Chapter XXI: History of the Missions in Siam and Laos (1)

The American trading-vessel, commanded by Captain Coffin, which in 1829 brought to this country the famous “Siamese Twins,” brought also an earnest appeal for aid in evangelizing that then almost unknown land of their birth.

The appeal came from the zealous German missionary Gutzlaff and his associate, the Rev. Mr. Tomlin, of the London Missionary Society, who six months before had made their way to Siam, where they found not only an open door, but a large and most inviting field, for missionary labor. Their own societies not encouraging their permanent occupation of this advanced post in heathendom, both these brethren urged the American churches to enter in and possess the land for Christ. In response to the appeal of Gutzlaff, which was specially addressed to them, the American Board of Foreign Missions instructed the Rev. David Abeel, then in China, to visit Siam with a view to its occupancy if he deemed it advisable.

Dr. Abeel reached Singapore just as Mr. Tomlin was on the eve of embarking on a second visit to Bangkok, and arrived with him in Siam on June 30, 1831, a few days after Mr. Gutzlaff, disheartened by the death of his devoted wife, had sailed away in a native junk for Tientsin on the first of his memorable voyages of missionary exploration up the coast of China. He had been in Siam nearly three years in all, and had baptized one Chinese convert, whose name was Boontai.

The new-comers found the people eager for the books and medicines they had brought, and they labored faithfully for the good of the many Siamese and Chinese of high and low degree who came to visit them. In six months, however, Mr. Tomlin was called away, and Dr. Abeel also was obliged to leave Siam on a trip to Singapore to recruit his impaired health. Returning to Siam, he labored on till November 5, 1832, when continued ill-health drove him finally from the field.

Just two months before this the Rev. John Taylor Jones, who had been appointed a missionary to Siam by his American Baptist missionary associates in Burmah, to whom also Messrs. Gutzlaff and Tomlin had written, left Maulmain, where he had been stationed, for Singapore, on his way with his family to his new field. Delayed at that port, he did not arrive in Siam till March 25, 1833. Mr. Jones had been designated specially to the Siamese, but took supervision at once of the little company of Chinese worshipers Dr. Abeel and others had gathered, and in December baptized three of them. His Board at home approved the step Mr. Jones had taken, and determined to sustain the new mission, which thus proved to be the first permanently established in Siam.

The next to arrive in the field were two missionaries of the American Board, Messrs. Johnson and Robinson, who, with their wives, had embarked at Boston June 11, 1833, but, detained nine weary months in Singapore for a vessel to Siam, did not reach Bangkok till July 25, 1834, having been more than a year on their way. Mr. Johnson entered at once upon active labors for the Chinese, and Mr. Robinson for the Siamese, part of the population.

During the summer of 1834 the Rev. William Dean and his wife, who had been appointed by the American Baptist Board missionaries to the Chinese of Siam――their first missionaries, in fact, to any speaking the Chinese language――and Daniel B. Bradley, M. D., and wife, whom the American Board sent out to reinforce their mission to the Siamese, sailed from Boston for Singapore. While delayed at Singapore, Mrs. Dean was removed by death, and it was not till July 18, twelve months after leaving Boston, that Drs. Dean and Bradley, with Mrs. Bradley, reached their destined field.

Dr. Bradley soon opened a medical dispensary, and entered with zeal, faith and energy, which neither illness nor tropical heat nor any discouragement could abate, upon a course of medical and preaching, printing, writing and translating labors for the good of the Siamese, which ceased not till he resigned his breath in June, 1873――thirty-eight years after. Dr. Dean devoted himself to the instruction of the Chinese that thronged the city――a labor of Christian love which this venerable first apostle of the Baptist Church to the Chinese is still (1884) prosecuting in that same heathen city. In December, 1835, he baptized three new converts.

Both missions were now in efficient working order, with each its Chinese department as well as its Siamese, the Baptist mission laboring among the Chinese that spoke the Tachew dialect, who were emigrants from the Swatow district of the Canton province, while the A. B. C. F. M.’s mission looked after those that spoke the Hokien or Amoy dialect――different from that used by the Swatow people, and hardly intelligible to them.

The medical services of the missionaries and their medicines, and the Christian tracts and books they distributed without money and without price, were eagerly sought, and there was free access to the people in their streets, homes, and temples even, for making known the new religion; but none seemed savingly impressed――none of the _Siamese_. Indeed, while the protracted reign of the bigoted and imperious king who was on the throne when missions were established in Siam continued, it would seem no native could be brought even to entertain the question of forsaking the religion of the land, such was the dread of the king’s wrath and of the stripes, imprisonment, torture, death itself perhaps, that might be the fate of a convert.

The Chinese settlers in Siam were allowed more freedom of conscience; the displeasure of their kinsmen was all they would have to fear from change of religion. So Dr. Dean had the happiness of seeing the number of Chinese believers increase, till in 1837 a church was organized――the first church of Protestant Chinese Christians that was ever gathered in the East. To this, by 1848, sixty names had been added at different times. Mr. Johnson too, of the American Board’s mission, had the pleasure of baptizing his Chinese teacher in 1838, and in 1844 another of his teachers, Quaking, a Chinese of very respectable literary attainments.

Meanwhile, all labored on in hope. Reinforcements were sent from time to time to each mission. To the Baptist came, July, 1836, the Rev. Mr. Davenport and wife and Mr. and Mrs. Reid――Mr. Reid, alas! to die of dysentery in a little over a year. With these brethren came a printing-press. A printing-press was sent out to the American mission also the next year, so that both were now fully equipped for a most important branch of mission-work among this nation of readers. Before the year (1836) came to a close the first tract was printed, containing an account of the giving of the Law, a summary of the Ten Commandments, a short prayer and a few hymns. This is supposed to be the first printing ever executed in Siam. They had also secured more comfortable quarters on the west bank of the river, in the heart of the city, in houses built for them and leased to them by the Praklang, the minister of foreign affairs.

In March, 1838, Mrs. Eliza G. Jones died of cholera. She was a lady of many gifts and graces. A little tract from her pen, _The Burmese Village_, is one of the most vivid and touching pictures of heathenism in all missionary literature. In April the Rev. Mr. Robbins and Dr. Tracy arrived to join the A. B. C. F. M. mission, but both left the following year.

This year (1838) was one memorable in the history of the Presbyterian mission, as in it occurred the visit of the Rev. R. W. Dee, who had been directed by the Presbyterian Board to proceed to Bangkok and report upon its eligibility as a station for the missionary operations they were about entering upon for the Chinese, so difficult of access in their own country. During his month’s stay in Siam, Mr. Dee found so large a field unoccupied, where laborers from our branch of the Church would be gladly welcomed, that he urged upon the Board the establishment of a mission in that land, not only to the Chinese there, but to the Siamese also. November 5, 1838, Dr. Bradley was ordained a minister of the gospel by his congregational associates.

In 1839 the Siamese government availed itself of one of the mission printing-presses to multiply copies of a royal proclamation against opium, and had an edition of nine thousand copies struck off. In August of this year the Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Slaftee of the Baptist mission arrived.

In 1840 vaccination was successfully introduced into Siam by Dr. Bradley,――a great boon to the people, among whom small-pox often committed fearful ravages.

The American Board’s mission was strongly reinforced in its Siamese departments early in the year by the arrival of the Rev. Messrs. Jesse Caswell, Asa Hemenway, N. S. Benham and their wives, with Miss Pierce――Mr. Benham to lose his life in one short month by drowning, his boat capsizing in the Menam when returning from an evening prayer-meeting. The Rev. Messrs. French and Peet, with their wives, also arrived in May. To the Chinese department of the Baptist mission came the Rev. Josiah Goddard and his wife in October.

It was in August of this same year that the Rev. William Buell and wife, the first missionaries of the Presbyterian Board to the Siamese, arrived in Bangkok. There were then in Siam no less than twenty-four adult male and female missionaries.

But the next year Mr. Slaftee died of dysentery and Mrs. Johnson of brain fever, and the widowed Mrs. Benham returned to the United States. In 1842, Mr. French died of consumption, and the following year his widow left Siam for the United States.

In 1842, by the treaty made at the close of the war between England and China, the island of Hong Kong was ceded to the English and five important seaports thrown open to foreign residence and trade. Dr. Dean, under instruction from his Board, who hastened to enter the now unbarred gates of access to the Chinese empire, removed early in the year to Hong Kong, leaving the Chinese church in Bangkok in charge of Mr. Goddard.

In 1843, Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Chandler arrived from Burmah, where, as a type-founder and lay missionary, he had been employed for three years. Being a practical machinist, he did much to introduce a knowledge of the useful arts among some of the leading men of the kingdom. Prince Chow Fah Noi, who subsequently, in 1851, was made the second king, became a pupil of his, and constructed a well-appointed machine-shop under his supervision, as did also an intelligent young Siamese nobleman of progressive ideas who afterward became master of the mint.

In 1844 the first steamer ever seen in Siam made its appearance, and greatly astonished the natives. On leaving, it took as passengers to Singapore the Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Buell, the only missionaries of the Presbyterian Board, who were now, after only three and a half years’ residence, most reluctantly obliged to abandon their work, Mrs. Buell having been stricken with paralysis. With their departure (February 24th) the Presbyterian mission in Siam died out, or rather was suspended, and more than three years elapsed before it was resumed. It had from the first been the intention of the Board to establish and maintain a _Chinese_ department, but those sent out for this purpose, on reaching Singapore and learning there how fully open China proper was to the gospel, felt themselves called to proceed to that land, whose claims seemed so much greater. Miss Pierce of the American Board, who had come out as a missionary teacher, but failed to gather a school, died of consumption in September of this year.

The year 1845 witnessed quite a reduction in the number of the American missionaries in Siam. The Rev. Mr. Davenport and wife (now Mrs. Fanny Feudge) of the Baptist mission left for the United States, to return no more, and Dr. Jones, also, on a visit. The Rev. Charles Robinson and family of the A. B. C. F. M. also left Siam (Mr. R. to die at St. Helena on his passage home), while Mrs. Dr. Bradley died at Bangkok in the triumphs of faith after years of efficient and loving service for her Saviour――a most valuable helper in her husband’s work.

It was in this year that Prince Chow Fah Mongkut (Chow Fa Yai), who afterward became king, then head-priest of a royal monastery within the city-walls, invited one of the American missionaries, the Rev. Jesse Caswell, to become his private tutor. So anxious was this priest-prince for instruction that he offered an inducement which he knew would weigh heavily with a missionary――the use of a room in a building on the temple-grounds, where, after his hour for teaching was over, he could preach and distribute Christian tracts. The arrangement was made and carried out for over a year and a half. So much of the future of Siam in providence was to hinge on those hours of intimate intercourse between the faithful teacher and his illustrious and most diligent pupil that all the particulars are of interest. The prince was then about forty years of age――his teacher a graduate of Lane Theological Seminary, a member of the Presbytery of Cincinnati, and in the service of the A. B. C. F. M.

In 1846 the American Board, rightly deeming China proper a wider and more promising field for the labors of their Chinese-speaking missionaries, decided to give up their Chinese department in Siam, instructing Messrs. Johnson and Peet to proceed to China and establish a new mission at Fuh-Chow-fuh. With the close of the year came the Rev. Mr. Jenks to assist Mr. Goddard of the Baptist mission, only to leave, however, before the close of the next year, in consequence of the failure of Mrs. Jenks’s health.

In February, 1847, Dr. Bradley, with his three motherless children, left on a visit to the United States, his ship passing in the Gulf of Siam the vessel in which newly-appointed missionaries of the Presbyterian Board, Rev. Stephen Mattoon and wife and Samuel R. House, M. D., were on their way to recommence the mission-work of that Board in Siam, which had been so long discontinued.

These brethren had sailed from New York for China in the ship Grafton in July, 1846, arriving at Macao, after a five months’ voyage, on Christmas Day. No opportunity thence direct to Siam presenting, they were constrained to proceed _viâ_ Singapore. There they were most hospitably entertained by the Rev. B. P. Keasberry, a missionary to the Malays, then of the London Missionary Society. Finding in the harbor a native-built trading-ship belonging to the king of Siam, commanded by a European, they secured a passage in it to Bangkok, which, after a tedious voyage of twenty-four days, they reached March 22, 1847, eight months after they left New York. The journey from New York to Bangkok can now be made by transcontinental railways and Pacific mail-steamers, or by English steamers and the Suez Canal, according as one goes west or east, in six or seven weeks only.

Upon arriving the new-comers were most cordially received by the brethren of the A. B. C. F. M. and the American Baptist mission, and welcomed to the homes of Messrs. Caswell and Hemenway, the only remaining members of the A. B. C. F. M., till the vacant houses on their premises could be prepared for their reception. They were soon visited by many of the nobles and princes, and took an early opportunity to pay their respects to the Praklang, Prince T. Mourfanoi (Chow Fah Noi), and his elder brother, T. Y. Chow Fah Mongkut, the prince-priest, at his residence in a beautiful monastery in the city. By both these princes they were most kindly received――by the last-named with marked regard, which they ever retained.

The tidings spreading that a new foreign physician had come to Siam, patients of every description and of all classes crowded for relief, till Dr. House was compelled to reopen the dispensary, which had long been sustained by Dr. Bradley in a floating-house moored in front of the mission premises. During the first eighteen months he had prescribed for three thousand one hundred and seventeen patients. Mr. Mattoon applied himself successfully to the study of the language, and soon entered upon the work of tract-distribution, visiting for this purpose the wats or Buddhist monasteries of the city, none being more ready to receive Christian books than the priests――or monks, rather――themselves.

In the ensuing cool season many tours were made with the brethren of other missions. Petchaburee, Ayuthia, Prabat and Petrui were visited, and everywhere they found a ready reception for the books and tracts they carried with them.

In 1848 the Rev. John Taylor Jones, D. D., returned with Mrs. S. S. Jones and Miss Harriet Morse, a missionary teacher, but Mr. Goddard of the same mission was obliged to remove to a more invigorating climate, and left for Ningpo, China. In September of this year the mission cause sustained an irreparable loss in the death of Jesse Caswell. He was a man of most earnest purpose and rare fitness for the missionary work. His qualifications as a teacher were appreciated by the Prince Chow Fah Mongkut, who chose him as his instructor in the English language and science, and derived from him, chiefly during the eighteen months’ continuous instruction he received, those enlarged and liberal ideas in government and religion which, when he succeeded to the throne, led him to open Siam to commerce and improvement. No wonder that after he became king he erected a handsome tomb over his esteemed teacher’s remains and sent to his widow in the United States a gift of one thousand dollars, and subsequently five hundred dollars more, as tokens of regard for his memory. In February, 1849, Mrs. Caswell and family returned to America.

Mr. Caswell’s death and Mr. Hemenway’s illness threw now upon Mr. Mattoon, though he had been but eighteen months in the field, the Sabbath preaching-service at the station and a tri-weekly service at a hired room used as a chapel in the bazaar. There were, too, many applicants for books daily at the houses of the missionaries, and they had to be instructed and supplied.

In 1849 the Presbyterian missionaries were made glad by the arrival in April of the Rev. Stephen Bush and wife, as were the Baptists by the Rev. Samuel J. Smith’s arrival in June. When a lad Mr. Smith had been taken into the family of Dr. Jones, came on with him to Siam, had been sent by him thence to the United States to be educated, and now came out to assist that veteran missionary in his work.

The newly-arrived missionaries were busy in the acquisition of the language when suddenly the pestilence like a thunderbolt burst upon the inhabitants of Bangkok, sweeping to destruction in less than one month full thirty-five thousand, or about one-tenth, of its population. For days together, when this epidemic of Asiatic cholera was at its height, there were two thousand deaths in the twenty-four hours in Bangkok alone. The mission families were graciously permitted to abide in peace and safety. As may be imagined, the whole time of the missionary-physician was engrossed by attendance on the sick and the dying in princes’ palaces and in bamboo huts, and, through the blessing of Providence on remedies to which he was directed, many lives were saved and many lifelong friends secured to himself and the religion he professed. Of all those thousands that perished, alas! but one died in hope――an old man from a far-distant up-country home, who from the reading of Christian tracts alone, without ever seeing the living teacher, had joyfully received the truth, and, finding his way to Bangkok and to the Baptist mission to be instructed more perfectly, got there just in time (so it was strangely ordered) to become one of the earliest victims of the epidemic. He died without fear, trusting in the Saviour he had found.

August 29, 1849, witnessed the organization of the first Presbyterian church in Siam. Earnest prayer went up that day that the little vine there planted might flourish and increase, and at last overshadow the land. To this church, made up of the mission families, a worthy native brother was added by certificate from the church in connection with mission of the A. B. C. F. M.――Quakieng, who, it will be remembered, had been baptized by Mr. Johnson in 1844.

With the last week of the year 1849 the Rev. Asa Hemenway, the sole remaining missionary of the A. B. C. F. M., after just ten years of faithful service on mission-ground, embarked with his family for the United States, and the operations of that Board in Siam closed. For fifteen years its missionaries had cultivated this interesting and inviting, but as to visible results most barren, field. From none of the native races of the land had they gathered one reliable convert. Their missionaries had labored, and labored well, but others were to enter into their labor. The “set time” for Siam’s visitation had not yet come. It would seem that “he that letteth must let, till he be taken out of the way” of this man-fearing people before gospel truth could have “free course, run and be glorified.” The books that they prepared, translated and distributed, the favor won by their gratuitous healing of the sick, and the introduction, first, of inoculation and afterward of vaccination for the small-pox, the training given in habits of industry and order and in knowledge of the Christian Scriptures to those employed by them in their printing-office and in their families, were not lost, nor the high opinion the natives learned to entertain of the truthfulness, benevolence and goodness of American Christian men derived from them and their worthy Baptist associates. And we must not forget how largely the career of progress on which Siam has since entered is traceable to the influence of one member of this mission.

In the spring of 1850 the Rev. Dr. Bradley, who had, while in the United States, transferred his relations to the American Missionary Association, returned with Mrs. Sarah B. Bradley and his children, and with him came as associates the Rev. L. B. Lane, M. D., and Prof. J. Silsby. To the A. M. A. had been made over the dwelling-houses, chapel, printing-press, etc. of the A. B. C. F. M.; the ground on which they stood had been only leased.

It was now imperatively necessary that the Presbyterian mission should have a home of its own, but all attempts to procure one failed. The knowledge of the unwillingness of the government to give foreigners any foothold upon the soil deterred the owners of suitable locations from selling to the missionaries. And when at last one, braver than the rest, was found willing to part with land enough for a station in the upper part of the city, and permission to purchase obtained from the proper official, and the money had been paid over, and one of the missionaries with his family had removed in a floating house to the spot to commence building, a peremptory order from one of the highest grandees revoked the permission given, and compelled the return of the mission family and the payment back of the purchase-money by the seller. No other reason was given than that “the residence of foreigners there was contrary to the custom of the country.” Nor could any eligible site be rented even.

The king, who had always been a zealous and bigoted Buddhist, had now become more despotic and selfish and averse to foreign intercourse than ever, monopolized himself what little trade there was, and settled down into a narrow policy that would exclude all nations but China from the products of his dominion. Neither of the friendly embassies which visited Siam this year――that from America in March or that from England in August――could obtain an audience even, much less gain any concessions in matters of trade or residence or protection of the interests of their people.

The English ambassador, the celebrated Sir James Brooke (“Rajah Brooke”), mortified and insulted by the reception given him, withdrew, threatening to return with a fleet and force that should compel respect. War seemed so imminent that the proposition kindly made to the mission families to retire with the ships of the embassy, lest hostile measures entered upon should subject not English residents only, but all speaking the English tongue, to a fate like that of Dr. Judson when the war broke out with Burmah, was seriously considered, though not accepted.

Very dark were the prospects of all the missions now. The native teachers were arrested and imprisoned, and threatened with the ratan and with fetters; the Siamese servants left in a panic; none came to hear preaching or applied for books.

But the darkest hour is just before day. Just then, in the overruling providence of God, a mortal though lingering illness seized the king, and for months all things were in suspense till, in April, 1851, his long reign ended and he “entered into Nipan,” as the Siamese say when royalty expires.

Upon the throne, as his successor, was now placed, by the concurrent voice of the grand council of princes and nobles, the Prince Chow Fah Mongkut, and Siam entered upon a new era in her history; for this remarkable man by his devotion to study during the twenty-seven years of his seclusion from public affairs in a monastery, while his inferior half-brother, who had artfully supplanted him, reigned with so strong a hand, and by his intimate association with the American missionaries, and especially by his having been long under the almost daily tutelage of one of them, had become emancipated from many of the prejudices of his countrymen, and prepared to set the wheels of progress in motion.

Bright now were the prospects of the missionaries. Their teachers and their old servants returned, and, as the sovereign was known to be personally friendly to the missionaries, they were treated with respect by all ranks, and had everywhere a civil hearing for the message they brought. Indeed, they were assured from the throne on the day of the coronation, when they were invited to the palace, that they should be unmolested in their work. Lest, however, they should be too exultant in their new hopes, Providence was pleased to order trials and bereavements to each of the missions. Mrs. Bush had an attack of hemorrhage from the lungs, that on the 22d of July, after six short weeks of illness, resulted in her death. No, it was _not death_, but _a translation_. To those who witnessed her triumphant departure it seemed as if her spirit, when it reached the threshold of the gate of the heavenly city, turned to tell them what she saw. “Beautiful!” she said――“beautiful! Heaven is one great beauty.”

Early in January, in the midst of the other discouragements, the Baptist mission had suffered a great calamity. A fire in the night, doubtless of incendiary origin, had destroyed their dwelling-houses, chapel, printing-press――including a large edition just completed of the New Testament in Siamese――and nearly all their personal effects. Their loss amounted to ten or twelve thousand dollars. A temporary house of bamboo and thatch was hastily thrown up, but new dwellings must be erected, and from exposure to the sun and fatigue in procuring timber for the rebuilding Dr. Jones was taken ill, and, his constitution being impaired by a score of years spent in the tropics, he succumbed to disease on the 13th of September, and passed peacefully away――an irreparable loss to his mission and to Siam. He was a man of excellent judgment, piety and culture, and had a rare mastery of the Siamese language with its curious idioms that made him most acceptable to the natives as a preacher and writer. His translation of the New Testament and several tracts that he prepared attest his scholarship in Siamese and his ability.

Just before this sad event the Rev. William Ashmore and wife, who had been sent out by the Baptist Board to take charge of the Chinese department, arrived in Bangkok.

And now the Presbyterian mission obtained at last what it had so many years sought in vain. An eligible location was tendered them near the centre of the city, not far below the palace, adjoining one of the largest wats and in the neighborhood of several others.

About this time the king, with a singular appreciation for an Oriental monarch of the importance of female education, in a note in which he says he “desires several ladies who live with him to acquire knowledge in English,” invited the wives of the missionaries to visit his palace and alternate in giving regular instruction to his numerous family. Gladly and with much interest did Mrs. Mattoon, Mrs. Dr. Bradley and Mrs. Dr. Jones, representing the three missions in the field, enter upon their work――_the first zenana-teaching ever attempted in the East_.[2] Twenty-one of the thirty young wives of the king, and several of his royal sisters, composed the class. During the three years these labors continued much Christian as well as secular knowledge was imparted to these secluded ones――_saving_ knowledge, it was hoped, in the case of one at least, a princess of the highest rank.

As soon as the rains were over and possession was given of their new premises, Messrs. Mattoon and Bush proceeded to enclose the ground, dig trenches for the foundations, purchase rafts of teak-wood logs and superintend their sawing by hand into the timber and planks required to put up two plain but convenient brick dwelling-houses. Mr. Bush’s experience and practical skill here proved of great value. Before the rains fairly set in, early in June, one house was finished, and Mrs. Mattoon and family removed into it from the floating house on the river, lent to them by a friendly prince, which had been their temporary home while the new building was going up. They had found it not an undesirable residence, though one memorable dark night, having been detached from its moorings that it might slip away from a fire that was raging on a river-bank near, through the carelessness of a servant it got adrift and carried its inmates off against their will, with a rapid tide, seven or eight miles down the river before its progress could be arrested. The truant dwelling, however, with all its contents undisturbed, with the turn of the tide was brought back to its old moorings safe and sound.

The other dwelling-house was soon completed and occupied. The mission having now a home of its own and ample room, in October, 1852, a boarding-school for Siamo-Chinese boys was opened, and Quakieng, who was an experienced Chinese teacher, put in charge――the free tuition the lads would receive half of each day in their father-tongue being, it was hoped, an inducement that would attract such pupils within the reach of Christian instruction.

Before the first year ended twenty-seven had been enrolled. All attempts to gather _Siamese_ boys in a school had failed thus far, though some individual scholars had been taught, as the wats gave free tuition to all, and merit was made by providing the priests with their pupil-attendants.

An interesting, amiable young Hainan Chinese, See Teug by name, had the year previous been baptized by Mr. Mattoon, in whose family he long had lived――the first of that people to become a Protestant Christian――and gave pleasing evidence of his love to his Saviour by the interest he manifested in bringing his fellow-countrymen to the knowledge of the gospel. A Sabbath evening-service was held for their benefit, the new convert acting as Bible-reader and interpreter. Afterward a Hainan teacher was secured, and for many years a Hainan-Chinese department of the boarding-school maintained, in the hope of bringing under saving Christian influences some of the many Chinese in Siam from the island of Hainan, which had been hitherto entirely unreached by Protestant missionary effort. A day-school for the Peguan girls in the neighborhood was started by Mrs. Mattoon, who had also two or three native girls in her own family under Christian training.

About this time great numbers came to the houses of the missionaries for books and conversation on religious matters, fifty or sixty in a day, attendance upon whom required the whole time of one of the brethren. Over a thousand Christian books a month were thus put into the hands of intelligent readers. Young priests and boys from the neighboring wats were frequent visitors, and as no second volume was given until they had been questioned on the contents of the first, and many thus received the whole series of the publications of the mission, much Scripture truth must have been imparted. So eager were some of these lads for books that they would swim across the river to get one, and then swim back with but one hand, holding up the prize high and dry with the other.

And now followed a time of great outward prosperity――the government friendly, the missionaries enjoying the respect of all classes, their schools flourishing, their books eagerly sought. The mission of the American Missionary Association, as a special token of the king’s regard for its senior member, Dr. Bradley, was permitted to occupy a very desirable location at the mouth of the principal canal of the city, the chief channel of travel west.

In December, 1852, Mr. Bush, whose health required a change, left for the United States.

The next year Dr. House made a tour of great interest, partly on foot, partly on elephants, to Korat, an important inland town north-east of Bangkok, over in the great valley of the Cambodia River, returning by Kabin, and distributing many books and making known to many a surprised listener in a wide district of country never before visited by a missionary, or a white man even, the strange doctrine――strange to them――of the being of a _living_ God and salvation without personal merit freely granted for another’s sake. Much of Mr. Mattoon’s time was now given to the work of making a revised translation of the New Testament into Siamese.

In 1854 a Mormon missionary found his way to Siam, but, meeting no encouragement, soon withdrew. The Siamese did not need any urging to the practice of polygamy.

Prof. Silsby left Siam in May of this year, and Mr. J. H. Chandler and wife returned, and with them came the Rev. Robert Telford and wife to assist in the Chinese department of the Baptist mission.

In January, 1855, Dr. Lane of the A. M. A., on account of the health of his family, and Miss Morse of the Baptist mission, took their final leave of Siam.

The time was now at hand when Siam, so long secluded and almost unknown, was to enter more fully into the family of nations by treaties of commerce and friendship with the great powers of the West. Sir John Bowring, then governor of Hong Kong, arrived March, 1855, as British ambassador to the court of Siam, and was cordially welcomed by the king, with whom he had previously been in friendly correspondence. Aided by his able secretary of legation, Consul Parkes (now Sir Harry Parkes, British minister to Pekin), in one short month, in one week of actual negotiation, he overturned the customs and prejudices of centuries, and had conceded to him by the enlightened ruler of the land and his ministers of state the abolition of all the government monopolies of articles of trade, the removal of the old foolish prohibition of the export of rice and teak-wood, moderate duties on imports, the residence of consuls to protect the interests of their countrymen, and liberty for British subjects to travel and take up land in the country. This treaty opened the way for all subsequent treaties with other nations, and so opened Siam to the commerce of the world.

Dr. House availed himself, when the embassy left Siam, of the courteous offer of a free passage to Singapore, to make a brief visit to his native land to seek for the reinforcements his mission so greatly needed. While at home he was ordained and married, and, re-embarking with Mrs. House and the Rev. A. B. Morse and wife, reached Bangkok again in July, 1856, greatly to the joy of the solitary mission family that with faith and patience unwearied had been “holding the fort.”

Meanwhile, a month or two before, our United States government had by its ambassador, Townsend Harris, Esq., negotiated a treaty almost identical with the British, and, to the great satisfaction of the Siamese, Mr. Mattoon was appointed consul. Dr. William M. Wood, late surgeon-general U. S. Navy, who accompanied the embassy, testifies in his book, _Fankwei_, that the “unselfish kindness of the American missionaries, their patience, sincerity and truthfulness, have won the confidence and esteem of the natives, and in some degree transferred those sentiments to the nation represented by the missions, and prepared the way for the free national intercourse now commencing. It was very evident that much of the apprehension they felt in taking upon themselves the responsibilities of a treaty with us would be diminished if they could have the Rev. Mr. Mattoon as the first U. S. consul to set the treaty in motion.” Mr. Mattoon accepted the office, however, only till a successor should be appointed at Washington. Meanwhile, his mission-work――preaching, translating, etc.――was not intermitted.

In 1856 the schools reported forty-seven in attendance, and every department of the work was in successful operation.

Another station in Bangkok being thought desirable, and a large lot with broad frontage on the river on its west bank in the lower suburbs of the city becoming available, it was secured, and Mr. Morse (a bamboo cottage being put up for his temporary residence) removed there and commenced building a brick dwelling-house. Ere its walls were half up he was completely prostrated by disease, and forced, to the great regret of his associates, to leave the field and the work he loved, and for which he was so well qualified. Previous to his leaving, Mrs. Mattoon, finding an American ship loading at Bangkok to sail direct for the United States in March of this year, had availed herself of the opportunity to make a visit home for rest and to recruit her strength, exhausted by ten years’ toil in a tropical climate.

It being necessary to go on and complete the building begun by Mr. Morse, and the new premises there having the advantage of carrying on some departments of missionary work, and not being subject to ground-rent, as was the other place, it was deemed best to give up the upper station, dispose of the buildings there and establish the Presbyterian mission permanently on the newly-purchased ground. The removal of the mission to the new station, four miles below, was made in November, 1857, and another dwelling-house immediately commenced.

This was nearly completed when, June 20, 1858, the Rev. Jonathan Wilson and wife and the Rev. Daniel McGilvary arrived. Messrs. W. and McG. had been room-mates at Princeton Seminary; while there had both felt the claims upon them of missionary work, and had become much interested in Siam; but after graduating Mr. McGilvary was called to become pastor over a church in North Carolina, and Mr. Wilson had gone out as a missionary to the Choctaw Indians. Years passed, and each had been led by the pressing needs of the field to offer himself to the Board for service there, and most gratifying was it to find that they were to be sent out together.

The number of ordained ministers now warranted the formation of a Presbytery, and the Presbytery of Siam was duly constituted September 1, 1858.

In the study of the language, aiding in the instruction of the pupils in the boarding-school and in tract-distribution the new brethren found enough to busy them.

In January, 1859, the Rev. S. Mattoon, who had then for some twelve years without intermission borne the burden and heat of the day, returned to the United States for the much-needed change, rejoining his family there.

Signs of more than usual religious interest appeared about this time, and one of the native teachers, Nai Chune, applied for Christian baptism. So deep, however, was the duplicity of this people generally, and so many who professed interest in the teachings of the gospel had proved to be influenced by purely selfish motives, that when this case of genuine conviction of the truth occurred, just what they had been hoping and praying for so long, the brethren distrusted the sincerity of the man, and put him off from week to week until fairly compelled to admit that the miracle of converting grace had actually been wrought even in a Siamese, and they could no longer forbid water that he should be baptized. The day of Nai Chune’s baptism (August 7, 1859) was to them a jubilee indeed. With tears of joy they gathered in at last, after more than twelve years of toil unblest, the first-fruits of their labor among the Siamese.

It was singular that this same year (in December) the mission should lose its first church-member――Quakieng, the faithful, consistent Chinese native assistant. He was attacked by cholera and died, commending his departing spirit to his heavenly Father. With his death the Hokien-Chinese instruction in the mission-school ceased, and soon after the teaching of the Hainan Chinese in their native tongue. The school was too well established now to need to hold out this inducement to attract pupils.

The cholera was quite prevalent in April, and Mrs. Wilson nearly became a victim. Other diseases set in, and she lingered on the borders of the spirit-land till July 10th, when she closed a blameless Christian life and entered into the home of the blessed with words of rapture on her lips.

The stricken band in the Presbyterian mission were greatly cheered and strengthened two months after by the return (September 15th) of Mr. Mattoon and family, and with them the Rev. N. A. McDonald and the Rev. S. G. McFarland and their wives.

Up to this time the Presbyterian mission had been dependent for its printing upon sister-missions, but now a press of its own, sent out by the Board, was set up and soon in successful operation. A year or two later it reported an issue of more than half a million of pages annually.

In December, Mr. McGilvary was married to Miss Sophia R. Bradley, eldest daughter of Rev. D. B. Bradley, M. D., of the American Missionary Association. This cool season Messrs. Wilson and McFarland accompanied Mr. Telford of the Baptist Board on a trip for distribution of Siamese and Chinese tracts down the east coast of the gulf as far as Chantaboon.

With such an accession to the members of the Presbyterian mission as they had lately received, it was now deemed that the time had come for them to establish a new station somewhere outside of Bangkok, and Petchaburee was fixed upon as its location. This is an important inland town, some eighty-five miles south-west from the capital city, situated in the midst of charming scenery in a fertile and populous district of country. The acting governor of the province favored the having a station there, and offered every assistance; and this in a place where the authorities treated very uncivilly the first missionaries who visited it, and arrested those who received books at their hands. Ground having been purchased and the house they had secured made ready for them, in June, 1861, Messrs. McGilvary and McFarland, with their families, removed to Petchaburee. Another dwelling-house was soon under way, and a school opened on the premises, with the sons of the governor and lieutenant-governor enrolled among the pupils.

The name Petchaburee signifies the “city of diamonds,” and soon after their arrival the missionaries found there, in the midst of the rubbish of heathen superstition and idolatry, a gem, a living stone of priceless value, that has since been taken to shine doubtless in the Redeemer’s crown. It was a native Siamese, Nai Kawn by name, from a village near, who called upon them to place his son under their instruction. The lad already knew the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer. The father himself surprised them by his facility in quoting Scripture, repeating whole chapters of Romans; and on conversing with him it appeared that, though he had never seen a missionary, from some two or three portions of the Scripture and a few Christian tracts that had fallen in his hands, taught by the Spirit of God, he had gained, and accepted too, a wonderfully clear view of salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Gladly he received other portions of the New and Old Testament, and, further instructed, he became a fearless and efficient witness for the truth before his countrymen of high and low degree.

The brethren at Petchaburee, with the freest access to the Siamese everywhere, found a peculiarly inviting field of labor among a colony of Laos numbering ten thousand or so, settled near them. These people, adherents of a prince who had failed in his struggle for the throne, had fled in a body from their own land in the far north-east some eighty years before, and, seeking refuge in the dominion of the king of Siam, had been assigned a home and lands in this fertile province. They were made serfs of the king, however, and much of the time had to work for their new royal master. A preaching-place was secured in one of their villages, and these toiling exiles seemed to be interested hearers of the word.

But to return to Bangkok. In December, 1861, Esther, a young native woman who had been brought up in the family of Mrs. Mattoon, was baptized,――the first native female member of the Presbyterian mission-church of Siam.

On February, 2, 1862, the Rev. S. C. George and wife, who had been sent out by the Presbyterian Board, arrived in Bangkok. Mrs. George was a sister of Mrs. Johnson, one of the noble company of martyred missionaries put to death by Nana Sahib’s orders at Cawnpore. Much faithful colporteur work in the city and suburbs was done this year by Mr. Wilson, and mission-tours were made to Camburi and Prabat by him and other missionaries. A neat mission-chapel which had been built on the mission premises without drawing upon the funds of the Board was opened for divine service in May. In December, Messrs. McDonald and House, with Mr. Telford of the Baptist mission, made a coasting-trip to Chantaboon, distributing many Siamese and Chinese books and tracts there and at other places visited on the way.

The first fruit of the labor of the Petchaburee missionaries was gathered in February, 1863, when Kao, a young Siamese of much promise, was baptized. He had entered Mr. McFarland’s service that he might acquire a knowledge of English, but he was instructed also in the way of life, and learned that which made him wise unto salvation. One short month, and he left his dying testimony to the excellence of the new religion he had embraced. Called away by sudden and severe illness, his last words were, “Why do you weep? I am not afraid to die. I love the Lord Jesus. I am going to heaven. My heart is happy.” There were others in Petchaburee who soon after had the courage to renounce Buddhism and publicly avow themselves Christians. May 10, 1863, a Siamese man and his wife, who had been long in Mr. McGilvary’s employ, and a young Siamo-Chinese in Mr. McFarland’s, were baptized and a church organized in Petchaburee. It was an occasion of great and joyful interest to the brethren there.

In May the Rev. Robert Telford and wife of the Baptist mission, after nine years’ labor among the Chinese of Siam, were obliged to leave Siam in quest of health, embarking for China.

Mr. McGilvary, in his labors for their spiritual good, had become so much interested in the Laos people settled near him in Petchaburee that he was anxious to learn if something could not be done for the evangelization of the hundreds of thousands of Laos in the tributary states to the north, as yet unreached by the gospel. Accordingly, with the consent of the mission, he made in that cool season, with Mr. Wilson, an exploring-tour to the hitherto unvisited North Laos country, journeying partly by boat, partly on elephants, as far as Cheung Mai, the capital. The travelers were well received by the authorities, and after an absence of eleven weeks returned strongly impressed with the practicability and desirableness of establishing a mission among that interesting people.

The varied work of the mission at the two stations was carried on as in former years, some engaged in the boys’ school, others having charge of the printing-press or translating the Scriptures or preparing tracts and catechisms, maintaining the preaching-services, conversing with visitors, distributing tracts or medicines, vaccinating native children, studying the language with native teachers, or conducting the daily morning service, which all on the mission premises or in mission employ were required to attend, and when, with the brief exposition of the Scripture read, much religious instruction was given. The wives of the missionaries also did much for the instruction of the native females in their families and neighborhoods in reading and sewing and in Bible-classes on the Sabbath.

In February, 1864, Dr. and Mrs. House left on a visit to the United States, the state of Mrs. House’s health requiring it; and a few months later Mrs. Mattoon, whose asthmatic trouble had returned, was compelled to take her final leave of Siam. Her husband remained to finish the important work on which he had long been engaged of making a revised translation of the New Testament into Siamese. Mr. Wilson, whose health had become impaired, accompanied Mrs. Mattoon and her children to America.

In December, 1864, the Rev. Dr. Dean, whose shattered constitution had been restored by eleven years’ sojourn in his native land, gladly returned (with Mrs. Dean, Miss F. Dean and the Rev. C. H. Chilcott) to take charge again of the Baptist Board’s mission-work for the Chinese and of the Chinese church in Bangkok, which he had founded. Mr. Chilcott was removed by death before he had entered on the second year of his missionary life.

In December, 1865, the Rev. S. Mattoon took his final and regretful leave of the land and the people for whose good he had labored so long and so faithfully――a loss to the community as well as to the mission. From the date of his embarkation for the field to that of his arrival in the United States on his return was just twenty years.

April 4, 1866, the Rev. P. L. Carden and wife arrived to join the Presbyterian mission, and in July the Rev. J. Wilson returned with Mrs. Kate M. Wilson. In July also came Miss A. M. Fielde, to be connected with the Chinese department of the Baptist mission. Dr. and Mrs. House returned in December from their visit home, with health renewed.

The industrial school for girls in Petchaburee, which has since brought so many of the women and girls of that city under daily Christian instruction and training in habits of neatness and industry, commenced by Mrs. McFarland the year previous, was now an established success. The boys’ boarding-school at Bangkok prospered under Mr. George’s superintendence. The fall of 1866 was a season of marked religious interest at the Bangkok station; there were several decided cases of conversion, and a daily prayer-meeting instituted by the converts was well sustained.

In 1867 (October 1) the missionaries write: “During the past twelve months more additions have been made to the native church than in all the previous years of its history.” Eleven had been received at Bangkok and four at Petchaburee――nine of the number pupils of the mission-schools.

This year (1867) was memorable as witnessing the commencement of the Presbyterian mission in North Laos. On the 3d of January its pioneer missionary, the Rev. Daniel McGilvary, with his family, embarked on what was to prove a three months’ voyage up the Menam. Having, besides the strong current of the river, no less than thirty-two decided rapids to surmount in their boats, it was not till the 1st of April that Cheung Mai, their destination, was reached. The king gave them a friendly reception and provided them with a temporary home. Numbers visited them daily, and gradually they acquired the confidence of the people, who heard them gladly. The year following the Rev. Jonathan Wilson and wife undertook the formidable journey, and left Bangkok to join the McGilvarys at Cheung Mai. Not long after their arrival, during a visit of Dr. House to the new mission, a church was organized in that remote heathen city, with many an earnest prayer that the “little one might become a thousand.” On his way thither over the Laos Mountains, Dr. House had a narrow escape from death. The elephant on which he had been riding unexpectedly turned upon him, struck him down with its trunk and then wounded him severely whilst attempting to transfix him with its tusks.