Advice to Missionary Candidates

To the Foreign Missionary Association of the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, N. Y.

DEAR BRETHREN: Yours of November last, from the pen of your Corresponding Secretary, Mr. William Dean, is
before me. It is one of the few letters that I feel called upon to answer, for you ask my advice on several
important points. There is, also, in the sentiments you express, something so congenial to my own, that I
feel my heart knit to the members of your association, and instead of commonplace reply, am desirous of
setting down a few items which may be profitable to you in your future course. Brief items they must be,
for want of time forbids my expatiating.

In commencing my remarks, I take you as you are. You are contemplating a missionary life.

First, then, let it be a missionary life; that is, come out for life, and not for a limited term. Do not fancy
that you have a true missionary spirit, while you are intending all along to leave the heathen soon after
acquiring their language. Leave them! for what? To spend the rest of your days in enjoying the ease
and plenty of your native land?

Secondly. In choosing a companion for life, have particular regard to a good constitution, and not
wantonly, or without good cause, bring a burden on yourselves and the mission.

Thirdly. Be not ravenous to do good on board ship. Missionaries have frequently done more hurt than
good, by injudicious zeal, during their passage out.

Fourthly. Take care that the attention you receive at home, the unfavorable circumstances in which
you will be placed on board ship, and the unmissionary examples you may possibly meet with at some
missionary stations, do not transform you from living missionaries to mere skeletons before you reach the
place of your destination. It may be profitable to bear in mind, that a large proportion of those who come
out on a mission to the East die within five years after leaving their native land. Walk softly, therefore;
death is narrowly watching your steps.

Fifthly. Beware of the reaction which will take place soon after reaching your field of labor. There you
will perhaps find native Christians, of whose merits or demerits you can not judge correctly without some
familiar acquaintance with their language. Some appearances will combine to disappoint and disgust you. You
will meet with disappointments and discouragements, of which it is impossible to form a correct idea from
written accounts, and which will lead you, at first, almost to regret that you have embarked in the cause. You
will see men and women whom you have been accustomed to view through a telescope some thousands
of miles long. Such an instrument is apt to magnify. Beware, therefore, of the reaction you will experience
from a combination of all these causes, lest you become disheartened at commencing your work, or take up
a prejudice against some persons and places, which will embitter all your future lives.

Sixthly. Beware of the greater reaction which will take place after you have acquired the language,
and become fatigued and worn out with preaching the gospel to a disobedient and gainsaying people. You
will sometimes long for a quiet retreat, where you can find a respite from the tug of toiling at native work -- the
incessant, intolerable friction of the missionary grindstone. And Satan will sympathize with you in this matter;
and he will present some chapel of ease, in which to officiate in your native tongue, some government situation,
some professorship or editorship, some literary or scientific pursuit, some supernumerary translation, or, at
least, some system of schools; anything, in a word, that will help you, without much surrender of character,
to slip out of real missionary work. Such a temptation will form the crisis of your disease. If your spiritual
constitution can sustain it, you recover; if not, you die.

Seventhly. Beware of pride; not the pride of proud men, but the pride of humble men -- that secret pride
which is apt to grow out of the consciousness that we are esteemed by the great and good. This pride
sometimes eats out the vitals of religion before its existence is suspected. In order to check its operations,
it may be well to remember how we appear in the sight of God, and how we should appear in the
sight of our fellow-men, if all were known. Endeavor to let all be known. Confess your faults freely, and as
publicly as circumstances will require or admit. When you have done something of which you are ashamed,
and by which, perhaps, some person has been injured (and what man is exempt?), be glad not only to make
reparation, but improve the opportunity for subduing your pride.

Eighthly. Never lay up money for yourselves or your families. Trust in God from day to day, and verily
you shall be fed.

Ninthly. Beware of that indolence which leads to a neglect of bodily exercise. The poor health and
premature death of most Europeans in the East must be eminently ascribed to the most wanton neglect of
bodily exercise.

Tenthly. Beware of genteel living. Maintain as little intercourse as possible with fashionable European
society. The mode of living adopted by many missionaries in the East is quite inconsistent with that familiar
intercourse with the natives which is essential to a missionary.

There are many points of self-denial that I should like to touch upon;
but a consciousness of my own deficiency constrains me to be silent. I
have also left untouched several topics of vital importance, it having been
my aim to select such only as appear to me to have been not much
noticed or enforced. I hope you will excuse the monitorial style that I
have accidentally adopted. I assure you, I mean no harm.

In regard to your inquiries concerning studies, qualifications, etc., nothing occurs that I think would
be particularly useful, except the simple remark, that I fear too much stress begins to be laid on what
is termed a thorough classical education.

Praying that you may be guided in all your deliberations, and that I may yet have the pleasure of welcoming
some of you to these heathen shores, I remain


Your affectionate brother,

A. JUDSON

Maulmain, June 25, 1832

Autobiographical Record

of Dates and Events

by Adoniram Judson

Adoniram Judson, senior, was born at Woodbury, Connecticut, June, 1752, the youngest son of
Elnathan and Mary Judson, and was married Nov. 23, 1786, to Abigail Brown, who was born at Tiverton,
Rhode Island, Dec. 15, 1759, the eldest daughter of Abraham and Abigail Brown.