Part 12

VI.

ELEANOR MACOMBER, OF BURMAH.

Almost all the heroines who have gone forth from the churches of America to dot heathen soil with their lowly graves have been attended by some stronger arm than that of weak, defenceless woman. Many of them have had husbands on whom they relied for support and protection, and to whom they could turn with the assurance of sympathy in hours of anguish and gloom.

But Miss Macomber went out attended by no such kind companion. She resolved on a missionary life, without the offer of marriage being connected with it. No husband helped her decide the momentous question; and when she resolved, it was to go alone. Impelled by the Christian's high and holy motives, she determined on a course which would involve her in a thousand perplexities and load her with a thousand cares. With none to share these cares and perplexities, with no heart to keep time with the wild beatings of her own, she crossed, a friendless woman, the deep, dark ocean, and on soil never trodden by the feet of Christian men erected the banner of the cross.

Eleanor Macomber was born at Lake Pleasant, Hamilton county, New York. Here her childhood and youth were passed, and here was her mind prepared for that career of usefulness which in after years made her an ornament to her sex, to the church, and to the world.

From Lake Pleasant she removed to Albany, where her heart was brought into subjection to the divine will and her mind impressed with the great truths of revelation. She became a convert to the religion of the cross. She became a convert to tears, to prayers, to self-denying labors, to a life of sacrifice and devotion. Her piety was from henceforth of the highest character, and all her daily deportment gave evidence of her love to the Savior.

In 1830 she was sent out by the Missionary Board, of the Baptist denomination, as a teacher among the Ojibwas, at Sault de Ste. Marie, in Michigan. This was her first missionary work, and she continued engaged in it nearly four years, when, in the mysterious providence of God, her health failed, and she was obliged to return to her friends. But the great Head of the church, in removing her from one field of labor, was only preparing her for another. In 1836 she became connected with the Karen mission, and a more extended field of usefulness was thrown open before her. She sailed from this country in the ship Louvre, and arrived in Maulmain in the autumn of the same year.

After her arrival she was stationed at Dong-Yahn, about thirty-five miles from Maulmain. Here she lived and labored almost alone, doing the great work which was assigned her. In the midst of discouragements she fainted not, but performed labors and endured afflictions almost incredible. When she arrived at the scene of her future labors her heart was affected at what she saw. Vice and sin reigned triumphant. The most odious, disgusting, and blasphemous crimes were committed. On every hand intemperance and sensuality were observable. She immediately commenced in their midst the worship of God. On the Sabbath the people were drawn together to hear about the blessed Jesus; and the story of the cross was told with all the sweetness of woman's piety. During the week her house was thrown open for morning and evening prayers. A school was soon gathered under her persevering labors: ten or twelve pupils gathered into it.

Mr. Osgood, who accompanied Miss Macomber from Maulmain to her field of labor, and whose duty required him to leave her there, an unprotected stranger, in the midst of a brutal, drunken community of heathen barbarians, writes as follows of her place of toil and her feelings on her arrival:--

"We ascended the Salwen River about twenty-five miles, and slept in our boats the first night. On the morning of the next day, December 20, we procured a guide and proceeded overland, following the line of the Zuagaben Mountains, to the house of one of the chiefs, about ten miles. The chief and most of the inhabitants were absent, attending the burning of a Burman priest. I immediately despatched a messenger for him, and in the mean time took up lodgings in his house, to wait his return. Two or three men and several females and children spent the greater part of the afternoon and evening with us, hearing sister M. read from the books which have already been written in their language. We, however, soon found that we had arrived in a most unpropitious time; for almost every man in the vicinity was in a state of beastly intoxication.

"On the morning of the 21st, as the chief did not arrive, we concluded to return about half way to the river, with a view to exploring the country, and in hopes of meeting the chief on his return, and holding a conference with him and several other principal men relative to the objects of the mission. Having proceeded as far as we intended, and waited some time in vain for his arrival, I concluded to go in person and endeavor to prevail upon him to return, as my business would not allow of protracted absence from home. On arriving at the place of the feast we found a large concourse of people, consisting of Burmans, Peguans, Karens, and Toung-thoos, who were assembled upon an extensive plain to pay the last tribute of respect to a Burman priest that had been some months dead and was now to be burned. The body was mounted upon an immensely large car, decorated according to Burman custom, to which were attached ropes, made of grass, three or four hundred feet long. With these the car was drawn about the plain, levelling, in its course, every obstacle.

"After some little search we found the chief men, the objects of our pursuit, but so completely drunk that all attempts to induce them to return with us were entirely fruitless. We immediately returned to the house of the chief where we had lodged the previous night. In the evening the chief returned, but so intoxicated as to be entirely unfit for business.

"We rose early on the morning of the 22d to take advantage of the effect of the night's rest upon our host, and obtained the privilege of a few minutes' conversation. He gave us permission to build in any place we saw fit to select; but before I had fixed upon a place he was again missing. After selecting a place and making the necessary preparations for building, I prepared to return to Maulmain. Until this time our dear sister Macomber had borne the trials of the journey and the prospect of being left alone without the least appearance of shrinking; but when the moment of separation came, the thought of being left, without a friend in the midst of a drunken people, and even in the house of a man completely besotted with ardent spirits, and at a distance of thirty miles or more from any civilized society, with scarcely a sufficient knowledge of the language to make known her wants, was too much for the delicate feelings of a female to endure; and she could only give vent to the emotions of her heart by a flood of tears. She soon, however, recovered her self-possession, and resolved to cast herself upon the merciful protection of her heavenly Father, and to pursue what seemed to her to be the path of duty."

But the laborer did not long toil in vain. In less than one year, a church of natives, converted through her instrumentality, was formed and placed under the care of Rev. Mr. Stephens. The people changed beneath the influence of divine grace. Intemperance, sensuality, and other vices gradually disappeared; and morality, solemnity, virtue, and religion took their places. The Sabbath day was respected; and in the jungle and thicket the voice of prayer was often heard. Jesus and the cross received thought; and the great idea of salvation by grace was pondered and believed.

In a few months the little church planted through her instrumentality numbered more than twenty persons, who continued faithful in the duties and practices of the disciples. Her feelings towards the little band of Christians gathered by her in the very wilderness of sin are represented as having been very strong and earnest. Her language was, when speaking of the church,--

"For her my tears shall fall, For her my prayers ascend, To her my toils and cares be given, Till toils and cares shall end."

She was an intelligent missionary. Her mind was of superior order, and reason held even balance. Her zeal for the truth was not a blind, headlong enthusiasm, which sparkles, and glitters, and comes to an end, but a zeal founded on the wants and woes of a perishing world. She measured the depths of heathen degradation and estimated the worth of souls, and went to work calmly, philosophically, and earnestly.

The faith which she carried forth was well studied and fully understood. She had a reason to give for the hope which was in her and which she so fondly cherished. She was able to defend it--to develop its glories--to show its superiority to any and all the forms of heathenism. The kindness of her own heart led her not only to appreciate the superior excellence of the gospel, but also to feel most deeply for the degraded Karens. Towering far above them in the majesty of intellect and the grandeur of thought, she sought to inspire them with feelings kindred to her own. Her high ambition was, to lift the race from its fallen position, save the people from their prevalent vices, enlighten the minds of the young, and improve and regenerate the hearts of all.

She thought it not inconsistent with her true dignity, as a woman possessing a high order of intellect, to bring her mind into contact with the most degraded of the human family, if by so doing she could be the means of saving some and improving others. Hence she studied to do good. The energies of her mind were placed under contribution to furnish arguments by which the heathen mind might be convinced and the heathen heart subdued. She met the strongest objections to the new faith; she answered the questions of the cavilling priest; she reasoned with the common people from the law and the gospel, until enough were converted to form a church of our Lord Jesus.

She was a laborious missionary. All our missionaries are laborers. The work itself compels toil; and it cannot be avoided. But few go into it with an idea of ease and personal aggrandizement; and that few are disappointed. The great enterprise is in itself a hardship; and however cheerfully it may be borne for Jesus and a dying world, it cannot be carried on without immense labor and sacrifice on the part of the missionaries.

But the noble woman of whom we write was in labors more abundant. She even went beyond what was expected of a most faithful servant of God: she exerted herself to an extent which but few others have done, and gathered a reward in proportion to her labors. Others have suffered more and had a more checkered life; but none have put forth greater exertions to accomplish a given result.

Indeed, the spectacle of a weak, friendless, lone woman removing from Maulmain to Dong-Yahn, and there, with no husband, no father, no brother, establishing public worship, opening her house for prayer and praise, and gathering schools in the midst of wild and unlettered natives, is one full of moral grandeur. The idea of performing such a work alone, the idea of a defenceless woman going into a besotted nation, among a drunken, sensual people, and lifting them up to the privileges of a refined faith, a pure religion, is an idea worthy of an angel. This idea entered the mind of our subject, became a part of herself, and was carried out in her life.

Not content with sitting down and teaching all who came to her, she went out to the surrounding tribes, and, for miles around, preached salvation to the dying. In these excursions she was generally attended by one or two converts, who formed her escort and guard, and performed that part of the labor which could not be brought within the province of woman. In this heroic and romantic manner she travelled from place to place, fording rivers, crossing deep ravines, climbing high hills and mountains, entering the dwellings of the poor, sitting beside the bed of the dying, rebuking the sinful, and every where preaching the doctrines of salvation.

The spectacle was one which affected even the heathen heart; and this estimable woman was respected and loved even by those who scorned the gospel and hated Christ. She had "a more excellent way;" and that excellence was exhibited in every step of her progress. As she approached the towns and villages, on her excursions of mercy, she was often met by enthusiastic crowds, who welcomed her with joy, and led her to the homes of the dying, and besought her aid. Most females would have fainted under her toils and turned back from the amount of work to be performed; but gifted with wisdom and strength from on high, endowed with powers not her own, she continued until a church was gathered and the foundation laid for a prosperous mission.

She was a pious missionary. Doubtless much of the success which crowned the efforts of Miss Macomber must be attributed, not to the brilliancy of her intellect, not to the vigor of her mind, not to the vast labor performed, but to the piety of her heart. It was this which induced her to go out; she had no other motive in leaving home and all the joys of kindred and native land. It was this that induced her to plant the cross where the name of Jesus had not been preached; to go alone, a friendless woman, in the midst of savages; to brave sickness, disease, and death itself, in order to utter notes of salvation which should fall on dying ears like strains from heaven. It was this which sent her, like an angel of mercy, to the homes of the weary, to the abodes of sickness, to the hovels of want, to dens of crime, to whisper rebuke in one place and consolation in another.

She gave ample evidence that her heart had been baptized in the Holy Spirit; that her mind had come into contact with the great truths of revelation; that she had been to the cross and received an impulse from the spectacle of death there witnessed; that her heart had bled at scenes of woe which every where abound on heathen soil; that, in the majesty of humble faith and trust in the Divinity, she had resolved to die in the holy work to which God and the church had assigned her.

We not unfrequently behold the most lovely exhibitions of piety in Christian communities. We see religion doing its holy work in the lives of its professors; we contemplate instances of piety and devotion which seem to be more of heaven than earth; but never can be witnessed in Christian lands those sublime trophies of godliness which we find on shores which are covered with heathen abomination. We must leave home, we must cross the ocean, we must follow Harriet Newell through all her sufferings, until she finds an early grave. We must follow Ann H. Judson to the dungeons of Ava, to the damp, cold prisons of the East, to her home of suffering and death. We must trace the course of Miss Macomber from Maulmain to her new residence at Dong-Yahn; we must see her on her excursions into the surrounding province, and listen to her teachings as around her a rude group gather to hear of Jesus.

Here is piety in its most lovely form. Here is godliness in its most divine attire. Here is pure religion, which is undefiled before God. In these cases we see what cannot be witnessed at home, and what thousands of pious women would shrink from as impracticable and impossible.