Adoniram Judson - Early Life

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.