Chapter XXXV: Conclusion 413 (6)

Dr. Cheek’s arrival was a matter of great rejoicing. He was very young—only twenty-one, in fact, on the day he sailed from San Francisco. The trying drudgery that he and others of our early medical missionaries had to endure, is now in great measure obviated through the help of native assistants. The remainder of the year 1875 I devoted very largely to assisting in the medical work, interpreting, helping in operations, and caring for the souls of the numerous patients, without feeling the weight of responsibility for their physical condition, as I had done before. Dr. Cheek came out a single man; but, like others before him, he lost his heart on the way. Toward the end of that year he went down to Bangkok, and was married to Miss Sarah A. Bradley. He returned to Chiengmai just as Mr. Wilson was ready to start for the United States on his second furlough. The April communion was postponed a week that the newly-arrived and the departing missionaries might commune together before separating. It was Mrs. Wilson’s last communion with us.

In May, 1876, Nān Inta was ordained our first ruling elder. The story has often been told that before his ordination the Confession of Faith was given him to read carefully, since he would be asked whether he subscribed to its doctrines. When he had finished the reading, he remarked that he saw nothing peculiar in its teachings. It was very much like what he had read in Paul’s Epistles! In January Pā Kamun, the widow of Noi Sunya, was baptized. It was thus appropriately given to her to be the first woman received into the communion of the church. Two of her daughters, and Pā Peng, the wife of Nān Inta, soon followed. Lung In was elected the first deacon, but was too modest to be ordained to that office. Meanwhile he was becoming a most useful assistant in the hospital. Strange as it may seem, the office of hospital nurse is one of the most difficult to get a Lāo to fill. Lung In, however, was not above the most menial service for the sick. His real successor was not found until the present incumbent, Dr. Kêo, was trained. Dr. McKean’s testimony is that it would be scarcely more difficult to procure a good surgeon than to fill Kêo’s place as nurse and assistant among the hospital patients.

During the summer of 1876, in company with Nān Inta, I made a tour among the four nearest provinces to the north and west. The governor of Mûang Kên had long given promise of becoming a Christian, and now invited me to visit his people. On his frequent visits to Chiengmai on business, he always called on me, and no subject was so interesting to him as the subject of religion. Before the proclamation of toleration, while the common people were still afraid of making a public profession of Christianity, our most effective work was probably that with the higher class of officials, who stood in somewhat less fear of the known antagonism of the Chao Uparāt. They were, besides, a more interesting class than the common people, for they were better educated, were more accustomed in their daily duties to weigh arguments and decide on questions of evidence, and many of them had been trained in the religious order.

This governor of Mûang Kên had learned enough of the tenets of Christianity to become unsettled and dissatisfied with the prospects of salvation offered by a purely ethical religion. He saw the weakness of the foundation on which he had been taught to rely, and the difference between the authors of the two religions. So he stood on the border land between the two, at the very gate, wishing to enter in, but with many obstacles in his way, and strong opposing influences to overcome.

My first objective, then, on this tour was Mûang Kên. The governor had asked me to come and smooth the way for him by teaching his under-officials and his townsmen. Nān Inta was the living, concrete argument, and he put his whole heart into it. We had a few days of deeply interesting work. Few, however, saw the matter as the governor did. Most of them “would consider it.” Some would go further and say that they worshipped Jesus under the name of their promised Buddha Metraya, yet to come.

From Mûang Kên we went to Chieng Dāo, where we visited the great cave with its famous Buddhist shrine. Ever since Nān Inta became a Christian, he had been anxious to test the truth of some of the legends connected with the place—a thing he dared not do before. The cave is the abode of the great Lawa spirit, for fear of offending whom Prince Kāwilōrot was afraid to allow us to build to the north of the city bridge in Chiengmai. Chieng Dāo mountain, which rises above the cave, is seven thousand one hundred and sixty feet high—one of the highest peaks in all Siam, and visible from Chiengmai, some thirty-seven miles away. One of the sources of the Mê Ping River, twenty feet wide and knee-deep, flows bodily out from the cave. Since no animal is allowed to be killed in so sacred a place, the stream abounds in a great variety of beautiful fish waiting for the food which no visitor fails to give them. The scramble for it is as interesting to watch as the performance of the sea-lions at San Francisco.

The legend is that no one can cross the stream inside the cave and return alive; and that beyond the stream, under the crest of the mountain, there is an image of pure gold seven cubits high. One enters the cave at a little distance from the stream, and finds first a grand chamber which is a veritable temple, with arched dome, natural pulpit, and innumerable images of Buddha, large and small. This place is regarded as a most sacred shrine. Buddhist monks are always there performing their devotions. The chamber is so dark that they have to use tapers to see to read. The dim light and the long-drawn tones of the worshippers produce a very weird impression.

From the temple-chamber narrow passages lead off in different directions, till there is danger of losing one’s way in the labyrinth. I followed Nān Inta and his sons to the stream, which is reached at some distance farther on. Being neither tall nor a swimmer, I stopped and sauntered about in the various rooms, waiting for my companions to verify or to disprove the legend. Needless to say, both parts of it were proved myths. My companions did return alive, and no golden image was found. The cave is too damp to make it safe for one to remain long in those distant passages. Farther on the tapers burned but very dimly; and one would not choose to be left there in pitch darkness. We could understand very well how the legend arose of Yaks that devour those that intrude into their dark caverns. There is no doubt of the presence of a deadly gas much more to be feared than the spirit of the great Lawa king, which is believed to have taken up his abode there. We all experienced more or less of the symptoms premonitory of malarial attack, and before we got back to the town Nān Inta was shaking with a genuine chill. A heroic dose, however, of Warburg’s tincture with quinine soon set him to rights. In this case, then, as in many others, there is a foundation of truth at the bottom of the legend.

That night we had a great audience. It was generally known that we intended to explore the cave, and many, no doubt, came to see how we had fared. It was well that Nān Inta had so far recovered from his morning’s chill as to be ready to join in bearing testimony not only to the falsity of the legend, but also to the truth of the Gospel. It was a bright moonlight night, and the people listened till very late, while we sang hymns, preached the Gospel, and pointed them to the better way. The result was seen years after in the founding of a church there.

All these provinces that we were now visiting, and others more distant still, were originally settled by refugees driven from the more southern districts by the persecution for witchcraft. Now they are important provinces. Since these people had been ruthlessly driven forth because of the spirits, I thought they would willingly accept any way of escape from their control. But they seemed, if anything, more superstitious and harder to reach than others. Having suffered once, as they supposed, from the malicious power of the spirits, they seemed even more than others to dread to incur their anger again by deserting them. But there were many hopeful exceptions.

Mûang Pāo was the next city visited. From the incidents of our stay there I select the cases of two persons who excited our deepest sympathy. One was an aged Buddhist monk, a Ngīo, who, with a younger companion, visited our tent daily. The monk was a venerable man, with striking features, serene countenance, earnest and intelligent. His long life had been spent in worship, meditation, and study. All this he soon told us with some quite natural pride. While not bold, he was not reticent, freely stating his own doctrines, hopes, and fears, and asking ours. To the question what were his hopes for a future life, he frankly said, “I don’t know. How can I? I have tried to keep the commandments, have performed my devotions, have counted my beads. But whether I shall go up or down [indicating the directions with his finger] I do not know. I have done what my books tell me, but I have no light _here_ [pointing to his heart]. Can the teacher’s religion give me any light?”

The earnestness and the despondency of the man drew me to him. I asked, what of his failures and transgressions? “That,” he said, “is the dark point. My books say that all my good deeds shall be rewarded, but the failures and transgressions must be punished before I can reach Nirvāna, the final emancipation of the soul by the extinction of all desire.” “How long will that be?” we ask. He answered by giving a number that would baffle even astronomers, who are accustomed to deal in almost fabulous numbers.

“But is not that virtually endless?”

“Yes; but what shall we do? That is what our books say.”

“But is there no room for pardon?”

“No. Buddha only points out the way that he followed himself. He reached the goal by the same almost endless journey. How shall we hope to do so by any shorter or different route?”

“But supposing there is a way—that there is a great sovereign of the universe, before all Buddhas and higher than all Buddhas, who has the right and the authority to grant full pardon through his own infinite merit, and his vicarious assumption of all our obligations and payment of all our debts. Would not that be a joyful message?”

“Yes; if true, it would be.”

And so we argued till light seemed to gleam for once into his mind. But the image of the dear old man pointing up and then down with the sad confession, “I know not whither I shall go,” is a vision that has saddened me many a time since.

The other case of special interest I state as it occurred, with no attempt at explanation of the dream involved in the story.—On the morning after our arrival, Nān Inta and I started out to visit monasteries or houses, wherever we might find listeners. I was dressed in white clothes, and Nān Inta had on a white jacket. We had made a number of calls, and were about to pass by a house in which we saw only an elderly woman and some children, presumably her grandchildren. We were surprised to see her come down from her house and run out after us, and prostrating herself with the customary salutation given to priests and princes, she begged us to stop and come in. We accepted her invitation, though surprised at her evident demonstrations of joy. Sitting down on the mat, we began to explain that we were teachers of religion, pointing out the sure way of happiness both in this life and in the life to come. Our message was one from the great God and Creator to all races and nations, inviting them to return from all other refuges, and He would give them an inheritance as His children in the life to come. She listened with marked interest as we explained to her our religion, and urged her to accept it. We were surprised at the explanation she gave of her intense interest.

Not long before our arrival she had a dream that two men dressed in white came to her to teach her. What they were to teach her she did not know; but when she saw us walking up the street she said, “There is the fulfilment of my dream!” She had watched us as we entered other houses, fearful lest we should omit hers. Now she was so glad we had come. It was at least a strange coincidence, for she affirmed that the dream was before she had ever heard of us. Whatever may have been the cause, it was a delight to instruct one who seemed to receive all that we said as a direct message to her. This at once attracted Nān Inta to her, and she listened to him with frequent exclamations of delight, while he, in his earnest manner, explained the Gospel message of pardon and life eternal through Him who liveth and was dead, and behold He is alive for evermore. She said her one great desire had been to escape from the punishment of her sins; but she never before had known that there was any other way but to suffer for them herself. She, too, was a Ngīo. We visited her frequently during the week of our stay in Mûang Pāo, and to the last she interpreted our coming as the fulfilment of her dream. This was the last that we knew either of her or of the aged monk. Before we visited the place again she was dead, and he had moved away.

In those days when the people were afraid to make a public profession of Christianity, it would have been a great gain to the mission if we could have had schools, and used them as a means of evangelizing the youth. A first attempt, indeed, had been made by Mr. Wilson with a few Burmese boys. A young Burmese who had been trained in Maulmein, and who spoke English, was employed to teach them under Mr. Wilson’s oversight, in the hope that Lāo boys would presently join them. This hope was not realized, and the experiment was presently abandoned.

The first call for a Christian school was for the education of girls. In the first Christian families girls predominated. Mrs. McGilvary collected six or eight Christian girls, and devoted as much time to them as her strength and her family duties would permit. They were really private pupils, living on our premises and in our family. More wished to come than she could do justice to. Hence about this time an appeal was made for two single ladies to devote their whole time to the school. But it was not till four years later that Miss Edna E. Cole and Miss Mary Campbell of the Oxford Female Seminary, Ohio, reached Chiengmai. Very soon they had twenty pupils. From this small beginning has grown our large Girls’ School. Two of Mrs. McGilvary’s pupils were soon made assistants. These and others of the first group became fine women, who have left their mark on the church and the country.

Notwithstanding our disappointment in the delay of the school for boys, it proved a wise arrangement that the Girls’ School was started first. A mission church is sure to be greatly handicapped whose young men must either remain single—which they will not do—or be compelled to take ignorant non-Christian wives. Such are a dead-weight to the husband, and the children almost surely follow the mother. After marriage, the almost universal custom of the country has been that the husband lives with the wife’s family. He becomes identified with it, and for the time a subordinate member of it, almost to the extent of becoming weaned from his own family. Where all the atmosphere of the family is strongly Buddhist, with daily offerings to the spirits and gala days at the temple, the current would be too strong for a father, with his secondary place in the family, to withstand. For a while it was feared that Christian girls would have difficulty in finding husbands. But, on the contrary, our educated girls become not only more intelligent, but more attractive in manners, dress, and character; and, therefore, have been much sought after. The homes become Christian homes, and the children are reared in a Christian atmosphere. The result is that, instead of the wife’s dragging the husband down, she generally raises the husband up; and, as a general rule, the children early become Christians.

In August, 1876, our beloved Princess became very seriously ill. Dr. Cheek had been called upon to treat domestics in the family, but not the Prince or Princess. Hearing that she was in a critical condition under native doctors, and fearing the worst, I took the liberty of suggesting that they consult Dr. Cheek. They seemed pleased with the suggestion, and asked me to accompany him—which I did for one or two visits. His treatment was very successful, and soon she was convalescent.

About this same time we had an adventure with white ants which came near costing us our much-valued cabinet organ. It will serve to illustrate an experience formerly common enough, and still not unknown. One Wednesday evening before prayer-meeting Mrs. McGilvary sat down at the instrument to look over the tunes, when she found it full of white ants. Our house was built on higher ground, into which the creatures are driven when the lower grounds are filled with water from the annual floods. They do not attack the teak walls and floors of our houses, but, climbing up the posts, at last they stumbled upon the soft wood and leather inside the organ, and were just beginning their feast when our meeting broke in upon them. Had we not discovered them then, the instrument would have been completely wrecked before morning.

Once the white ants destroyed a trunkful of our children’s clothes, once a box of “knock-down” chairs, and once they attacked my library—evidently not at all deterred by the learned discussions and deep thought of Dr. Joseph A. Alexander’s _Commentary on Isaiah_. They had got through the margin, and would soon have digested the rest, had not an unexpected occasion for opening the library saved it.

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XVI

SEEKERS AFTER GOD

On New Year’s Day, 1877, I went into the city to make some calls. The first was at the new palace. In the large reception hall I found the Princess, virtually alone. She was embroidering some fancy pillow-ends for the priests—a work in which she was an expert. Her maidens, some distance off, were sewing priests’ robes. The Prince was in his little workshop not far off, turning ivory rounds for the railing of an elephant howdah, a favourite amusement with him.

The subject of religion was one that continually came up in all my interviews with the Princess; but hitherto she had apparently argued more for victory than from a desire to reach the truth. She was as keen as a lawyer to seize a point, and her quick wit made her a very enjoyable antagonist. Not only she and her domestics, but the whole country as well, had been preparing for a great occasion of merit-making in connection with the approaching dedication of a shrine. Whether the peculiar interest of this conversation was due to the fact that these matters had been running in her mind, or to some particular mood in which I found her, I never knew. Most likely it was both. A chance allusion to the great event which was in every one’s mouth, at once brought up the question. Stopping her work and resting her arms on the embroidery frame, she asked, “Why is it that foreigners do not worship the Buddha or his images, and do not believe that merit is made thereby?”

She seemed to approach the question as a personal one for herself. If we were right and she were wrong, she would like to know it. We agreed on that point, and I encouraged her in her estimate of its paramount importance to every rational man or woman. If Buddhism does, indeed, lead to happiness in a future life, she was wise in diligently following its precepts; but if wrong, it would be a fatal mistake. Why do we not worship Buddha? Because he was only a man. We reverence his character, as we do that of other upright men who have tried to do good and to lead their fellow-men to better things. Gautama Buddha seems to have sought with all his soul for light—was willing to forsake a kingdom and to renounce all sensual and even intellectual pleasures in this life for the hope of escaping sin and its consequences in the next.

Why do we worship Jehovah-Jesus? Because He is our sovereign Lord. The Buddha groaned under his own load of guilt, and was oppressed by the sad and universal consequences of sin among men. The Christ challenged His enemies to convince Him of sin, and His enemies to this day have confessed that they find no sin in Him. Buddhists believe that Buddha reached Nirvāna after having himself passed through every form of being in the universe—having been in turn every animal in the seas, on the earth, and in the air. He did this by an inexorable law that he and every other being is subject to, and cannot evade. Our Jehovah-Jesus, as our Scriptures teach, is the only self-existent being in the universe, and Himself the cause of all other beings. An infinite Spirit and invisible, He manifested Himself to the world by descending from heaven, becoming man, taking on our nature in unison with His own holy nature, but with no taint of sin. He did this out of infinite love and pity for our race after it had sinned. He saw there was no other able to save, and He became our Saviour.

And take the teachings of the two systems—which is the more credible? The sacred books of the Princess teach that there is no Creator. Everything, as the Siamese say, “pen ēng”—comes to be of itself. All this complicated universe became what it is by a fortuitous concurrence of atoms, which atoms themselves had no creator. We come as honest seekers for truth. We look around, above, beneath. Everything seems to imply the contrivance of mind. The sun rises and sets with greater regularity than our clocks strike the hour of noon. The seasons follow each other with wonderful uniformity. Animals are born and die, plants and trees grow and decay, each after its kind, and in wonderful adjustment to the conditions about them. The eye is made for seeing, the ear for hearing, and the air for breathing. Light is necessary for work by day, and darkness for sleep by night. This city has its walls and gates; this palace has its beams, its roof, its doors and windows, and its different apartments, because it was so planned. The Princess gives her orders, and her servants in distant villages come at her summons. The Prince’s command is obeyed throughout all his dominions. Subjects obey because they are under constituted authority. Even so we obey Jehovah and not Buddha, because we believe that He is the Creator and the sovereign Lord of the universe.

In His word—His letter to our race—He claims to be Creator and Lord. We read His word, and then we look around for evidence as to whether this is really so. We find that evidence in earth and sea and sky. A letter comes from the King of Siam. How do we know that it is really his? It has his seal. Not otherwise “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork.” By faith, then, we believe that the worlds were made, as His word tells us. We read the account of that creation. What wonderful beings we are!—made in His image, endowed in our degrees with His own attributes, and with authority over the world in which He has placed us. He has given us dominion over all the beasts of the earth, the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea. Every time that a Buddhist kills a fish or a fowl, he sins, because he breaks a command of his religion. Why not so for a Christian? Because these creatures were made for man’s use, and were given to him. We partake with gratitude of the gifts our Father has provided for us. This one great truth, when received by Christians, relieves the conscience of one of the greatest burdens that the followers of Buddha must bear.

But if God made man in His image, why all this suffering that we see and feel? The best explanation ever given is that given in the Bible. Man was created holy, and was put on trial. He transgressed. A subject who disobeys the law of his sovereign incurs his displeasure. He suffers for it. We are suffering from this disobedience of our first parents by a law that we daily see exemplified. A man by extravagance or vice squanders his estate. His children are born penniless. The Prince of Wieng Chan rebelled against the King of Siam. His country was conquered and laid waste, and thousands of its inhabitants were made captive and deported. Thousands of the descendants of these captives are now serfs. Why are they so? Because of the errors or misfortunes of their ancestors. The Prince appoints a governor over a province, with the promise that if he is faithful, his children shall succeed him. Because of misdemeanor he is deposed. His descendants are born subjects and not rulers. We belong to a fallen race.

Somana Gautama belonged to the same race. He groaned under its pains and penalties. He saw a race sunk in misery. He saw its religion shamefully corrupt. He inaugurated one of purer morality. But he does not profess to be divine or a saviour. His religion does not offer a sufficient remedy. By asceticism and self-mortification it would extinguish all noble desire as well as the vicious instincts with which we are born. And then, after interminable cycles of transmigrations, we may hope to reach a state of unconscious sleep. Happiness and misery are inseparable things. We escape the one only by escaping the other. That is the dark prospect which makes Buddhism so pessimistic. To this the Princess assented, “That is so.”

Now compare this with the religion of Jesus. The sovereign Father who loves His wandering, sinful children, in His infinite wisdom devised a plan that satisfies their needs and desires, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Our Maker became our Redeemer by emptying Himself of His glory and becoming man. He is Himself the greatest possible illustration of the love of God to the race. He came to reveal the Father. His holy life we have in His word. He set us the only perfect example, full of pity toward the miserable and the sinful. Then, by a painful and shameful death, He became Himself a sacrifice for the sins of the world. He obeyed the law which we had broken, and which condemns us; and suffered in our stead the penalty due to us. He conquered death. He took away the sting of death by taking away sin. He arose from the dead, showing Himself for many days. He ascended to heaven before the eyes of His disciples. He has sent His servants and His word to offer a full and free pardon to all who will accept. He is now, and ever will be, our intercessor in heaven. He sends His Spirit to purify and fit us for an endless state of conscious existence which begins at death, and not cycles after. Millions of the best men and women the world has ever seen have given their testimony to the reality of this salvation by a triumphant death, with the assurance that all sin and all suffering were past. Jesus removed the curse, and brought to light the immortality which we had forfeited by sin. The missionary and his associates have left both parents and children that they might offer this to the Princess and to her people.

To all of this the Princess was mainly a most interested listener. She had asked to be taught. She put no captious questions. I have omitted an occasional assent that she gave, and an occasional difficulty or doubt—not all of which could be fully answered; as, for example, why an all-powerful God allowed the entrance of sin, and now allows wicked spirits to tempt us; or that other sad question, why the Gospel had not been sent to them, so that they might have known this from childhood—a question the burden of which should press on my readers as well as on the missionary.

At last, after a long pause, the Princess made a wonderful confession, the very words of which I can never forget:

“Tā chak wā dūi kwām ching, kā han wā paw krū ko tūk lêo.” To speak the truth, I see that the father-teacher is right. “Kā chûa wā kong chak mī Pra Chao ton dai sāng lōk.” I believe there surely must be some divine Lord who made the world. “Lê bat nī ko chûa tī paw krū atibāi dūi kān pon tōt dōi Pra Yēsū.” And now I believe what the father-teacher has explained about escape from punishment through the Lord Jesus. And then, sadly—almost despairingly—she added, “Tê chak yīa cha dai?” But what shall I do?—I fear it will not be well to forsake “hīt paw hoi mê”—the customs of my father, the foot-prints of my mother.

We were sitting in the new brick palace—the first ever built in the country. In the hall was a large pier-glass with numerous other foreign articles, most of them bought in Bangkok, and brought up for offerings at the coming dedication of the shrine. I asked, “Princess, did your father or grandfather have a brick palace like this?” Somewhat surprised at the question, she replied, “No.” “And I see the Princess riding down to the landing every day in a foreign carriage. Did your ancestors do that?” Before I could make the application, she blushed, perceiving that she was caught. I went on: “You do daily forsake old customs, and adopt new ones which your ancestors never knew. The whole method of government is changing. This foreign cloth, which your maidens are sewing for priests’ robes, was all unknown to your forefathers. These things all come from lands where the people worship neither the Buddha nor the spirits. These are only some of the fruits that grow on the tree. Better still, plant the tree; for all good fruit grows on it.” Just then our long conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the Prince, who had worked till he was tired. He asked what she and the teacher were talking about so long. She replied that we were discussing “bun lê bāp”—merit and sin.

The question often came up after this. She was in a position where it was, humanly speaking, almost impossible for her outwardly to forsake the customs of the country. But I have reason to know that on that morning she received truths which she never forgot. We have seen before that neither she nor her husband approved of her father’s act in murdering the Christians. She continued a warm friend to the last, and so did the Prince.

On my way home that same forenoon I had another interesting talk with our dear old friend, the abbot of the Ūmōng monastery, who had been so true to us during our troubles. On the gate-posts, as I entered, were offerings of fruit, rice, betel, etc., to propitiate the spirits. This is in flat violation of one of the fundamental precepts of Buddhism, which declares that any one who makes offerings to spirits is outside of the pale, or, as we should say, is virtually excommunicate. Of course, my abbot friend exculpated himself from all complicity in the offerings. He himself neither worshipped nor feared the spirits. But his disciples and parishioners did, and he could not withstand them. He, too, never gave up the form of Buddhism, but he claimed that he worshipped Jesus daily as the great Creator and Benefactor of our race. His merit he believed to be infinitely greater than that of Buddha, whom he knew to be a man. The abbot was a man of broad mind, and a true and faithful friend. It is well that it is not for us to say how much of error is consistent with true discipleship, even in Christian lands. I know that his deep-rooted friendship for us was because we were teachers of a religion that offered hopes which Buddhism does not give. I have in mind many others, also, who believed our doctrine, though they were never enrolled in our church; and not a few that would urge others of their family and friends to take, as Christians, the open stand which, from various causes, they themselves were prevented from taking. But the Lord knoweth them that are His.

The great event of the year 1877 was the dedication of a Buddhist shrine recently rebuilt on Doi Sutēp, the noble mountain which is the pride and glory of Chiengmai. From the level of the plain, and at a distance of but four miles westward from the city, the mountain rises in a single sweep four thousand five hundred feet, forest-crowned to its very summit, seamed with rushing brooks, and embroidered with gleaming waterfalls. In the rainy season the play of cloud and vapor, of sunshine and storm about its mighty mass, forms an ever-changing picture of surpassing beauty and grandeur. The Siamese and the Lāo are very fond of an imposing setting and a commanding view for their temples and shrines—on bold promontories by sea or river, on high knolls and summits. The one on Doi Sutēp crowns a projecting shoulder or bastion of the mountain, some half-way up, and visible from all parts of the Chiengmai plain. Each reigning Prince has been desirous of doing something to beautify and enrich this shrine. To rebuild it was, therefore, an attractive idea to Prince Intanon at the beginning of his rule.

AN ABBOT PREACHING]

To do honour to the occasion, and to make merit thereby, all the northern states, as far east as Lūang Prabāng, sent their highest officials with costly offerings; and the government of Siam sent a special representative. For weeks and months previously the whole country had been placed under requisition to make preparations. Offerings were levied from every town, village, and monastery, and, I believe, from every household. Each guest of honour had a temporary house built for him at the foot of the mountain, with smaller shelters for persons of less rank. Nearly all the princes and nobles of Chiengmai joined the encampment at the base of the mountain, and thither, also, was the city market removed, so that our housekeepers had to send four miles to market!

I had intended to pitch a tent near the encampment, so as to be near the people for missionary work. But a rheumatic attack during the opening days of the festival prevented. Still, we had as many visitors at home as we could attend to, and under conditions more favourable for missionary work.

Such occasions are very attractive to the Lāo people. For the time being the prohibition against gambling is removed, and they make the most of it. It may seem a queer way of making merit, but the theory is that their merit earns them the right to a good time for once. Thousands of rupees change hands on such occasions. The mornings are given to making offerings, the afternoons to boxing and games, and the nights to theatricals and gambling. I was glad that I was prevented from pitching my tent in the midst of the noise and revelry. All those interested in religion were the more free to call and converse with us apart from the princes and the rabble. Officers and monks from a distance were always especially welcomed, and few of them in those days returned to their homes without calling on the foreign teacher.

I did not get off on a long tour that season, being unable to secure an elephant. It was better so, however, for early in May Dr. Cheek went to Bangkok to consult a physician, and went on thence as far as Hongkong. It was April 30th of the next year before he got back to Chiengmai. And the season proved to be one of the most unhealthy in the history of the mission. Worst of all, we had only six bottles of quinine to begin the season with. There was a rush for the quinine, and it seemed cruel to withhold it so long as any was left. The fever was of a violent type, and often fatal. Native doctors were helpless before the scourge. On looking about me for a substitute for quinine, I found that arsenic was the next best remedy, and that Fowler’s Solution was the best form for administering it. But we had not a drop of the solution. We had, however, a bottle of arsenious acid, and a United States Dispensatory, so that I had to become pharmacist as well as doctor. I had all the ingredients save one, an unessential colouring matter. So I made it up by the quart. But it was not a medicine to be trusted in native hands. They were accustomed to take their own medicine by the potful, and had the theory that if a little is good, a great deal would be better.

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XVII

THE RESIDENT COMMISSIONER

In this same year, 1877, there occurred an event of utmost importance to the mission and to the whole country. We have seen that, up to the death of Prince Kāwilōrot, those Lāo provinces which are now a part of Siam had been virtually free states. The Siamese yoke had been very easy. They had never been conquered in war. Their original association with Siam had been a voluntary one, in order to escape the oppressive rule of Burma. Their location and their weakness made it a necessity that they should look to one of these rival kingdoms for protection against the other. At the same time, they added both dignity and strength to the one on which they leaned—they served it as a buffer against the other. Nature had connected the Lāo country more intimately with Siam. All its communication with the sea was through the Mênam Chao Prayā and its tributaries, while a range of lofty mountains separated it from Burma. In race and language too, they were Siamese, and not Burmese.

The relation had been mutually beneficial. Both parties recognized the advantages of the arrangement, and were satisfied. The balance of real advantage had been to the weaker states. Their chiefs, indeed, were required to make triennial visits to the Siamese capital, to present there a nominal tribute, and to renew their oath of allegiance. But with this exception they were virtually free. In his own country the Prince had absolute rule. The Siamese had never interfered with, or assumed control of, the internal affairs of the North Lāo states. It will be remembered that the sanction of the Siamese government to the establishment of the mission was given only after the Lāo Prince had given his.

It was probably an inevitable result that the stronger power should in time absorb the weaker. And the course of events had been tending that way. The forests of teak on the upper branches of the Mênam were too valuable to be concealed or to remain profitless. The world needed the timber, and was willing to pay for it. The country needed its value in money. The Burmese of Maulmein, who were British subjects, had skill in working out the timber, which the Lāo had not. With money and valuable presents they tempted the Lāo rulers, who formerly had absolute authority over the forests, to grant them concessions to cut the timber and market it in Bangkok. Both parties were avaricious, and both were probably crooked. Larger bribes sometimes induced a Lāo ruler to issue a second concession to work a forest already assigned to an earlier applicant. The result was a constant succession of lawsuits brought by British subjects against the Lāo. Since the Lāo states were dependencies of Siam, the Siamese government was often called upon to enforce judgment against them; while the Lāo felt that the Siamese suzerainty ought to shield them from such attack. Siam was now come to be in fact the buffer between the Lāo and the outside world. Instead of the pleasant relations which had hitherto existed between the two peoples, there was now constant friction.

Up to the time when Prince Kāwilōrot gave his public and official promise before the United States Consul and the representative of the Siamese government, in the little sālā at the landing-stage of Wat Chêng in Bangkok, no foreign power other than the English had had any claim on the Lāo or any contact with them. It was only the impolitic act of killing the Christians which brought the Lāo Prince into conflict with the representative of the United States government. The fact that it was the missionaries who were immediately concerned had nothing to do with the question. Had the agreement been made with American citizens in any other capacity or business, the obligation would have been the same. The Siamese government recognized the obligation, and, as we have seen, guaranteed the continuance of the mission. And that guarantee was an additional reason for having an official representative of Siam resident in Chiengmai.

Had the new Prince been as strong as he was mild and good, and had the Chao Uparāt been like him, it is possible that the old feudal relation might have continued another generation or two. No doubt the Siamese government thoroughly trusted the loyalty of the new Prince; but it did not regard him as a man sufficiently strong to hold the reins of power at that juncture. Moreover, all the business of ruling was largely given over to the Uparāt; and he in a number of ways had shown his opposition to our work and his jealousy of the English and of foreigners generally. When news reached us first that a High Commissioner was appointed, and then that he was on the way, there was great anxiety to know what stand he would take with reference to Christianity.

Prayā Tēp Worachun proved to be an admirable selection for Commissioner. He had many of the qualities of a statesman. He was cool, calm, patient, and wise. Judging from the result, it is evident that his instructions were: to be conservative; to make no rash or premature move; and to uphold the royal authority conjointly with the old princely rule—peaceably, if possible, but firmly—till Siam could assume complete control. Meanwhile he was to follow the English plan of governing through the native rulers. He was willing to bide his time. Every new assumption of power on the part of Siam was reluctantly yielded by the Lāo. But everything conspired to favour the policy of Siam. The Lāo Prince was passive and unambitious. For the Uparāt no one felt the reverence or the fear that all had felt for the late Prince Kāwilōrot. The Commissioner’s fairness and business integrity enabled him to maintain himself perfectly in his difficult position between the two branches of the Tai race, and amid the conflicting interests of the time.

In religion the new Commissioner was a stoic. His boast was that he needed no other religion than to be loyal to his king, and upright and just in his dealings with men. Virtue was its own reward, and vice was its own punishment. He accepted Gibbon’s conclusion that all religions are alike good for the state, alike true for their adherents, and alike false for the philosopher. He encouraged Christianity because it taught a good morality and made good citizens. But he could see neither the possibility nor the necessity of an atonement for sin. On one point I should say we were in full accord. In his opposition to the spirit-worship of the Lāo he was almost rabid. He sympathized deeply with the poor people accused of witchcraft, who were driven out of the country.

During the absence of Dr. Cheek and Mr. Wilson with their families, I should have been utterly unable to cope with the situation, had it not been for my wife’s clear business talent and tact in planning. The little girls, too, had begun to show somewhat of their mother’s aptitude for work.

Meanwhile the fever scourge continued to spread and increase in violence. The progress of the disease was so rapid that often the person attacked would never rally at all. An interesting example of the way in which healing of the body sometimes opened the way to the healing of the soul, is seen in the case of Sên Kam, an officer who was in charge of all the irrigation works on the Doi Saket plain, and who one day was brought to my gate, as it was supposed, to die. The new medicine quickly checked his fever, and presently he began to study in Siamese the Shorter Catechism, Genesis, and the Gospel of John. In due time he returned home a believer. But his desertion from Buddhism caused such opposition in his province that his baptism was delayed. His family were so shaken that some of them wished to return to the old worship. But one young granddaughter of twelve or thirteen years had begun to read our books and to attend our services. She refused to return to the monastery, and would run away from it to the chapel. She persevered until she brought back the whole family into the Christian fold.

In further illustration of the crowded experiences of this time, I may cite the following items from letters to our children, written during the latter half of the year 1877.

“Last week the King sent for your father to treat a prince who
had had the fever for fifteen days. During his paroxysms his
cries could be heard throughout the whole neighbourhood. In
their extremity they sent for your father, and gave up the case
to him with permission to remove all spirit-charms during the
treatment. He is now out of danger.” [MRS. MCG.]

“For three weeks I have had a young prince in hospital who had
attempted suicide by cutting his throat. He was a fearful sight.
It did not seem possible that he could survive the night. I
sewed up the wound, however, and now he is well, and apparently
penitent.” [D. MCG.]

“We are well as usual, but engrossed in work. Your father is
pressed beyond measure with the work of two men. On the return
of Dr. Cheek’s boats, we received forty ounces of quinine; but
it is going at a fearful rate. The hospital is full of patients,
and there are at least one hundred more to be prescribed for
daily. If I did not drop everything else and help him, he could
not possibly get through the day’s work.” [MRS. MCG.]

“Soon the quinine was all gone, and our compound was becoming a
veritable lazaretto. Most of the patients were anæmic and
dropsical from long-standing fever. They came, because to remain
at home was to die. Then a new complication arose. Unusual
symptoms began to occur that I could not account for. One
morning at breakfast we were called to see a little girl who had
a hemorrhage. She had no cough and had no consumption. While I
was looking up the symptoms and cause, your mother discovered
that the bleeding was from the gums. That gave us the clue. It
was scurvy. I found that we had at least thirty others whose
gums were similarly diseased. We began at once to give them
lime-juice, and prescribed vegetables, for the lack of which
they were starving. It is the invariable custom of Lāo doctors
in cases of fever to put the patient on a strict diet of boiled
rice and dried fish. On such diet some of our patients had been
living for two or three months. They might as well have been on
an arctic voyage!” [D. MCG.]

“Day before yesterday we tried to have a picnic. A princess had
promised us two elephants, but only one came. Your father took a
horse. The three children and I rode the elephant. Our
destination was the Doi Sutēp temple. About half the way up the
mountain the elephant either concluded that there was no fun in
going up alone, or, more probably, that he had an uncomfortable
load, and refused to go any further. He turned out of the road,
and tried to throw the driver from his neck. The children became
alarmed, and we dismounted as best we could. The children
refused to try riding him again; and since we had come largely
for their pleasure, we had our lunch by a brook, and returned
home on foot.” [MRS. MCG.]

“We had an interesting incident at our December communion. Just
as I had announced the communion hymn, I saw Chao Borirak—the
Nān prince, who had twice accompanied me with his elephant on my
journeys, and for whose sake largely one of my trips to Nān had
been taken—enter the room. As he had been the subject of much
special prayer on our part, I could hardly command my voice
sufficiently to proceed with the hymn. On my return from my
furlough he had written that he would visit me at the first
opportunity. His uncle, the Prince of Nān, had a grandson in
danger of losing his sight from an accident. He had persuaded
the Prince that possibly our medicine might help him. He brought
a few presents from the Prince, and for himself had brought a
gold ring with a native pearl from the Nān river. He is very
anxious that I should move to Nān, but I tell him that he must
wait for you.... With fever and death around us we have been
wonderfully preserved from ‘the pestilence that walketh in
darkness, and the destruction that wasteth at noonday.’ We have
had our anxieties about the children. During the last hot season
we were afraid that little Margaret would melt away, she was so
thin.” [D. MCG.]

But the labours of the year were not in vain. During its progress Nān Suwan, who afterwards became the founder of the church in Chieng Sên, and four others who became influential ruling elders, were baptized. And with these was Pā Kawng, an aged slave of the Prince, who lived to be one of the Lāo saints.

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XVIII

WITCHCRAFT

On January 6th, 1878, two native converts were received into the church—Nān Sī Wichai, the fine scholar who had been Dr. Cheek’s teacher, and the wife of a leading elder—and with them our own daughter Cornelia. This was the bright beginning of the year that brought in religious toleration.

One day in March, as I was sitting in my study, I was surprised to see a tall man, a stranger, with the bearing of an officer, enter. He pointed with both fingers to his ears, and asked if the teacher could say “Ephphatha,” and open the ears of a deaf man as Jesus did. It was a strange introduction—to be accosted by a Lāo with a quotation from Scripture in the ancient Aramæan tongue! I judged by his accent that he was from Lakawn. In answer to my enquiry as to who he was, I learned that he was a Prayā, the highest rank among Lāo officials; that he had formerly been first in the Lakawn court, but was not then in office. But where had he received a Bible, and who had taught him?