Ann Hasseltine asked Adoniram Judson to write to her father and ask for permission in order to begin a courtship with her, this is what he wrote in July, 1810:
“I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next Spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God?”
That is some proposition!
Ann’s parents ended up letting her make the decision. And in her journal she writes:
Jesus is faithful; his promises are previous. Were it not for these considerations, I should, with my present prospects., sink down in despair, especially as no female has, to my knowledge, ever left the shores of America to spend her life among the heathen; nor do I yet know that I shall have a single female companion. But God is my witness, that I have not dared to decline the offer that has been made me, though so many are ready to call it a “wild, romantic, undertaking”.
Life and Faith 
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