The Judson offering Author:John Dowling Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SKETCHES OF MISSIONARY LIFE. No. III.—THE FIRST BEREAVEMENT : H. NEWELL. EDITOR. " There is a calm for those -who weep, A Mst for weary pilgrims found. ... more »They softly lie and sweetly sleep Low in the ground.' Montgomery. Gratefully did the missionary wanderers ascend the deck of the Creole, and turn their eyes towards the Isle of France, comforted with the hope of at length finding a place where they could labor for God in peace. After a voyage of about seven weeks, they had arrived within sight of their destination, and were joyfully anticipating the delight of again meeting their beloved associates in labor and in sorrow, and of holding converse with them, relative to their past sufferings and disappointments, and their future plans of usefulness and duty. But another bitter cup awaits them, a cup which has already been drank to the very dregs by the disconsolate and heart-broken Newell, who comes on board to claim their prayers and their sympathies, as he tells them his devoted companion, the youthful and lovely Harriet, has fallen in death. The afflicted Mrs. Judson thus describes her feelings at this painful bereavement. — " Jan.17, 1813. Have at last arrived in port; but O what news, what distressing news ! Harriet is dead. Harriet, my dear friend, my earliest associate in the Mission, is no more. O death ! thou destroyer of domestic felicity, could not this wide world afford victims sufficient to satisfy thy cravings, without entering the family of a solitary few, whose comfort and happiness depended much on the society of each other ? Could not this infant Mission be shielded from thy shafts? But thou hast only executed the commission of a higher power. Though thou hast come, clothed in thy usual garb, thou was sent by a kind Father to release his child ...« less