Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by LEWIS COLBY & CO., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York.

PUDNEY & RUSSELL, PRINTERS,

21 LIBERTY-STREET, N. Y.

10.

Friedman. 2-29-29 20510

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.

THE visit to the United States of the venerated pioneer of American Missions to the East, the Rev. Dr. Judson, is an event too interesting to be suffered to pass without some appropriate memorial. Spared by the kind providence of God for more than a third of a century, amidst dangers and sufferings unparalleled in the history of modern Missions-honored as the translator of the whole Rible for the millions of Burmah- it was not surprising that an earnest desire had long been felt by American Christians, of every name, to look upon the man, whom God had thus highly honored.

That desire has, at length, been gratified. After declining repeated invitations to revisit his native land, providential circumstances, of a peculiarly afflictive kind, have brought him in our midst. Nothing but the hope of restoring the health of his late beloved wife, could have induced him to consent to this temporary relaxation from his long-continued labors, on behalf of the perishing heathen. He is already longing to resume his arduous, but loved employ; and soon he will be on his return to Burmah, the land of his sufferings, his toils, and his future grave.*

Since the publication of the first edition, Dr. Judson, in company with several other missionaries, has returned to Burmah.

The "Judson Offering" has been prepared with a view to perpetuate, among the thousands of his Christian friends in America, of every name, the memory of his long-wished, and welcome visit to his native land. The design of this work is not to present to the beloved missionary himself the incense of praise. That he neither desires nor needs. By the grace of God, he is what he is, and has done what he has done; and to God belongs the glory.

In addition to the design of serving as a memorial of the visit of Dr. Judson to America, and as a permanent repository for several valuable and touching effusions, both in prose and verse, expressive of sympathy and affection towards the bereaved Missionary himself, the work is also intended as a memento of Christian affection to the memory of three American missionary wives, whose remains lie in three widely distant spots, in different parts of the earth :- Ann H. Judson, who has long slept beneath the Hopia tree, in Burmah Harriet Newell, her early bosom friend, who lies in her lonely grave, on the Isle of France and Sarah B. Judson, whose sainted dust has been laid to rest on the Rock of St. Helena; names, which are the common property of all denominations of Christians, dear alike to the whole family of Jesus, of every land and of every

name.

The editor cannot withhold the expression of his sincere thanks, for the very acceptable original contributions for the "Judson Offering," from the pens

of Mrs. Sigourney, Messrs. Tappan, Phelps, Cone, Thurber, Washburn, and Hill, and several other writers, who have enriched its pages with valuable original articles.

In preparing the fifteen "Sketches of Missionary Life," the editor has selected the most striking incidents connected with the Burman mission. The authorities to which he has had recourse for the facts which these Sketches embody, are the excellent biographies of Harriet Newell, Ann H. Judson, and George D. Boardman; but especially the Missionary journals scattered through thirty years' files of the Baptist Magazine.

To some of the selected and original articles, introductory observations in a smaller type have been prefixed by the editor, explanatory of allusions contained in the article or the occasion which prompted it; and for these, of course, he alone is responsible.

It has been the aim of the editor, by the avoidance of everything of a controversial character, to render the work an acceptable "offering" to the friends of Missions, without distinction of denomination or of section, whether North or South; and to all such, who cherish the name of "Judson," the work is respectfully dedicated by

Berean Parsonage, New-York, April 9th; 1846.

THE EDITOR.

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