BIO:Adoniram Judson 1788-1850 Pioneer missionary to Burma. 

   Adoniram Judson was the son of a Congregational minister. He taught
himself to read at the age of three, and by his tenth year he knew
Latin and Greek and was a serious student of theology. At the age of 16
he entered Brown University and was graduated three years later as the
valedictorian of his class. At Andover Theological Seminary he could
not get away from the words of a missionary appeal, "Go ye into all the
world." In 1810 he helped form the American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions, and, two years later, he and his new wife, Ann,
sailed for India.

   When the government refused to allow them to enter the country, they
went to Burma, where they worked for six years before winning a
convert. During those years they were plagued with ill health,
loneliness, and the death of their baby son. Judson was imprisoned for
nearly two years, during which time Ann faithfully visited him,
smuggling to him his books, papers, and notes, which he used in
translating the Bible into the Burmese language. Soon after his release
from prison, Ann and their baby daughter, Maria, died of spotted fever.
Judson withdrew into seclusion into the interior, where he completed
the translation of the whole Bible into Burmese.

   In 1845 he returned for a visit to America, but the burning desire
to win the Burmese people sent him back to the Orient, where he soon
died. As a young man, he had cried out, "I will not leave Burma, until
the cross is planted here forever!" Thirty years after his death, Burma
had 63 Christian churches, 163 mis- sionaries, and over 7,000 baptized
converts.
