“On our passage homeward, as the strength of Mrs. Judson gradually declined, I expected to be under the painful necessity of burying her in the sea. But it was so ordered by divine Providence, that, when the indications of approaching death had become strongly marked, the ship came to anchor in the port of St. Helena. For three days she continued to sink rapidly, though her bodily sufferings were not very severe. Her mind became liable to wander; but a single word was sufficient to recall and steady her recollection. On the evening of the 31st of August she appeared to be drawing near to the end of her pilgrimage. The children took leave of her, and retired to rest. I sat alone by the side of her bed during the hours of the night, endeavoring to administer relief to the distressed body and consolation to the departing soul. At two o’clock in the morning, wishing to obtain one more token of recognition, I roused her attention, and said, ‘Do you still love the Saviour?’ ‘O, yes,’ she replied, ‘I ever love the Lord Jesus Christ.’ I said again, ‘Do you still love me?’ She replied in the affirmative, by a peculiar expression of her own. ‘Then give me one more kiss’; and we exchanged that token of love for the last time. Another hour passed, life continued to recede, and she ceased to breathe. For a moment I traced her upward flight, and thought of the wonders which were opening to her view. I then closed her sightless eyes, dressed her, for the last time, in the drapery of death, and being quite exhausted with many sleepless nights, I threw myself down and slept. On awaking in the morning, I saw the children standing and weeping around the body of their dear mother, then, for the first time, inattentive to their cries. In the course of the day a coffin was procured from the shore, in which I placed all that remained of her whom I had so much loved; and after a prayer had been offered by a dear brother minister from the town, the Rev. Mr. Bertram, we proceeded in boats to the shore. There we were met by the colonial chaplain, and accompanied to the burial-ground by the adherents and friends of Mr. Bertram, and a large concourse of the inhabitants. They had prepared the grave in a beautiful, shady spot, contiguous to the grave of Mrs. Chater, a missionary from Ceylon, who had died in similar circumstances on her passage home. There I saw her safely deposited, and in the language of prayer, which we had often presented together at the throne of grace, I blessed God that her body had attained the repose of the grave and her spirit the repose of Paradise. After the funeral, the dear friends of Mr. Bertram took me to their houses and their hearts; and their conversation and prayers afforded me unexpected relief and consolation. But I was obliged to hasten on board ship, and we immediately went to sea. On the following morning no vestige of the island was discernible in the distant horizon. For a few days, in the solitude of my cabin, with my poor children crying around me, I could not help abandoning myself to heart-breaking sorrow. But the promises of the Gospel came to my aid, and faith stretched her view to the bright world of eternal life, and anticipated a happy meeting with those beloved beings whose bodies are mouldering at Amherst and St. Helena.
“I exceedingly regret that there is no portrait of the second, as of the first Mrs. Judson. Her soft blue eye, her mild aspect, her lovely face, and elegant form have never been delineated on canvas. They must soon pass away from the memory even of her children, but they will remain forever enshrined in her husband’s heart.
“To my friends at St. Helena I am under great obligation. I desire to thank God for having raised up in that place a most precious religious interest. The friends of the Redeemer rallied around an evangelical minister immediately on his arrival, and within a few months several souls were added to their number. Those dear, sympathizing, Christian friends received the body of the deceased from my hands as a sacred deposit, united with our kind captain, John Codman, Jr., of Dorchester, in defraying all the expenses of the funeral, and promised to take care of the grave, and see to the erection of the gravestones which I am to forward, and on which I propose to place the following inscription:
“‘Sacred to the memory of Sarah B. Judson, member of the American Baptist mission to Burmah, formerly wife of the Rev. George D. Boardman, of Tavoy, and lately wife of the Rev. Adoniram Judson, of Maulmain, who died in this port, September 1, 1845, on her passage to the United States, in the forty-second year of her age, and in the twenty-first of her missionary life.
“‘She sleeps sweetly here, on this rock of the ocean, Away from the home of her youth, And far from the land where, with heartfelt devotion, She scattered the bright beams of truth.’”