serted pagoda, and there sat down to read, pray,
and meditate. The next day, on returning to the spot, he found a seat of
bamboo, and the branches woven together for a shelter. Judson never
learnt whose work this was, but it was done by a loving disciple, who had
overcome the fear of tigers to provide by night for his comfort, though
the place was thought so dangerous that his safety, during the forty days
that he haunted it, was viewed by the natives as a miracle. He spent
several months in retirement. It was indeed four years after his
bereavement, but it is plain that he was taking the needful rest and calm
that his whole nature required after the shock that he had undergone, but
which he had in a manner deferred until the numbers of workers were so
increased that his constant labour could be dispensed with. He came
forth from his retirement renovated in spirit, for the second period of
his toils.

Meantime, the Boardmans had returned to Tavoy, where they were eagerly
welcomed by their Karen flock, and found many candidates for baptism.
Weak as he was, Mr. Boardman examined them. He was sometimes able to sit
up in his chair and speak for himself, but oftener so weak that his wife
sat on his couch and interpreted his feeble whispers; but he was so happy
that tears of joy often filled his eyes. The actual baptism, performed
by going down into the water like Philip with the Ethiopian, could hardly
have been carried out by a man in his state; but Moung Ing, who had been
admitted to the pastorate, touched at Moulmein, on a mission to Mergui,
and undertook the baptisms. The Karens carried Mr. Boardman to the water
in his cot, along a street filled with lamaseries, whence the
yellow-clothed priests looked down in scorn, and the common people hooted
and reviled: "See! see your teacher, a living man borne as if he were
already dead!" with still worse unfeeling taunts. The Christians, about
fifty in number, reached the spot, a beautiful lake, nearly a mile in
circumference, and bordered by green grass overshadowed by trees. There
they all knelt down and prayed, and then Moung Ing baptized the nineteen
new disciples, while the pastor lay pale and happy, and his wife watched
him with her heart full of the last baptism, when it had been he who
poured the water and spoke the words.

Mr. Boardman lived on into the year 1831, and welcomed a new arrival from
America, Francis Mason and his wife, on the 23rd of January, and a