Early Life
Judson was born on 9 August 1788 in Malden, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. He was the son of a Congregational minister, Adoniram Judson, Sr. and his wife, Abigail (née Brown). Judson entered the College of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations (now Brown University) at the age of sixteen, and graduated as valedictorian of his class at the age of nineteen. While studying at college, he met a young man named Jacob Eames, a devout deist and skeptic. Judson and Eames developed a strong friendship, leading to Judson's abandonment of his childhood faith and religious instruction of his parents. During this time, he embraced the writings of the French philosophies. The year following his graduation from college, Judson opened a school and wrote an English grammar and mathematics textbook for girls.
Judson's deist views were shaken when his friend Eames died violently from sickness. Judson was sleeping at an inn, hearing the person next door expiring violently; the next morning he inquired as to his anonymous neighbor's health or outcome. The clerk answered that Mr. Eames had indeed died. The shock of finding it was his own friend – and that Eames had led Judson away from the Christian faith into skepticism, but was now dead – brought Judson back to the faith of his youth. Judson's conversion occurred while attending the Andover Theological Seminary. In 1808, Judson "made a solemn dedication of himself to God". This was followed by his decision to serve as a missionary during his final year of school.
In 1810, Judson joined a group of mission-minded students at Andover who called themselves "the Brethren". The students at Andover inspired the establishment of America's first organized missionary society. He was eager to serve abroad and became convinced that "Asia with its idolatrous myriads, was the most important field in the world for missionary effort". He appeared before the Congregation Church's General Association to appeal for support for their mission. In 1810, impressed by the polite behavior of the four men and their sincerity, the elders voted to form an American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
Read more about this topic: Adoniram Judson
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“Even today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don’t need parents’ full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“We are all conceived in close prison; in our mothers’ wombs, we are close prisoners all; when we are born, we are born but to the liberty of the house; prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)