JUDITH, the 4th of the apocryphal books. The narrative opens with the "twelfth year in the reign of Nabuchod onosor, who reigned in Nineve, the great city." That potentate, finding his armies thwarted in their progress to the W. re solved to take sig-nal vengeance. His chief opponents were the Israelites, who fortified themselves in Bethulia. While Holofernes, his general, was besieging this stronghold, the heroine of the book, Judith, the beautiful widow of Manasses, went forth to the Assyrians, pretending that she had deserted her people. She fascinated Holofernes, who after a time took her to his tent, where, as he was lying drunk, she cut off his head, escap ing back with it to the fort at Bethulia. On the loss of their leader the Assyrians fled, the Israelites pursuing and inflicting on them great slaughter. The book ap parently professes to have been. penned just after the events recorded (xiv: 10); but the earliest known historic testimony to its existence is by Clement of Rome (Ep. i: 55), though it probably existed as early as 175 to 100 B. C. The ablest
critics consider it a fiction rather than a genuine history.
jUDSON, ADONIRAM, an American missionary; born in Malden, Mass., Aug.. 9, 1788; was graduated at Brown Uni versity in 1807 and studied theology at the Andover Theological Seminary. In April, 1810, he made application to the London Missionary Society to go to "India, Tartary, or any part of the East ern continent." In February, 1812, he sailed with his wife for Asia. During the voyage he was converted from the Congregational faith to that of the Baptist Church. In 1814, when the Baptists of the United States organized a missionary union he was taken under its care. He settled in Burma; mastered the language; and labored there for nearly 40 years. During the last 25 years of his work there were about 20,000 conversions among the Karens. He was the author of a Burman gram mar; a Pali dictionary, a Burfnan dic tionary; and a complete Burman Bible. He died at sea, April 12, 1850.