The matter of appointment having been adjusted, Boon Itt returned
to his native land in the summer of 1893. Upon return it was
necessary for him first to qualify himself in his native language.
Not only had it been seventeen years—the major part of his
life—since he had withdrawn from the daily use of his mother
tongue, but his training in that language had been arrested when
he was a lad of eleven. His higher education had been in a foreign
language so that his religious conceptions were framed in words
that must find an equivalent in the Siamese. During this period
of language study he was occupied in many ways in the work of the
mission, assisting with the literary work of the mission press,
accompanying others on mission tours, and temporarily having charge
of stations while missionaries were on vacations. On September
20, 1897, he married his cousin, Maa Kim Hock, a graduate of the
Harriet House School.
It was shortly after his engagement that a flattering offer came
to him to turn aside from religious work and enter business. Dr.
House, writing to a friend under date of Nov. 25, 1896, says: “A
letter from Boon tells me of his having declined an engagement of
five hundred dollars a month (he now has only five hundred dollars
a year from the mission), as he prefers his present work, which he
loves and enjoys and has been blessed in.”
The proffer of so large a salary might well have been sufficient
inducement to a young man to abandon the less lucrative business of
preaching. But upon consulting his fiancée she replied: “I think
we would be far happier doing the Lord’s work on a little money
than to leave it for so large a sum.” But that was not the only
tempting offer that came to him. After Boon’s death the Minister
of the Interior disclosed that he himself had offered to Boon Itt
“a position which would have led to high titles of nobility from
the King of Siam, to the governorship of a province and to a large
increase in income.”
Compared with these offers, a salary of five hundred dollars was
indeed a pittance for a college graduate, even with the extra
allowances. The larger salary of eight hundred and fifty dollars
which he was receiving at the time of his death was an economic
injustice compared with commercial salaries. But it needs only
be observed that all missionaries suffered the same injustice.
An American missionary in the same country at the same time was
receiving only one thousand one hundred and thirty dollars,
although he had a family and had served more than twice as long
as Boon Itt. Since then the scale of salaries has been raised,
and graduated according to the length of service; but it is still
true that a missionary receives barely enough for a living. But
the marvel of this comparison is not the disparity of pay but the
readiness of Boon Itt to renounce such dazzling offers and to hold
himself true to the work of preaching the Gospel to which he had
devoted himself.