into the church. One of them was Pā Sêng Bun, the poor woman accused of
witchcraft, who, with so much difficulty, was saved from her
persecutors. Another was Mûn C., who was a daily visitor when we were
here on our first tour of exploration. And another was our own dear
little Margaret. Somewhat later there came to our notice one of the most
interesting of all the incidents in the chequered history of our
mission. One morning, on returning from my work in the city, I was told
that a man had been waiting to see me, and was then talking to Nān Inta.
Stepping down to the house, where a number of persons had collected, I
saw a handsome man of medium height, but of striking figure, larger and
more portly than is usual among the Lāo, and thirty-three years old, as
I learned.
Nān Tā, for that was the stranger’s name, said that not long after our
first arrival in Chiengmai, while he was yet a monk in the king’s
monastery, he had visited me, and was struck with those points in the
teachings of Christianity which differentiate it from Buddhism. He
received a copy of the Gospel of Matthew in Siamese, learned a few
verses, and took the book home with him to the monastery. Afterwards he
visited me occasionally to take a few further lessons in it. He was a
protégé of Prince Kāwilōrot, who paid the expenses of his entering the
monastic order. He thus became the Prince’s “Luk kêo”[12] (_jewel-son_),
in effect his adopted son. Not long after this he left the priesthood,
married, and settled out in the country. But he paid us a few visits
from time to time, always, as he said, to talk on religion and to study
Siamese.
Footnote 12:
A designation whose nearest parallel in English is, perhaps,
_god-son_.
When the order for the murder of the Christians was given, a monk who
was a friend of his met him in the streets, and asked whether he knew
that his house was to be burned over his head, explaining that the
Prince had nourished him as a son, and now he had apostatized and joined
the foreign religion. Advising him to consider well and quickly, the
priest hurried on. So it had become known in the palace that he was
visiting us and studying the Jesus-religion. There was no time to be
lost, not even to bid good-bye to his young wife. On that eventful
Saturday afternoon, just before the flight of our servants, he stopped
at our door; but seeing no one, he hastened on. On Sunday he secreted
himself in a deserted monastery near the mountains. Next day he fell in
with a company of traders, going to Chieng Rāi, six days’ journey to the
north, and travelled with them without making known what his errand was.
At Chieng Rāi he learned that the Christians were put to death the day
after he left. He was still within the Lāo realm, and might be arrested.
He made his way, therefore, to Keng Tung, in Burmese territory, ten or
fifteen days’ journey still further to the north.
After remaining there some three years, he returned to Chieng Rāi, where
he heard of the death of Kāwilōrot and the accession of Prince Intanon.
Still in fear, he passed through the towns to the east of Chiengmai,
venturing even as near as Lakawn. Then crossing the Mê Ping valley to
the south of Chiengmai, he went beyond the Salwin into Burma, stopping
awhile among the Red Karens, and then going on to Maulmein. Seeing there
a foreigner’s house, he enquired if anything was known concerning the
missionaries in Zimme (Chiengmai). Nothing was known of them. Returning
again to Siamese territory, he went to Rahêng, thinking that he would go
on to Bangkok. There, however, he was told that the missionaries had
gone back to the United States—information based, no doubt, on our
departure on furlough.
During his long wanderings he had made friends as he could, and to
support himself had sometimes turned peddler. In the haste of his flight
from home he had taken nothing with him except his copy of the Gospel of
Matthew in Siamese. He could not read it well, but he kept it as a kind
of talisman, till it was now well worn. He had learned to pray daily. He
never dared to return till he heard of the Edict of Toleration. He
regarded it as a special providence that his wife, strange to say, had
not married again. The child born after his flight he found grown to be
a fine girl nine years old. He was delighted to find the missionaries
again.
It was a thrilling story. This man did not have to become a Christian—he
was one already. His first desire was to understand all that there was
in his Gospel of Matthew. It was evident that he had been spared and
kept for some wise purpose. And so it proved. Since I needed a teacher,
and since he was a fine Buddhist scholar, I employed him as teacher, so
that I might have him near me in order to teach him. He was an apt
pupil, making rapid progress in knowledge, and growing in grace. His
romantic history interested and attracted others. As a church member, as
a ruling elder, and afterwards as an ordained minister, he was a power
in the church till the day when he was taken up. Thousands heard the
Gospel from his lips, and many were drawn by his words and by his life
into the fold of Christ.
How wonderful are God’s ways in leading His people! Doubtless the
defection of this man was one of the things which alarmed Kāwilōrot. It
may even have hastened the fate of the martyrs. But no doubt the Lord
chose a wonderful way of saving to His church this most useful minister
of the Gospel.
* * * * *
After long-continued weakness on the part of Mrs. McGilvary, an acute
attack of pneumonia made a longer stay in the country impossible. My
daughter Cornelia was taken ill at the same time. So, with but little
preparation, on December 28th, 1879, both mother and daughter were
carried in chairs to the boat, and we hastened out of the country.
Stopping in Bangkok only a few days, we embarked for Hongkong. We met
the China Sea in its worst mood. For three days and nights we did not
see the captain’s face; neither did he see sun, moon, or stars in that
most dangerous tract of the sea. The skylight was fastened down, for the
waves swept the vessel from stem to stern. We were good sailors; but we
could not but pity the one hundred and twenty Chinese steerage
passengers, allowed on deck only a few moments twice a day for a breath
of air, after which they had almost to be forced back into their hole
again. There was withal just enough of the spice of danger to make the
sight of Victoria Peak at last doubly welcome.
By this time my family were all so much improved by the journey that
there was question whether I should proceed with them, or should return
to Chiengmai for another year’s work. It was evident that, in order to
regain her strength, Mrs. McGilvary would require a longer stay in the
United States than one year. I could neither spare the time for so long
a furlough for myself, nor could I expect the Board to grant it. The
question was not an easy one; but we decided at last that my wife and
children should continue their journey to the United States, and that I
should return to Chiengmai alone.
During my few days’ stay in Bangkok, through the kindness of our Consul,
I had an audience with His Majesty the King. I desired to express to him
in person my thanks for the Edict of Toleration. After some remarks
addressed to the other gentlemen present, the King asked me if I were
not, during the previous month, the bearer of despatches from his
Commissioner in the North—showing that he did not overlook small
matters, as a king might be expected to do. He enquired how I liked the
Commissioner, whether I preached in Siamese or in Lāo, how many converts
we had, etc., etc. It was a very pleasant interview.
As I ascended the river, it became plain that the water was too low to
permit the latter stage of the trip to be made in my large boat. At
Chiengmai I should find a house, but not a home. Before I could reach
it, the touring season would be nearly over. The thought of stopping a
season for work at Rahêng struck me favourably. The more I considered
it, the more attractive it became. To be sure, I had not secured the
sanction of the mission to that particular enterprise; but I had always
been allowed to choose my own touring ground. An officer, Sên Utamā,
offered me a site for a bamboo house gratis; and before I had announced
my final decision, he and others began to cut bamboo on it to build the
house. I had asked for guidance, and the question seemed to settle
itself.
I cannot dwell on the interesting six months of the year 1880 spent
there. Sên Utamā was interested from the first. By affliction he had
been wonderfully prepared for, and seemed to be waiting for, the very
consolation that the Gospel offered him. An ex-tax-collector, a Chinese
of some influence, was in the same state of mind, and soon joined the
other as an enquirer. My student, Noi Intachak, entered heartily into
the work. Soon, with my cook and boy, we had the nucleus of quite an
interesting congregation who attended worship twice a day. It was a
delight to teach them.
The case of the Chinese was deeply interesting. He believed the Gospel
plan of salvation, and was deeply anxious to be saved from his sin and
its punishment. But there was one serious obstacle in the way of his
making an open profession—he had two wives. The real wife—the one he had
formally married—was childless. The one he had bought was younger, and
had two lovable little children, both girls. I recall almost with tears
the burning questionings we had over that situation. He seemed willing
to make any self-sacrifice that duty required. But what was duty? Should
he divorce one of them? If so, which one? “Of course, he must keep the
real one,” you will say. But what of the young mother and the helpless
babes? The very mention of their being turned adrift, even with a dower,
had produced a scene in the family. The poor woman felt quite unable to
care for the children alone. The children were his children. It might
easily have been the ruin both of mother and babes to put her away. My
heart was not hard enough to advise that. Surely the man had not cut
himself off from the hope of salvation by his past—by an error or sin of
ignorance. The conditions of church-membership are faith and repentance.
The sacraments of the church are baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Shall we
offer a man the pardon of his sin without its sacramental seals?—the
glorious hope of endless fellowship in heaven, but not the communion of
saints on earth? A precisely parallel case I had met before in the
person of a native doctor at Mûang Awn. “What then,” the reader will
ask, “did you do?” Why, in each case I just did nothing. I followed the
letter of the law, and baptized neither one. But “the letter killeth;
the spirit maketh alive.”
In due time Sên Utamā and a nephew of the Chinese were baptized. An
interesting tour was made up the river. But the station in Chiengmai was
feeling the pressure of the growing work. In July, 1880, the church of
Bethlehem was organized, and there were promising openings in other
districts. It was evident that the Board was not in a condition to
consider a permanent station in Rahêng. It would have been an
interesting field for permanent occupation; but for temporary work, I
had been there as long a time as we could afford to spend in one place.
Just then Prayā Sīhanāt—the officer from Lakawn who, two years before,
had greeted me with “Ephphatha”—invited me to return with him. His ears
were not opened, but his heart was. He had taught the Christian faith to
his wife and children and a few others, and among these was a fellow
ex-officer. He wished with them to receive further and fuller
instruction, and to be taken into the fellowship of the church. Without
waiting to ascertain whether I could go, he was come with a boat to
bring me. This seemed to me the guiding hand of providence, and I
followed it.
Since a single boat cannot ascend the rapids without the help of another
boat’s crew, we made arrangements to join forces with another party, and
make the trip together. The night before we were to start, the river,
which had been steadily rising, became a flood so strong that my host
dared not face it in his small craft. Our companions, however, did not
wait for us, but went on as they had planned. We waited ten days for
another party, as well as for the river to go down. Imagine my
sensations, then, when, presently, we learned that the captain and owner
of the principal boat in the flotilla with which we had planned to make
the trip, was shot and killed, and his boat was plundered! A band of
dacoits secreted themselves behind a cluster of trees where the channel
runs close to the bank, shot the steersman at his oar, and then had the
boat at their mercy. Since all foreigners are supposed to carry money,
the attack may well have been intended for me. Earlier in that same
year, while returning alone to Rahêng, I came near being entrapped by a
similar band.
The visit to Lakawn was interesting and profitable. Ten days were spent
with the new converts. While my friend, the Prayā, had been busy, the
devil had not been idle. One of the princes had threatened to have one
of his head men flogged if he joined the Christians. But before we left,
a church was organized, with Prayā Sīhanāt as elder.
From Lakawn I took elephants to Chiengmai, and spent the last Sunday of
my trip with Nān Inta and the newly organized church of Bethlehem, named
after Mr. Wilson’s old church in Pennsylvania. Nān Inta was waiting for
me where the road to his village turned off from the main route. On
Christmas day following this, Mr. Wilson, Dr. Cheek, and Miss Cole
organized yet another church at Mê Dawk Dêng, where Nān Suwan had been
doing faithful work. In both these cases the persecution for supposed
witchcraft had furnished a good nucleus for the church, which thereafter
the Edict of Toleration protected from expulsion.
All the departments of our work, medical, educational, evangelistic,
were prospering. Nān Tā, the long-time wanderer, was becoming a power
second only to Nān Inta, and destined ultimately to surpass him. Like
him, he was a man of fine address and bearing, and a good Buddhist
scholar; but he was much younger. Being, moreover, the son of a
Prayā—the highest grade of Lāo officers—he had an influence with the
nobility such as no other of our Christians had. In the church he began
to show a capacity and power such as probably no other person has
exercised.
Meanwhile Mr. Wilson was working on plans for a building for the Girls’
High School. Already the school numbered forty-two pupils, but with no
place in which to teach them save the teacher’s house. The season had
been very hard on Miss Campbell’s health. She was very young, and had
come direct to Chiengmai from the seminary without any period of rest,
and with a constitution by no means robust. The mission voted her a trip
to Bangkok for rest. Little did we think when we bade her good-bye that
we should see her face no more.
Financially for me the year had been the hardest in my life. With all
the economy we could use—and we did not spend a useless penny—it seemed
impossible for me to keep my family going. When we left Chiengmai we had
overdrawn our salary, and the amount had to be made up that year. This
condition was one of the straws that helped to determine me to stop over
in Rahêng. I could live more cheaply there; in fact, could hardly spend
money there if I wished to. In only one matter had I been greatly
disappointed in Rahêng; I hoped to be in somewhat closer communication
with my family, about whom I still felt some anxiety. I was, indeed,
nearer them in space, but it proved much further in time. The largest
mail of the year passed on up to Chiengmai, and was sent back, reaching
Rahêng just after I had left the place. It finally reached me in
Chiengmai on the last day of the year 1880!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XXI
SECOND FURLOUGH
My health had been such that I hoped I might safely forego my furlough,
and have my wife and our youngest child return to Chiengmai alone. My
wife, after finding a home for a while with her brother, Professor
Bradley, in Oakland, had gone on in the spring to North Carolina. But
she was not gaining much in strength, and plainly required another year.
My own health was not so good as it was at the beginning of the year.
Certain symptoms gave me anxiety, and decided me to delay my own
furlough no longer. If it was to be taken at all, the sooner the better.
So on March 12th, 1881, I started for the United States. The furlough
which was now beginning ended twenty-three years of service in the
general field of Siam, and fourteen years spent among the Lāo.
I had proceeded down the river but a few days, when a passing boat
brought the astounding intelligence of the tragic death of our esteemed
and youngest co-labourer, Miss Mary Campbell. What words can express the
shock I received! The news was confirmed a few days later by Dr. Cheek,
whom I met on the river. At this distance it is unnecessary to enlarge
on the particulars of the sad catastrophe. Indeed, it was all so sudden
that there were few particulars to relate. Dr. Cheek had gone down to
Bangkok on business soon after Miss Campbell left us, and now was
returning with Miss Campbell under his escort. At the close of a hot
day’s run, the boats lay moored by a sand-bar for the night. They had
had their evening meal and worship together. Dr. Cheek had taken his
bath in the river, had examined the bar, and notified Miss Campbell how
far it was safe to venture in taking hers. But somehow she ventured out
too far—to a depth from which only angelic arms could receive her to a
shore where there is no more death.
The brave effort of her Lāo maid, Kam Tip, and Dr. Cheek’s unsuccessful
search till long after-life must have been extinct, were well known at
the time. She had but just come to her chosen field of work, in the
bloom of youth and in the full ardour of her first consecration, little
thinking that her work was to be so soon and so sadly closed. Her last
written words to a friend, with the ink on them scarcely dry before her
death, were: “But I am not alone, for I have found in my dear Lāo girls,
Bûk and Kam Tip, and in Nān Tā, my teacher, more company than I ever
expected. I wish I could lend them to you long enough for you to know
them.”
* * * * *
It will be evident to all that in 1881 the working force of the mission
was entirely inadequate for occupying and cultivating the broad and
inviting field, now opened to us as never before. The medical work,
constantly enlarging, occupied the physician’s whole time. Mr. Wilson’s
physical condition, never very strong, confined his labours to the
station and its immediate vicinity. The attention which these alone
required would more than fill one man’s time. The death of Miss Campbell
made imperative an associate for Miss Cole. So, even if the trip to the
United States had not been rendered imperative by considerations of my
own health, the best interests of the work itself seemed to demand that
some one should go to seek reinforcement by direct and personal appeal
to the church at home.
As for Mrs. McGilvary, after spending the spring of 1880 with her
brother in Oakland, California, she came on with our younger son to
Statesville, North Carolina, where she could be with our daughters, and
not far from our elder son in Davidson College.
On my arrival in New York, I hastened on at once to North Carolina,
where I spent the summer with my family and friends, lecturing from time
to time in the churches. The fall of this year I spent in Texas and
Arkansas, visiting relatives and friends who had migrated thither from
the family nest in North Carolina. In Texas I attended the meeting of
the Southern Synod, and both there and elsewhere I found many
opportunities for presenting the cause of foreign missions; and
everywhere I encountered warm reception and eager interest in the work
among the Lāo. In the winter I came north to visit the Theological
Seminaries, and to enlist men for the Lāo mission. On my way I stopped
in Oxford, Ohio, where I met Miss Lizzie Westervelt (afterward Mrs.
Stanley K. Phraner), then in her senior year in Miss Peabody’s Seminary,
and preparing for missionary work among the Lāo, upon which she entered
in the following year. This was the school which had given us Miss Mary
Campbell and Miss Edna Cole a few years before.
[Illustration:
DR. McGILVARY
1881]
[Illustration:
MRS. McGILVARY
1881]
While waiting for the Theological Seminaries to re-open after the
Christmas recess, I was the guest of my wife’s cousins at Castleton
Corners, Staten Island. There I had the very pleasant experience of
observing “Watch Night” with the Moravian Church, of which my friends
were members. They called on the Lāo missionary for an account of his
experience in the field. In that, of course, there was nothing
remarkable. But near the close of the next year, when writing to the
family, I alluded to the pleasant memory of Watch Night and sent my
greetings to the church with a request to be remembered in their
prayers. Instead of giving my message verbally, my friends read the
letter itself, and it seemed to be appreciated. The result was that the
Lāo letter came to be looked for regularly as a part of the watch
service, and one was sent to them every year—if I were on the field—for
seventeen years. It was a comfort to know that special prayer was always
offered for us by that great missionary church as the old year was
dying, and the new year was coming in.
The Professors at Princeton, Union, and Allegheny all gave their cordial
endorsement and aid to me in my efforts to secure men. “We want you to
get our best men,” they said, and the Lord gave them to us. From
Princeton came Chalmers Martin of the senior class. He had been chosen,
however, for the Hebrew Fellowship, and was, therefore, delayed a year
before entering upon his missionary work. Though his career in the Lāo
field was a short one, he left a lasting mark there, as we shall see.
Allegheny gave us Rev. S. C. Peoples, M.D., and his brother-in-law, Rev.
J. H. Hearst. Dr. Peoples’ bow still abides in strength. His double
preparation both as a minister and as a physician, gave him unusual
equipment for the work he has accomplished. Mr. Hearst, however, soon
succumbed to the Chiengmai climate.
Union gave us that consecrated young man, McLaren, who chose the great
city of Bangkok—a fitting field for him, since his broad sympathies were
bounded by no one race or people. His career also was cut short within a
few months by cholera, contracted while ministering to dying seamen in
the harbour during a severe epidemic of the disease.
The Northwestern Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions was then, as it has
been since, a great centre of missionary enthusiasm. It had sent out
Miss Cole and Miss Campbell; and now the sudden death of the latter had
caused its interest and that of the Chicago churches to concentrate upon
the Lāo mission. It was to this combination of circumstances that I was
indebted for an invitation to attend its Annual Meeting in Minneapolis,
and to speak there. Then the appointment of Dr. L. E. Wishard’s daughter
(afterwards Mrs. Dr. Fulton of Canton, China), and that of Miss Sadie
Wirt (Mrs. Dr. S. C. Peoples), from his church in Chicago, gave me a
pleasant visit in the Doctor’s family both as I went up to Minneapolis
and as I returned. On a Sunday at Lake Forest, between the Sunday
School, the University, the Ladies’ Seminary, and the church, the Lāo
Mission had four hearings. At Minneapolis we learned that Miss Warner
from the Northwestern Woman’s Board, and Miss Griffin from the
Southwestern, were also appointed to our mission, and Miss Linnell to
Lower Siam. This completed our number, the largest reinforcement the
mission has ever received at one time.