CHAPTER VIII

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DEATH OF THEIR FIRST-BORN.--LETTERS FROM MRS. B.

In the spring of 1829 Mr. Boardman and his family made a short sea-voyage for the benefit of their health, Mrs. Boardman having experienced another attack of illness, and their little George being frail and puny. Indeed none of the family seemed to have been healthy but the "plump, rosy-cheeked" first-born, the darling Sarah, her mother's joy and pride, and--as her Heavenly Father saw--her _idol_ too! Terrible was the stroke that shattered that lovely idol; but it came--so faith assured her--from a father's hand. Sometime afterward she writes, "My ever dear Sister, I think I have not written you since the death of our beloved Sarah, which is nearly eight months ago. I have never delayed writing to you so long before. For some time after her death, little George was apparently near the grave, and I was confined to my bed for a number of weeks. As soon as my health was a little improved, the rebellion at Tavoy took place, which threw us all into confusion, and this lasted until I was taken ill again about three months since. From this illness I am but just recovering. So you see, my beloved sister, my outward circumstances have been sufficient to prevent my writing. Nor is this all--for some time after little Sarah's departure, I was too much distressed to write; I felt assured that God had taken her away from us in love, and was also assured, that she is a happy angel in heaven; but oh the thought that we should see her no more on earth, filled me with _indescribable sorrow_. By degrees my mind became calmer; not that I forgot her, but I feel, my dear Harriet, that the dearest and sweetest pleasures of this life are empty and altogether unsatisfying. I do not look for comfort from these sources as I formerly did. We have a fine, healthy boy, but I do not allow myself to idolize him as I did his dear departed sister. In her dissolution, we saw such a wreck of what was most lovely and beautiful, that it seems as if we should be kept in future from 'worshipping the creature.'"

## Particulars respecting the child's illness and death are given in

another letter of nearly the same date. "Our little Sarah left us July 8th of last year--aged 2 years and 8 months.... She was a singularly lovely child. Her bright blue eyes, yellow hair, and rosy cheeks, formed a striking contrast to the dark little faces around her.... From the time she began to notice anything, we were the objects of her fondest love. If she thought she had incurred our displeasure, her tender heart seemed ready to burst; and she could not rest for a moment until she had said she was 'sorry,' and obtained the kiss of forgiveness. She had learned to obey us implicitly.... If either of us were ill, she would stroke our foreheads with her little soft hand, and kiss us _so_ affectionately! Her love to her little brother George was unlimited. From the day of his birth till the day but one before she died, he was her idol.... Three days before she died, she was lying uneasily in a large swing cradle, and George was in the same room crying. We thought it might soothe the little sufferer, for he also was very ill, to lay him down beside Sarah. The proposal delighted her; with smiles she threw open her little arms and for the last time held her darling brother in her fond embrace. So great was her gratification at this privilege, that she seemed to forget her own pains.

"Little Sarah spoke English remarkably well for so young a child, and Burmese like a native; she could also say some things in the Hindostanee and Karen, and what seems a little singular, she never confounded two languages, but always spoke pure English to us, and pure Burmese to Burmans. This discrimination continued as long as she had the powers of speech. She had learned the Lord's prayer and several little hymns. Dr. Judson's lines on the death of Mee Shawayee she knew by heart in Burmese, and used to chant them for half an hour at a time.... These things may seem very trivial to you, but I muse upon them by the hour together; and it is only when I call my cooler judgment into action, that I can make myself believe they are uninteresting to any person on earth. I love to think of my sweet bud of immortality expanding so beautifully in my own presence; and fancy I can judge in some small degree of the brilliancy of the perfect flower, from these little developments.

"A few hours before she died, she called us to her, kissed us, and passed her dear hand, still full and dimpled as in health, softly over our faces. The pupils of her eyes were so dilated that she could not see us distinctly, and once, for a moment or two, her mind seemed to be wandering; then looking anxiously into my face, she said: 'I frightened, mamma! I frightened!' ... Oh with what feelings did I wash and dress her lovely form for the last time, and compose her perfect little limbs; and then see her--the dear child that had so long lain in my bosom--borne away to her newly-made grave. My heart grew faint when I thought that I had performed for her my last office of love; that she would never need a mother's hand again.

My dear husband performed the funeral service with an aching, though not desponding heart. The grave is in our own enclosure, about fifteen rods from the house--a beautiful retired spot, in a grove of Gangau-trees. Near it is a little Bethel, erected for private devotion. Thither we have often repaired; and we trust that God, who in his infinite wisdom had taken our treasure to himself, often meets us there."

The biographer of Mrs. Boardman--since her successor in the mission--mentions that a single speculative error had crept into her religious faith, on the subject of God's particular providence--that while contemplating the vastness of that agency

"That ever busy wheels the silent spheres,"

she had almost thought it derogatory to the "Majesty of heaven and earth" to conceive of him as occupied with our mean affairs, numbering the hairs of our heads, and guiding the sparrow's fall. But the blow which crushed her heart, destroyed its skepticism. She saw so clearly in this dispensation, the hand of a Father chastening his erring child; she felt so keenly that she deserved the rod, for having in a measure worshipped the gift more than the giver, that she _believed_, with all the strength of an irresistible conviction, that even so lowly a thing as her own heart was indeed a theatre for the constant display of her Maker's guiding and controlling power, not less than the starry heavens; that her own sanctification, and the providential means to effect it, even in their minutest details, were ordered by sovereign grace and wisdom; and from this time forth she never doubted again.

But it is time to detail the spirit-stirring scenes that occurred a few months after the death of the child; to which scenes allusion was made in the first of her two letters.

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