appoint. And when we are dead to the world, and nature, and self, we shall begin to live to God.”
Again, to the missionaries at Maulmain he wrote:
“Particularly I would exhort brother Bennett to remember, among other things, the example of the Abbé de Paris, who, after having tried various modes of self-denial, in order to subdue his spirit, and gain the victory over the world, at length selected a crazy man to be the inmate of his miserable hovel. Now, though I am doubtful about self-inflicted austerities, I am quite sure that evangelical self-denial eminently consists in bearing patiently and gratefully all the inconveniences and pain which God in His providence, brings upon us, without making the least attempt to remove them, unless destructive of life or health, or, in one word, capacity for usefulness.”
The same pietistic vein may be found in the following resolutions, bearing date May 14, 1829:
“1. Observe the seven seasons of secret prayer every day.
“2. ‘Set a watch before my mouth, and keep the door of my lips.’
“3. See the hand of God in all events, and thereby become reconciled to His dispensations.
“4. Embrace every opportunity of exercising kind feelings, and doing good to others, especially to the household of faith.
“5. Consult the internal monitor on every occasion, and instantly comply with his dictates.
“6. Believe in the doctrine of perfect sanctification attainable in this life.”
It is also true that during this period of his life Mr. Judson withdrew himself from general society. When not directly engaged in missionary work, he spent many of his waking hours alone in a bamboo hermitage, built in the jungle far from humankind among the haunts of tigers. Here in his endeavor to crucify his passionate love of life he had a grave dug, and “would sit by the verge of it and look into it, imagining how each feature and limb would appear, days, months, and years after he had lain there.”
But concerning all these traces of a morbid inclination toward the monastic quietism of the Romish Church, there can be no more just and discriminating judgment than that expressed after his death by the tender and faithful companion of his latest years:
“About _Guyonism_ I only wish the papers were more numerous. There was no error of heart—scarcely one of judgment in it, but a peculiar mental organization, driven by suffering on suffering, by such bereavement as can never be appreciated in a land like this, and intensity of devotion, to a morbid development. A mind of less strength or a heart of less truthfulness and sincerity would have been wrecked, as many a noble one has been.... Strong enthusiasm of character often drove him into peculiar positions, but his sound judgment and elevated piety always carried him through triumphantly, turning often the natural temperament to good account.”
These excesses of self-mortification were the outcome of a transient and superficial mood rather than of his real and underlying character. The slow torture of the twenty-one months at Ava and Oung-pen-la had left behind a residuum of temporary enfeeblement. His strong mental vision was for a time beclouded by the mists which arose from his shattered physical constitution. The loss of wife and child at Amherst trod close upon the sufferings at Ava, and these gloomy views and practices were born during the long ensuing domestic solitude. The deep shadow of this loneliness lies athwart many of his letters.
_To Mrs. Hasseltine._