The Waiting of the Karens by William Ambrose Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · May 1, 1913

The Waiting of the Karens

By William Ambrose Spicer

ONE of the appealing stories of missions is that of the waiting of the Karens, of Burma, for the light that their ancient traditions taught them to look for at the hands of the white foreigners. Darkened as they were in heart, and as the masses of these hill tribes still are, the tribal tradition was nevertheless a means in the hand of Providence to cause many of this people to seek to the missionary for help when Judson and his successors appeared in Burma.

The Baptist Missionary Review prints an oration delivered in the Rangoon Baptist College by a Karen Christian, which retells this story of the waiting Karens and their ancient traditions. These aboriginal hill people had been oppressed and enslaved by the ruling Burmans and Siamese. The student's oration continues the history:—

In the midst of these sufferings they remembered the ancient sayings of the elders, and prayed beneath the bushes, there, though the rains poured upon them, and the mosquitoes, the gnats, the leeches, or the horse-flies bit them. The elders said: “Children and grandchildren, as to the Karen race their God will yet save them.” Hence in their deep affliction they prayed: “If God will save us, may he save us speedily; we can no longer endure these sufferings. Alas! where is God?”

Concerning the white foreigners, the elders charged their posterity thus: “As to the white foreigners, they were the guides of God, so God blessed them, and they sail in ships and cutters and can cross great oceans.” The elders further sang as follows:—

“The sons of God, the foreigners, Obtained the words of God; The white foreigners, the children of God, Obtained the words of God anciently.”

The elders said in relation to God the Almighty thus: “All things in heaven and on earth, O children and grandchildren, are created by God. Never forget God. Pray to him every day and every night.”

As to the gospel and their written language the elders said: “Children and grandchildren, the Karen golden books will yet arrive; the white brethren, the foreigners, will bring them. When they arrive, the Karens will obtain a little happiness.”

Amidst sufferings, they were all the time waiting for the arrival of the white brethren who would bring the golden books. All of a sudden, the rising light of the gospel—the mind-refreshing and soul-reviving light, rising from the west, not from the east—shone down upon these poor suffering Karens, through the parting clouds of danger and distress. The missionaries came with the gospel of grace for the people of Burma. At first the Karens were unnoticed; the fact that there was a race in Burma known as the Karens was unknown to the white foreigners.

But it was not long after the arrival of Dr. Judson that the missionaries discovered the Karens and preached to them the gospel of grace. A short period after the conversion of Ko Tha Byu, the first Karen convert, many Karens became Christians. They received the gospel with great enthusiasm and satisfaction, for they knew that Christ is the Saviour and the true God whom they had been seeking all the time; and they worshiped him with their whole heart and soul.

They told the missionaries the traditions regarding God, the white foreigners, and the golden books to be brought by them. Every one will know what the Karens, a race with such traditions, would ask the missionaries, after having seen them and having obtained from them the gospel of Christ. They asked the missionaries for their golden books, which tradition said would be brought to them. They were quite ignorant of what they asked, but the missionaries knew what was meant by the term “golden books” in the traditions. Dr. Wade had to invent the Karen alphabet, make the Karen books, and teach the Karens. In a short time many learned to read and write their own language. This paved the way for the advancement of the gospel. Tracts and pamphlets on the gospel were printed and

distributed among the Karens. The Bible was soon after translated by Dr. Mason; and the translation of many other useful books followed. From this time on the Karens have been rapidly progressing spiritually as well as mentally.

Our own work for the Karens has waited until this last message has won some believers among them beyond any direct effort of ours. The call has come to us insistently from these people. Now, we believe, our Burma Mission has a worker preparing to labor for them. Our missionaries have called attention to the fact that the old Karen traditions led that people to look for a coming to this earth of a divine Lord who once was among men, of whose return the “golden books” were to tell them. The message of the second coming of the Lord Jesus is the message for all peoples; and Providence has wrought not only among the Karens, but among millions of other Asiatic peoples, to awaken an expectancy of the approaching end of this age and the coming of a Messiah, confused and various as their ideas may be. The time for the last message to reach the last peoples unwarned is at hand, and the Lord is preparing the millions to hear the warning cry.

W. A. S.