f
wanting a companion of his own rank to keep him in countenance, and
doubted whether it were fear of the world or pride of heart that kept him
back; but he seems to have had a genuine battle with his own sceptical
spirit, and the acceptance of such ordinances as the Baptists required
was a difficulty to him. Four or five later converts were baptized
before him, and at last he kept away from the mission for so long that
Mr. Judson thought they had lost him; but when he reappeared it turned
out that he had been ill with fever, and had had much sickness in his
family, and had meantime fought out his mental conflict, and made up his
mind to the full acceptance of Christianity at all risks.

He came again with five disciples, one of them a woman of fifty-one years
old, named Mah-menlay, with her husband, all formally requesting baptism;
but Mr. Judson was not sufficiently satisfied of the earnestness of any
to receive them at once, excepting Shwaygnong himself, whom Mr. Judson
kept till evening; and then, after reading the history of St. Philip's
baptism of the Ethiopian, and praying, led him down to the water in the
woods and baptized him, like others, in the pool, by the light of the
stars in the tropical night. That same night Mah-menlay came back,
entreating so earnestly for baptism, that she, too, was led down to the
water and baptized. "Now," she said, "I have taken the oath of
allegiance to JESUS CHRIST, and I have nothing to do but to commit
myself, soul and body, to the hands of my Lord, assured that He will
never suffer me to fall away."

This was the last thing before the Judsons embarked for Serampore, a
journey necessitated by a severe attack of liver complaint, from which
Mrs. Judson had long been suffering and their little girl had also died.

To these devoted people a visit to Calcutta was a change for the sake of
health! On their return, after half a year's absence, the first thing
they heard was that their kind friend Mya-day-men had come as Myowoon to
Rangoon, and they were met on the wharf by all their disciples, led by
Shwaygnong, in a state of rapture. They found that such as had lived in
the yard of the mission had been subjected to a petty official
persecution, which had made them fly to the woods; but that the good Mya-
day-men had refused to hear an accusation brought against Moung
Shwaygnong by the lamas and officials of the village, who had him before
the tribunal, accusing him of trying "