udson continued her
efforts to win the women, and gathered around her every Sunday a large
number to whom she read the Scriptures. Her husband had in the
meanwhile finished his dictionary of the Burmese language, a work for
which successive generations of British officials, merchants and
missionaries have had cause to be thankful, and in 1819 began to preach
on Sundays. Hitherto he had been speaking to individuals; now he
addressed himself to crowds.

The place in which he preached was a _zayat_ or rest-house, a big
one-room building erected for the convenience of pilgrims who came to
worship at the Shway Dagon Pagoda. There was no furniture in the
place, and the pilgrims, or any one else who cared to enter, squatted
on the floor, or, if tired, lay down and slept. Here, before a crowd
of men, women, and children, all, from the old men of seventy to
children of three or four, smoking big green cheroots, Mr. Judson
preached Sunday after Sunday, and on April 30, 1819, made his first
convert. Two months later, on June 27, the convert was baptized.

The Judsons, refreshed by the knowledge that their six years' toil in a
sweltering, unhealthy country had not been wasted, continued their work
joyfully, and soon had further cause for thankfulness. Several natives
were baptized, and the Judsons had every reason for believing that
their little band of Christians would increase rapidly.

Then their work received an unexpected check. The news reached Rangoon
that the King of Burma was highly displeased at the conversion of his
subjects, and intended to punish both missionaries and converts. No
sooner was this known than the Judsons were deserted by all but their
converts; the people who had flocked to hear Mr. Judson preach in the
_zayat_ no longer went there, and the women ceased to attend Mrs.
Judson's gatherings.

Mr. Judson suspected that the threats emanated from the Governor of
Rangoon, and not from the king, and, therefore, he started off,
accompanied by a young missionary who had recently joined him, to the
capital, to ask the king to prohibit any interference with them or
their converts. His majesty not only received them graciously, but
promised, if Mr. Judson would come with his wife and settle in the
capital, to give them his protection and a piece of ground on which to
build a church.

Mrs. Judson's ill-health prevented their accepting that invitation at
once. Besides attending to her domestic duties an