Chapter XXI: History of the Missions in Siam and Laos (2)

In May, 1868, the Rev. P. L. Carden, who had lastly been stationed at Petchaburee, was obliged to withdraw from the field on account of the serious illness of his wife. This year the Rev. Samuel J. Smith and wife (formerly Mrs. Dr. Jones), who had been so long connected with the American Baptist Board, became self-supporting, Mr. Smith having charge of a large printing-establishment and a weekly English newspaper, but maintaining Sabbath preaching and other services in Siamese, and Mrs. Smith, able and indefatigable as a teacher and writer, doing much in the work of instruction and in other ways for the good of Siam.

As Mr. Chandler’s connection with the Board had been severed some ten years before, the Siamese department of the Baptist mission ceased now to exist.

An unusually protracted total eclipse of the sun was to occur this year in August, and the Siamese dominions afforded the very best place in the world to observe it. His Majesty the king of Siam, himself a practical astronomer and very fond of the science, generously invited the French astronomical expedition to be his guests on the occasion――the governor of Singapore also, and the foreigners in Bangkok generally, including the missionaries. He went himself with his entire court, with quite a fleet of steamers, down the west coast of the gulf, some two hundred miles, to Hua Wan, the point selected, where the jungle had been cleared and a bamboo palace with other buildings had been put up, expending upon his right royal hospitalities in the whole affair about ninety-six thousand dollars. A malarial fever taken there brought on, not long after his return to his capital, the death of this martyr to science, the most enlightened of all the sovereigns of Asia. He died with Buddha’s last words as the last upon his lips: “All that exists is unreliable.” He used to say to the missionaries, “The sciences I receive, astronomy, geology, chemistry,――these I receive; the Christian religion I do not receive; many of your countrymen do not receive it.” And now he died as the philosopher dieth, stepping out into the darkness beyond, on which neither science nor Buddhism shed a ray-of light or gleam of comfort. As he had chosen to live without God in the world, so he died without hope――the blessed hope of eternal life which sustains the dying Christian, and might have been his. In the death of the king the missionaries lost, some of them, a kind personal friend and “well-wisher,” as he used to sign himself, and all a friendly-disposed, liberal-minded sovereign, who put no obstacles in the way of their evangelizing his people.

The king’s eldest son, Prince Chulalongkorn, then a youth of fifteen years only, was made his successor by the unanimous choice of the grandees of the realm. His royal father prized too highly the knowledge and all that came to him through the study of English not to have his heir-apparent taught that tongue. So from his early boyhood an English governess had been provided for him and his numerous brothers and sisters. From this accomplished lady he doubtless derived many excellent ideas and principles, though by the terms of her engagement she was expressly forbidden to teach Christianity to any in the palace. After she left Siam he was for several months under the tuition of Mr. Chandler.

The young king won golden opinions from the missionaries――who sought an early audience to express their condolence, congratulations and best wishes――by his prepossessing manners, his intelligence and the evident sincerity of his assurances of good-will.

During his minority the affairs of the kingdom were successfully administered by the regent, the one who had been prime minister during the late reign――a man of great executive ability. The conservatism of this ablest and wisest statesman of Siam was perhaps a needful check upon what were possibly too strong tendencies toward reform in the youthful sovereign, who would fain have abolished slavery for debt and suppressed gambling by an immediate decree. But his minority was well improved. He was the first ruler of Siam to break over the superstition that would prevent his setting foot outside of his own dominions, and before he was twenty had visited other countries――the first year Singapore and Java; in a subsequent one, British Burmah, Calcutta, Bombay, and other cities of British India――intelligently observing everything, and returning with many ideas of improvements to be made at home.

In January, 1869, the missionaries were reinforced by the addition of the Rev. James W. Van Dyke and the Rev. John Carrington and their wives to the Presbyterian mission, and Rev. S. B. Partridge to the Baptist. Mr. Van Dyke was assigned at once to the Petchaburee station as a colleague to Mr. McFarland, then laboring alone. Mr. Carrington remained at Bangkok, and while acquiring the language gave valuable assistance in the school.

At the Laos mission the brethren had much to encourage them. The king of Cheung Mai had granted them a spacious lot of ground on the river-bank for their homes; the gospel truth they preached was working in the hearts of those who heard it, and one, whose heart had been won before, when the falsity of his own sacred books’ scientific teachings had been shown by the fulfillment of the foreign teachers’ prediction of the great eclipse, was brave enough to renounce Buddhism and receive Christian baptism. The name of this first convert was Nan Intah. Others too were brought out of darkness into light, till in the first seven months of the year 1869 seven converts were baptized.

But a storm was gathering, soon to burst upon them. The king, a brave warrior, but a narrow-minded, arbitrary, superstitious ruler, who had never comprehended their true errand, though apparently friendly, when he saw they were beginning to draw his people over to the new faith determined to uproot it from his dominions. He first attempted to get rid of the missionaries themselves, forwarding a complaint against them to the authorities at Bangkok and requesting their removal. The nature of the charge so illustrates the superstition of the people and the character of the man that the story of it must be given.

On the 31st of March, 1869, there was received at the U. S. consulate a communication of which the following is a literal translation: “Chow Phya Pooterapai, Minister of the Interior, begs to inform the acting consul of the United States of America that Pra Chow Kawilorot, the king of Cheung Mai, has sent down letters to Prince Hluang Hluang and the Prime Minister and myself, the purport of all being the same――viz. that whereas in former times the principalities of Cheung Mai and Lampang and Lampoon had never been subject to visitation of famine, now for two years――the year of the Tiger [1866-67] and the year of the Rabbit [1867-68]――there has been a scarcity of rice. It is evident that what has befallen the country is because in these lands, where no foreigner ever before had come to live permanently, now at this time the missionary McGilvary, who has come as a teacher of religion, had taken up his residence in Cheung Mai. Hence these calamities have come upon them. He, the king of Cheung Mai, begs that the consul be made to issue an order withdrawing [lit. “pulling up”] the missionary McGilvary and requiring his return. What is proper to be done in this matter? You are requested to take the subject into consideration.”

To this letter Mr. McDonald, who, singularly enough, happened to be acting U. S. consul at that time, under date of April 1st replied substantially as follows: “He has received the communication of His Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs forwarding the complaint of the king of Cheung Mai, alleging Mr. McGilvary to be the cause of the famine in his dominions and requesting his removal. In reply he begs to say that it strikes him as rather singular to attribute the famine during the year of the Tiger [1866-67] to Mr. McG.’s taking up his residence in Cheung Mai, inasmuch as the scant harvest of that year had already been reaped before Mr. McG. had arrived, or even left Bangkok to go up to Cheung Mai, for it was not till Jan. 3, 1867, that he set out on his journey. And this year [1868-69], though Mr. McG. is still at Cheung Mai, we have tidings of an abundant harvest there. Moreover, in 1865-66, Korat and other towns in that quarter experienced a severe famine, and yet no foreigner had ever resided in that region of country. Orders will be given to Mr. McGilvary so to deport himself that no famine can be attributed to him hereafter; but as to his (the consul’s) being required to withdraw Mr. McG. and constrain him to return, it would be manifestly wrong. His Excellency (the Minister of the Interior) and the Siamese government gave consent to Mr. McG.’s going up to Cheung Mai, and he went on the invitation of the king of Cheung Mai himself also. Moreover, he has expended on the removal of his family and goods no small amount of money. That he (the consul) should be asked to recall Mr. McG., and constrain him to return, without any transgression of the laws alleged against him――in fact, without any reason whatever――would not be right. The consul trusts His Excellency will duly consider this matter, and that his views may accord with what is just and right in the case.”

The Minister of the Interior in his reply, dated April 3d, states that “his views coincide with the consul’s. Mr. McG. had in no respect offended against any of the laws of the country. His Excellency has some solicitude about the matter, however, inasmuch as the king of Cheung Mai is a difficult man to deal with, being often arbitrary and unscrupulous. He is constrained to say this much, that the consul may be apprised of the true state of things.”

The warning was kindly given, but at Cheung Mai the king, failing in this attempt to have the foreign teachers expelled, concealed his hostility to them and their work, and outwardly all went on as usual. Meanwhile, the truth was working in the hearts of not a few who heard it, and the truth made them brave to confess their newfound Lord and Saviour. In seven months from the time when Nan Intah had been received six more Laos men had professed themselves Christians and been baptized. Then suddenly the storm that had been long gathering burst upon the infant church. On the 12th Sept., 1869, two of the newly-made converts were seized by orders from the king on some false pretext, painfully pinioned, and after a night’s imprisonment, without trial, barbarously put to death, being beaten with clubs on the neck, one of them pierced also with a spear. “Faithful unto death,” who can doubt they have received from the Lord Jesus, to whom dying they commended their departing spirits, the crown of life, the martyr’s crown, for they were as true martyrs as any who were slain in the cruel Nero’s day? The other five church-members, taking flight, contrived to secrete themselves from those who “sought their lives to destroy them.”

The situation of the missionaries themselves was now perilous in the extreme. They and their wives and their little ones were in the hands of a merciless, self-willed, reckless, bigoted despot, who hated them and their doctrines, and were five hundred miles away from consular or other aid. Succeeding at last in getting a letter to their friends at Bangkok, the brethren of the mission, startled by the tidings, and not knowing indeed if the Laos missionaries were yet in the land of the living, hastened to lay the matter before the regent. He kindly promised to despatch a special commissioner to Cheung Mai at once with any missionaries that might go, with stringent orders that the missionaries there and their families receive from the Laos authorities the protection the treaty between Siam and the United States guaranteed them. He declined, however, to interfere in behalf of the native Christians.

Messrs. McDonald and George bravely volunteered on behalf of the mission to go to the comfort and aid of their brethren in peril, and set out on the long journey, proceeding by boat to Rahang, thence traveling over the Laos mountains on elephants with the Siamese commissioner and his attendants. In a stormy interview which the missionaries had with the king in the presence of the commissioner he was forced to admit that the two men had been put to death because they had become Christians, and he avowed his set purpose “to kill all his people who should do the same.” As to the missionaries, “they might remain, as the Siamese government had so ordered, but they must not teach religion nor make Christians.”

The future of the Laos misson did indeed look dark, and there seemed to be no alternative but to withdraw from the land while this king reigned. But he who was thus “breathing out threatenings and slaughter” speedily had his power for evil taken from him and was called to his account by a higher Power. Soon after, during a visit he made early in the year 1870 to Bangkok to attend the imposing ceremonies at the cremation of his late suzerain, the king of Siam, he was taken ill. His sickness increasing, he hastened home, but did not live to enter again the walls of his capital, and the supreme power passed into the hands of the second king, his son-in-law, who from the first, with his truly noble queen, had been kindly disposed to the missionaries.

In February, 1870, Mr. McDonald, whose health had become seriously impaired, found it necessary to visit the United States, and left Siam with his family. A young Siamese who accompanied them, giving evidence of true conversion, was baptized by Mr. McDonald during his sojourn in America.

In April, 1871, Mrs. House was obliged to make a trip for a season to the more temperate clime of the United States, and, leaving her husband at his post, returned alone. This year C. W. Vrooman, M. D., was sent out as a medical missionary to the Laos. Proceeding to Cheung Mai after the rains, during his stay of a year and a half he accomplished a good work for the mission. Oct. 11, 1871, Miss Fielde of the Baptist mission to the Chinese left Siam, eventually to join the mission of the Board in Swatow, China.

Toward the close of this year Mr. McDonald and family returned to Siam, and with them the Rev. R. Arthur and wife, the Rev. J. Culbertson and Miss E. S. Dickey. Miss Dickey proved a most efficient and acceptable teacher in the mission-school at Bangkok, and subsequently at Petchaburee. The last day of 1871 brought back to Siam, his native land, the Rev. Cornelius Bradley and wife, to be associated with his father in the mission-work of the American Missionary Association.

In June, 1872, Ayuthia, the ancient capital of Siam, and still a town of considerable importance, was occupied as a missionary station by the Rev. J. Carrington and family, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur joining them before the expiration of the year. At Petchaburee their new chapel was dedicated with interesting services in August. In October, 1872, twenty church-members were reported at Petchaburee, and eighteen at Bangkok. In December, Mrs. House returned from her health-trip to America, accompanied by Miss Arabella Anderson.

The women of the Presbyterian Church at home were now waking up to realize their special privilege and duty to work and give and pray for the women and children of benighted heathen lands. The ladies of the Troy branch of the Albany Synodical Missionary Society, from which two laborers had gone out to Siam, becoming thus particularly interested in that country, had undertaken to establish a female boarding-school at Bangkok, and raised three thousand dollars for that purpose. A little before this a lot of ground on the west bank of the river, nearly opposite the palace of the second king, some five miles above the lower station, had been secured by the mission, and a dwelling-house partially completed on it. Mr. and Mrs. George, who were to have occupied it as a new station, having to return to the home-land, Mrs. George’s health failing, the Board tendered the place and the building to the Troy ladies for their school purposes, on condition of their investing their own funds in the building and completing it. They accordingly took possession, Dr. and Mrs. House and Miss Anderson occupying it in December, 1873. The school was opened in May, 1874, in charge of Mrs. House and Miss Anderson, and by the close of the year had a large number of boarding pupils, some of them noblemen’s daughters.

The year 1873 witnessed a great diminution of the number of the missionaries of the Presbyterian Board. In January the Rev. S. C. George, after eleven years’ service as teacher, preacher and translator, left with Mrs. George, as has been already stated. February 8th the Rev. S. G. McFarland and his wife, after twelve and a half years of faithful and exhausting but successful labor for this heathen people’s good, sought their much-needed and well-earned rest in their native land. April 19th the Rev. D. McGilvary of the Laos mission, who had been nearly fifteen years in the field, sailed from Bangkok with his family to revisit his friends and the churches in the United States. By the same steamer Miss Dickey also left, to find in the North China mission a more congenial climate. Aug. 12th, Dr. Vrooman sailed, having withdrawn from the Laos mission in June. Aug. 25th the Arthurs embarked for the United States, Mrs. Arthur’s health having failed entirely.

But the great loss to Siam this year was by the death of the missionary of longest service in the field――the Rev. D. B. Bradley, M. D., who rested from his unceasing and varied labors for Siam and the Siamese, continued for thirty-nine years with undiminished faith and zeal, on the 23d of June.

During the months of June and July the cholera prevailed, carrying off in twenty days over five thousand victims, among them the eldest son of Mr. McDonald. In November, Maa Tuan, the eldest daughter of Quakieng, the former Chinese assistant, was received to church membership; two of his sons were afterward admitted. A translation of _Pilgrim’s Progress_, made by the native elder of the Bangkok church, was printed this year and was in large demand.

The recoronation of the king took place in November, he having now obtained his majority. On taking the reins of government into his own hands, prompted by his own noble instincts, his inherited love of progress and sincere desire for the good of his people, he boldly ventured upon reforms that were startling to his old courtiers, and indeed to all who had known Old Siam. His coronation-day was marked by the abolition of the degrading custom practiced for centuries of requiring those of inferior rank to crouch and crawl on all fours like spaniels in the presence of their superiors. A still more remarkable change he sought to introduce was the giving up of some of his absolute power as sovereign, by creating a council of state and also a privy council, before whom all public measures were to be brought and discussed and approved before they could be decreed by the king as laws. In carrying out these and other well-planned reforms he received, however, but little sympathy from the old ex-regent and his party.

In 1874, to the great regret of all, the Rev. C. B. Bradley was compelled to leave the, to him, debilitating climate of Siam. With his family he embarked for California March 8th. Upon his departure the American Missionary Association withdrew altogether from the field, making over to the family of Dr. Bradley the mission premises and the printing-establishment. This last, in fact, had been built up by the energy and skill and labor of Dr. Bradley, and its earnings had for many years more than paid all the expenses of the mission.

The Presbyterian Board was now the only Board left to provide for the spiritual needs of the Siamese people. Would that the Church whose agent that Board is could be made to realize the blessedness of the privilege committed to her if improved, and the responsibility she incurs if unfaithful to her duty to these myriads of dying men and women!

Mr. Carrington too was forced by protracted illness in his family to take his final leave of Siam.

In the fall of 1874, Mr. and Mrs. McGilvary of the Laos mission, returning from their visit to America, arrived in Bangkok, and, being joined by Marion A. Cheek, M. D., the newly-appointed medical missionary to these people, who came out by a later steamer early in 1875, embarked for their remote post at Cheung Mai.

Under Dr. Cheek’s escort Miss Mary L. Cort and Miss Susie D. Grimstead had come to join the Siam mission. Both were assigned to the station at Petchaburee. There Miss Cort has remained ever since, in labors abundant and manifold and with zeal and courage untiring.

Among the converts reported in 1875 was one long in the employ of the different missions as a printer, who had hardened his heart against the truths he had through the press helped make known to others, and grown old in sin, now constrained to yield to those truths and enter on a Christian life. Two sons of the old native Chinese assistant, Quakieng, who died in 1859, were also received, and the younger became a candidate for the ministry.

In April, Mrs. McDonald embarked for the United States with her children, to provide for their education there, her husband remaining at his post, preaching, superintending the press and translating the Scriptures of the Old Testament.

Oct. 19, 1875, the Rev. S. G. McFarland and Mrs. McFarland returned to Siam, and with them came the Rev. Eugene P. Dunlap and wife. On their way down the China Sea they encountered a typhoon and for many hours were in imminent danger.

Dr. Cheek was married in December to Miss Sarah A. Bradley, daughter of the late Rev. D. B. Bradley, M. D., and in February, 1876, Miss Arabella Anderson was married to the Rev. Henry V. Noyes of the Presbyterian mission in Canton, and left with him, to return to Siam no more. The place she had so well filled in the girls’ boarding-school at Bangkok was taken by Miss Grimstead. The number of pupils then in attendance was twenty.

The health of Mrs. House had now become so seriously impaired by eight months’ continuance of severe attacks of asthma that her longer stay in Siam was out of the question, and she was reluctantly obliged to hand over to others her cherished work of female education and the school for girls, now in successful operation. With like regret did her husband leave the people and the country for whose good nearly thirty years of his life had been given. Dr. and Mrs. H. left for home in March, 1876, taking with them two Siamese lads of eleven to be educated in the United States under their care.

Their departure made necessary the coming over of Mr. and Mrs. Van Dyke from Petchaburee to take charge of the upper station at Bangkok and assist Miss Grimstead in the management of the girls’ school. This same year, in June, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, with health quite broken by exhausting labor in their Laos mission, had to go to the United States to rest and recover strength. Mr. W. improved the opportunity to procure in America the casting of a font of Laos type――no easy task. At Cheung Mai this year the widow of one of the martyrs was baptized with her two daughters, and Nan Intah, the first Laos convert, had the happiness of seeing his wife and son-in-law received to the church, and not long after two daughters and a son.

In 1877 the first Siamese convert baptized in the Presbyterian mission, Nai Chune, was called to depart. He died as one who “_knew_ in whom he believed,” and said in parting from the missionary friend who visited him, “I must go first, but I will be waiting at the gate to welcome the rest of you when you come.” This year Mr. McDonald rejoined his family in the United States, returning with them the year following. The state of Miss Grimstead’s health compelled her return to America and the severance of her connection with the Board. The native churches received large accessions during the year, thirteen being added to the Bangkok church, twenty to the Petchaburee and ten to the church at Cheung Mai, making the total number of communicants in Siam one hundred and four, and in Laos nineteen. The king of Siam manifested his interest in the work of female education by the generous gift of a thousand dollars toward the building for this purpose the mission was erecting at Petchaburee. This sum was handsomely supplemented by twelve hundred and sixty dollars more, contributed by some of the higher princes and nobles.

Early in the year 1878 the Rev. J. M. McCanby arrived, and Miss Jennie Korsen――the last to take Miss Grimstead’s place in the girls’ boarding-school. The Rev. S. G. McFarland, D. D., withdrew this year from his connection with the mission, having been invited by His Majesty to take the presidency of the newly-planned King’s College at Bangkok. The mission press during the twelve months, under Mr. Culbertson’s energetic supervision, issued over a million pages of Scripture and other truth.

In October, 1878, Mr. Wilson, leaving Mrs. W. in America, as her health did not admit of her accompanying him, embarked on his return, and under his escort three lady missionary teachers――Miss Belle Caldwell for Siam, and Miss Edna S. Cole and Miss Mary Campbell for the Laos. Miss Korsen becoming Mrs. McCauley and removing to the lower station to assist her husband in charge of the boys’ school, Miss Caldwell took her place at the school for girls. The boys’ school under the McCauleys had a membership of fifty-five, and good progress was made in study.

An appeal having been made to the king of Siam by the missionaries to the Laos in behalf of certain oppressed native Christians, he was graciously pleased to issue (Sept. 29, 1878) a proclamation establishing religious toleration in Laos, and by implication throughout all his dominions.

Under the direction of the Presbytery of Siam two new churches were organized this year――one at the upper station of Bangkok, the other at Bangkaboon, a fishing-village near Petchaburee. The native Christians at Bangkok by their contributions provided for the erection of a house for the native preacher at Ayuthia, and the entire support of another assistant there. The total church-membership in Siam now was one hundred and thirty-three, and in Laos thirty-one.

Miss Mary E. Hartwell, who arrived with the McDonalds early in 1879, assisted Miss Caldwell in the girls’ boarding-school, and Miss Hattie H. McDonald, who was now under appointment as a missionary teacher, taught in the boys’ school, which came under her father’s supervision when the McCauleys, who had been in charge, were compelled to remove to Petchaburee by the departure thence, in consequence of their failing health, of Mr. and Mrs. Dunlap, who had been there of late. The Dunlaps returned to the United States in November.

The lady teachers at Petchaburee, Misses Coffman and Cort, had then under their care seven different schools in and near that city, numbering nearly two hundred pupils. At Cheung Mai the new missionary teachers soon had in the school there, which Mrs. McGilvary had commenced, twenty-five girls, eighteen of whom were boarding pupils. Eighteen Laotian converts were reported this year. The Laos king, finding the premises of the mission too limited, bought an adjacent lot and generously presented it to the mission.

In February, 1880, Mr. Culbertson was married to Miss Caldwell. In August, Ernest A. Sturge, M. D., sailed for Siam as a medical missionary, to be stationed at Petchaburee, and later in the year the Board sent out to the Siam mission the Rev. Mr. and Mrs. C. S. McClelland, with Miss Laura A. Olmstead. Miss Olmstead became Miss Hartwell’s associate in the girls’ school, and the McClellands went to Petchaburee. Mr. McCauley’s constitution not enduring a tropical climate, he had, with his wife, to be transferred this year to the mission of the Presbyterian Board in Japan. The state of Mrs. McGilvary’s health made a visit to the United States necessary for her, and at the close of the year Mr. and Mrs. Van Dyke and family, all seriously ill, after nearly twelve years’ residence in the tropics, made their first visit home.

The boys’ school, under Miss H. H. McDonald, numbered sixty-seven, of whom forty were boarding scholars. Notwithstanding the sad defection of the native elder in the First Church, Bangkok, and the absence for a while of any ordained missionary at Petchaburee, twenty-five new converts were reported in Siam this year. To the church in Laos thirty-nine were added, and in July a new church was constituted in the midst of a cluster of villages about nine miles from Cheung Mai. The Laos school, under Miss Cole’s care chiefly, now numbered thirty-five, of whom twenty-two were boarders. Dr. McGilvary spent several months this year at the frontier town of Rahang, where two professed conversion, and in October he baptized six adults and organized a church in Lakon, one of the chief cities of North Laos, one hundred miles east of Cheung Mai.

In 1881, Mr. and Mrs. Culbertson left the field, Mrs. C. having lost her health, and Dr. McGilvary in March left Cheung Mai to rejoin his family in the United States. But one ordained missionary able to preach in the native language was now left in Siam, and one in Laos. Nor were any reinforcements sent out this year from home, though one in the field, Miss Mary McDonald, the second daughter of the Rev. N. A. McDonald, D. D., was appointed a missionary teacher. The new missionaries at Petchaburee and the lady teachers there were greatly tried by the contumacy and unchristian conduct of their oldest native helper and other church-members, and they suffered severely at the station from cholera, which prevailed as an epidemic. No less than thirty-two pupils and others on the mission premises were attacked by it. Dr. Sturge was the means of saving many lives in the town and vicinity.

The untimely death of Miss Mary Campbell of the Laos mission, by drowning in the Menam River, in February of this year, on her return from a brief health-trip to Bangkok, brought sadness to many hearts in America as well as in Siam.

And yet the year was not devoid of blessings. The schools prospered. Two useful Christian tracts in Siamese, composed by native church-members, were put in circulation. Dr. Sturge in September was married to Miss Turner, who became a valuable accession to the station at Petchaburee. One new church was formed in the Laos country, and no less than fifty adults received Christian baptism there.

In 1882 the Laos mission were called to part with their first Laos convert, long a model ruling elder, good old Nan Intah. Faithful and true, with a beautiful, loving trust in his Saviour, he bade his children and grandchildren a cheerful farewell, and went to be with Christ. Dr. Cheek’s medical practice was this year greatly enlarged and very successful. About thirteen thousand patients were prescribed for, and thus much was done to break up their confidence in spirit-doctors and their superstitious fears. Twenty-three were added to the Laos churches.

In the Siam mission the Rev. Mr. and Mrs. McClelland were, by reason of his continued illness, forced to give up their mission-work and return to the United States. Miss Coffman and Miss Hattie McDonald also were obliged to return in consequence of ill-health. The whole burden of the schools in Petchaburee fell now upon Miss Cort. Dr. Sturge treated four thousand five hundred and fifty-two cases――twice the number of the previous year――and with the funds raised, mostly by himself, had built a small hospital. The girls’ school, Bangkok, had thirty-seven names on its roll. An exhibit of their skill and industry, prepared for the Royal Centennial Exposition that came off this year in commemoration of the founding of Bangkok, so pleased His Majesty the king that he became the purchaser of the whole.

The greatly-needed reinforcements to the missions came this year, and several who had been home to recruit their health returned. Mr. Van Dyke sailed in July, leaving his wife with her children. In October, Mr. and Mrs. Dunlap gladly went back to their work in Siam, and with them, for the Siam mission, the Rev. C. D. and Mrs. McLaren and Miss Lillian M. Luinell. By the same Pacific mail-steamer went Rev. Dr. McGilvary and wife on their return to Laos, and as new recruits for that field the Rev. J. Hearst and wife, the Rev. S. G. Peoples and the Misses Griffin, Wirt, Wishard and Warner. On reaching Bangkok, the whole party were very graciously received by the king, of whom they obtained, through the U. S. minister to Siam, General Halderman, an audience, and on December 13th the large company for Cheung Mai was on its way up the river. The Baptist mission to the Chinese, that had now for years been maintained in successful operation by the veteran missionaries Dr. and Mrs. Dean, unaided save by native helpers, was at last reinforced by the arrival of the Rev. L. A. Eaton, Dec. 15, 1882. Mrs. Maria M. Dean, who for the benefit of her feeble health had been constrained to leave her husband alone and visit the States in the spring of 1881, was on the eve of returning to Siam when she was suddenly called (January 16, 1883) to exchange earth for heaven.

The joy of those in the field at such a welcome addition to their number as the opening year had brought them was, however, soon diminished. In March, only four months after his arrival in Bangkok, Mr. McLaren was snatched away by death, to the great regret of all, for he was a man of unusual promise. The Laos party suffered greatly from sickness after they reached Cheung Mai. Mr. Hearst was so prostrated by malarial fever that he was obliged to leave the Laos country, and, before the year was out, Siam itself for China and Japan. In the latter country his health so greatly improved that he hopes to remain and labor there. Dr. Cheek, with strength exhausted by his long and arduous labors, greatly needed change and rest, and with his family and Miss Edna Cole, whose health had become quite impaired, left Siam for a visit to the United States, arriving in New York in September, 1883.

Rev. Mr. Fulton of the Presbyterian mission in Canton was married to Miss Wishard, and toward the close of the year 1883, Mr. Peoples of Cheung Mai to Miss Wirt, and Miss Luinell to Mr. S. Gross, a layman in the employ of the Petchaburee mission.

The number of the communicants reported in the four churches connected with the Siam mission at the close of 1882 was 148; in the five connected with the Laos mission, 144, of whom 23 were received during the year; total, 292. There were many additions to this number during the year 1883. Petchaburee especially was favored with quite a revival of interest in spiritual matters. The faithful discipline that had been exercised in the church there the year previous, and the zealous labors of Mr. Dunlap, who returned followed and upheld by the prayers of many of the Christian women of America whom his earnest words had interested in his work while at home, resulted in the penitential return of many wanderers and in the addition of 56 communicants during the ten months preceding October 1st.

One more mission family was sent out during the year 1883――the Rev. Chalmers Martin and wife, who, embarking for the East from New York Sept. 29th, re-embarked in January, 1884, at Bangkok, on a native river-boat for the distant station at Cheung Mai.

In reviewing the history of the mission-work in the kingdom of Siam well may the Christian Church――the Presbyterian Church in particular――“thank God and take courage.” Buried in the deepest shadows of heathenish night, it long seemed as if the day of Siam’s awaking to welcome the light of the gospel would never dawn. But it came at last. The Lord had a people there whom he would call to the knowledge of himself, and there were men and women “willing to endure all things for the elect’s sake,” assured through all those years of almost utter barrenness that they or some one would yet “reap if they fainted not;” and then the Board, with everything to discourage it, _never gave up_, and so reinforcements were sent out and new fields opened and manned, and schools for girls as well as boys established and maintained, and the translation of the Bible carried on to completion, and Christian hymnals prepared, and catechisms and tracts, and the printing-press kept busy, and its issues distributed far and wide in city and hamlet, along the many rivers and canals, and the gospel message preached in mission-chapels and idol-temples and by the wayside, till now (1884) the truth has taken root in the land, and there are in the nine Christian churches in Siam and Laos, as we have seen, more than three hundred and fifty men and women, once idolaters and without hope in the world, who know the true God and love and try to serve him, and who rejoice, as we do, in hope of eternal life through Jesus Christ his Son.