the true religion, mama; and when
they die they cannot go to the golden country of the blessed. God will
take care of the teacher; do not weep, mama." Blessed faith in an
omnipresent Heavenly Father! It gives even the unlettered Karen
disciple, an eloquence in consolation, to which worldly philosophy is a
stranger.

Mr. Boardman's journey, though perilous from the causes above mentioned,
and tedious from being performed on foot, was highly interesting on
account of the eager welcome, and abundant hospitality of the
simple-minded Karen villagers whom he visited. On entering a village, he
and his little caravan were overwhelmed with presents of provisions and
fruits; and the inhabitants would exclaim, while their countenances
beamed with delight, "Ah, you have come _at last_; we have long wanted
to see you!" He travelled more than one hundred miles, often through
unfrequented and toilsome paths among the mountains, and was three times
drenched with powerful rains, from which he had no sufficient shelter;
but by the aid of an interpreter he preached seventeen sermons, and was
cheered by finding the readiness of the people to receive his doctrines
far exceed his most sanguine expectations. On his return, both he and
Mrs. Boardman had to experience an affliction extremely trying to the
heart of a missionary; the defection of some of the Christian converts.
Their sensitive spirits led Mr. and Mrs. B. to fear that their own
unfaithfulness might have been the cause of the fall of their disciples.
Mrs. Boardman's self-upbraidings were bitter; her humiliation deep and
sincere. "Our hearts," she says, "have bled with anguish, and mine has
sunk lower than the grave, for I have felt that my unworthiness has been
the cause of all our calamities."

So keen were her self-rebukes at this time, that they break out even in
her letters to her friends. In one of them she writes: "Some of these
poor Burmans, who are daily carried to the grave, may at last reproach
me and say, you came, it is true, to the city where we dwelt, to tell of
heaven and hell, but wasted much, much of your precious time in
indolence while learning our language. And when you were able to speak,
why were you not incessantly telling us of this day of doom, when we
visited you? Why, oh why did you ever speak of any other thing, while we
were ignorant of this most momentous of all truths? How could you think
on anything but our salvation?... You told us you knew of a Be