“Let us not, then, regret the loss of those who have gone before us, and are waiting to welcome us home, nor shrink from the summons that must call us thither. Let us only resolve to follow them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. Let us so employ the remnant of life, and so pass away, that our successors will say of us, as we of our predecessors, ‘Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.’”
At Boston, July 11, 1846, Mr. and Mrs. Judson, in company with the newly-appointed missionaries, Miss Lillybridge, the Beechers, and the Harrises, embarked on the _Faneuil Hall_, Captain Hallett, bound for Maulmain. Many friends mingled in that farewell scene. He was leaving behind him fragrant memories. In many a household his prayers are cherished as a “precious benediction.” He had been entertained in the house of his friend, Gardner Colby, of Boston, and at the family altar he thus prayed for the family of his host: “May they, and their children, and their children’s children, in every generation to the end of time, follow each other in uninterrupted succession through the gates of glory,”[66] a prayer that has borne fruitage from that time until now. The Colbys came to the ship to bid him good-bye, and the Lincolns, and the Gillettes, and Mrs. Judson’s bosom friend, Miss Anna Maria Anable, with, among others, and dearer than all the rest, a slender youth of eighteen, the child of her who had been laid at rest at St. Helena, George Dana Boardman. But how, even at that hour, Mrs. Judson’s thoughts must have wandered again and again to the humble roof at Hamilton, beneath which her aged parents were commending their departing daughter to the heavenly Father’s merciful care!
_To my Father._
“A welcome for thy child, father, A welcome give to-day; Although she may not come to thee As when she went away; Though never in her olden nest Is she to fold her wing, And live again the days when first She learned to fly and sing.
“Oh, happy were those days, father, When gathering round thy knee, Seven sons and daughters called thee sire— We come again but three; The grave has claimed thy loveliest ones, And sterner things than death Have left a shadow on thy brow, A sigh upon thy breath.
“And one—one of the three, father, Now comes to thee to claim Thy blessing on another lot, Upon another name. Where tropic suns forever burn, Far over land and wave, The child, whom thou hast loved, would make Her hearthstone and her grave.
“Thou’lt never wait again, father, Thy daughter’s coming tread; She ne’er will see thy face on earth— So count her with thy dead; But in the land of life and love, Not sorrowing as now, She’ll come to thee, and come, perchance, With jewels on her brow.
“_Perchance_;—I do not know, father, If any part be given My erring hand, among the guides Who point the way to heaven; But it would be a joy untold Some erring foot to stay; Remember this, when, gathering round, Ye for the exile pray.
“Let nothing here be changed, father, I would remember all, Where every ray of sunshine rests, And where the shadows fall. And now I go; with faltering foot I pass the threshold o’er. And gaze, through tears, on that dear roof, My shelter nevermore.”
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Footnote 58:
Died in infancy.
Footnote 59:
See Map II.
Footnote 60:
In public speech.
Footnote 61:
By H. S. Washburn, Boston.
Footnote 62:
Mr. Thomas Nickerson, of Newton Centre.
Footnote 63:
I am indebted for this reminiscence to Mr. H. S. Washburn, of Boston.
Footnote 64:
The road has since been changed and now passes below the house.
Footnote 65:
The reader is referred to Dr. Kendrick’s Memoir of Mrs. E. C. Judson.
Footnote 66:
See the graceful sketch of “The Life and Character of Gardner Colby,” by his son, the Rev. Henry F. Colby.