On these jungle trips he was always accompanied by a band of associates. He would take with him eight or ten disciples and dispatch them right and left up the tributaries of the Salwen. Two by two they would penetrate the wilderness, and meeting their teacher a few days later, would report to him the results of their labor. The Oriental, under good leadership, makes a faithful and intrepid follower. And Mr. Judson’s magnetism of character held his assistants to him with hooks of steel. He had the gift of getting work, and their best work, out of the converted natives. Promising boys and young men he took under his own instruction and qualified them to become teachers and ministers. His wise and far-reaching views on this primitive and indispensable kind of ministerial education may be learned from his letters to the Corresponding Secretary. His example might profitably be followed by ministers even in our own Christian land:
“MAULMAIN, _January_ 3, 1835.
... “My ideas of a seminary are very different from those of many persons. I am really unwilling to place young men, that have just begun to love the Saviour, under teachers who will strive to carry them through a long course of study, until they are able to unravel metaphysics, and calculate eclipses, and their souls become as dry as the one and as dark as the other. I have known several promising young men completely ruined by this process. Nor is it called for in the present state of the Church in Burmah. I want to see our young disciples thoroughly acquainted with the Bible from beginning to end, and with geography and history, so far as necessary to understand the Scriptures, and to furnish them with enlarged, enlightened minds. I would also have them carried through a course of systematic theology, on the plan, perhaps, of Dwight’s. And I would have them well instructed in the art of communicating their ideas intelligibly and acceptably by _word_ and by _writing_. So great is my desire to see such a system in operation, that I am strongly tempted, as nobody else is able to do anything just now, to make a beginning; and perhaps after brother Wade, who is excellently well capacitated for this department, has settled the Karen language with brother Mason, he will carry on what I shall begin, having both Karen and Burmese students under his care.”...
“MAULMAIN, _April_ 7, 1835.
“As to the subject of schools, and the preparation of young men for the ministry, my views are the same with those you have expressed. But I doubt the practicability of a ‘seminary’ all of a sudden. In looking at the subject in its various bearings for a considerable time, I see but one way; and I would respectfully propose that instructions be issued to every missionary, at every station, to collect around him a few boys and young men who may appear promising, and give them such instruction as may be consistent with his other duties; with a view of obtaining, in the course of a year or two, a contribution from each station of at least two or three students, who shall be sent to Maulmain, or Tavoy, or some other station, and thus gradually form a seminary, which shall continue to be sustained by supplies from the several stations, in the same way it was commenced.”
He had a characteristic way of paying his assistants, as may be learned from a letter of advice which he sends to Mr. Mason, who had just taken Mr. Boardman’s place at Tavoy:
“But I can assure you, from long experience, that you can seldom, if ever, satisfy Burmans, Talings, or Karens, by giving them stated, specified, known wages. However much it be, they will soon be murmuring for ‘more ’bacco,’ like their betters. Few of the natives that I pay know how much they get. No word on the subject ever passes between me and them. I contrive, at unequal intervals, to pop a paper of rupees—five, ten, or fifteen—into their hands, in the most arbitrary way, and without saying a word. But I take accurate note of every payment, and at the end of the year, or of the period for which they are employed, I manage to have paid them such a sum as amounts to so much per month, the rate agreed upon with my brethren. This plan occasions less trouble than one is apt to think at first; at any rate, not so much trouble as to be in hot water all the time about their ‘_wages_’. However, I only show you my anvil. Hammer your tools on it, or on another of your own invention, as you like.”
The following extracts from Mr. Judson’s journal describe his life in the jungle. They relate to his second tour among the Karens:
“WADESVILLE, _January_ 1, 1832.
“We set out from Maulmain, as purposed in my last, and leaving the Salwen on the west, and the Ataran on the east, we followed the Gyne and the Dah-gyne, as it is termed above its confluence with the Houng-ta-rau, which falls in from the east, and in three days reached this place, the distance being, by conjecture, above eighty miles. Accounts, on first arriving, are rather unfavorable.