“The Bible cause in this country is now at a very low ebb. I once indulged the hope that I should live to see a complete copy of the whole Bible (bound in one volume, so as not to be liable to be scattered) deposited in every town and village throughout Burmah and Arracan. It is true that many thousand copies would be requisite; great hardships would be incurred and some sturdy perseverance would have to be put in requisition. But the work once accomplished, there would be seed sown throughout the country that, with the blessing of God, would spring up in abundant fruit to His glory. From the habits of the people who frequently assemble in large or small parties at the house of the schoolmaster, or chief person in the village, to listen to some one reading from a religious book, it appears to me that to deposit the Bible at the principal place of resort in every village is the least we can do for Burmah; and that such a plan will tell more effectually than any other to fill the country with the knowledge of divine truth.”
These views he greatly modified in his later years, as we learn from the following interesting passage in one of Mrs. E. C. Judson’s letters to Dr. Wayland:
“I do not know whether I ought to try to give Dr. J.’s opinion of the Old Testament, for two reasons: first, I do not know how much _he_ would have thought it best to express; and secondly, I can not be very positive what his opinions were. He was very fond of speculation, and had a habit, in private, of thinking aloud, so that although it was easy enough to learn his real views by asking, a mere listener would be liable to mistakes. My impression, drawn from many a long talk, is that he considered the Old Testament as the Scriptures given to the Jews especially, and, as a whole, applicable to them and them only. He did not like the distinction commonly drawn between the moral and ceremonial law, and sometimes spoke, with an earnestness amounting to severity, of the constant use made of the Ten Commandments by Christians. He thought the Old Testament very important, as explanatory and corroborative of the New—as a portion of the inspiration which came from God, etc., but binding on Christians only so far as repeated in the New Testament. He used to speak of the Mosaic law as fulfilled in Christ, and so having no further power whatever; and to say that we had no right to pick out this as moral and therefore obligatory, and the other as ceremonial, and so no longer demanding obedience. _Practically_ we had nothing to do with the Old Testament laws.
“I think he was of the opinion that the Bible, as a whole, without the living teacher, was of but little use, at least that it never ought to be regarded as a substitute. In the power of the Gospels to make their way among the heathen he had more faith. He had reason; for a great many Burmans owed their awakening, if not their conversion, to the Gospel of Matthew, though not more, perhaps, than to the ‘View’ and the ‘Golden Balance.’[51]
“I recollect, too, some remarks that he once made in this country about lazy Christians evading the obligation to preach the Gospel, or do good personally, by placing a Bible in the hands of those who would never read it; which compared very well with my impression of his views afterward. Perhaps you will recollect a remark in one of the letters to Mr. Hough, expressing a fear ‘that the Scriptures will be out of the press before there will be any church to read them.’
“In comparing what he has written, what I have heard him say, and the course he pursued, I am led to the conclusion that, though he regarded the Old Testament Scriptures as much more important while engaged in translating and revising, than afterward, the very study, the prayerful as well as critical examination necessary to the accomplishment of the work, led him by degrees to what some might consider a comparatively extravagant estimate of the New Testament—especially the Gospels. He preached almost exclusively from the teachings of Christ, during his last years; and when I once introduced some lessons from the Old Testament into my Bible-classes, he compared it to groping among shadows, when I might just as well have the noonday sun.
“He spoke also of his favoring the distribution of so many Bibles, after his revision, as the greatest mistake he ever made; though he said he was betrayed into it by Mr. ——’s wonderful reports and his own subsequent impression, that all Burmah was crying for books. He once said, in relation to a man who had stumbled on the Old Testament, and apostatized: ‘It is the last thing such a fellow as he ought even to have touched. I am more than ever convinced that _our_ business is to propagate the _Gospel_, scatter the good news of salvation, and let everything else alone.’