Part 14

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

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

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

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

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

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

XVII

THE RESIDENT COMMISSIONER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XVIII

WITCHCRAFT

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

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

I learned that some twenty years before this he had accompanied his Prince to Bangkok, and there had met Dr. Bradley, from whom he received a copy of the Old Testament History in Siamese, and the New Testament so far as it was then published. He had learned Siamese in order to be able to read and understand the contents of these books. He often wished that he had lived in the time of Christ. But, having no one to guide him, he had not learned to draw the lessons that the Bible story was designed to teach.

He had come to Chiengmai to get the assistance of the princes there in righting an unjust decision of the Lakawn court against him. He had heard, too, that there were teachers of a new religion; and he wished to know whether we taught as did Dr. Bradley and the books received from him. His position, his manners, his whole history, including his connection with my father-in-law, attracted me to him with uncommon force. Our first interview was long and very satisfactory. His questions were such as he had long wished to put to some one who could explain them. The truth had been securely lodged in his mind. It was most interesting to see how a single new thought would illuminate it all.

But what he had sown he was then reaping. While in power he doubtless had oppressed others. Once he had received “hush money” from murderers whom he should have prosecuted. If he had not taken it, he said they would have murdered him, too. His sins weighed upon his conscience. His most anxious question was whether Jesus could really save _all_ men from _all_ sins. When asked if Buddha could do so, he said that he never had seen any such promise in any of the scriptures. He would search again. He went to an abbot friend from whom he borrowed, as he said, “books by the armful.” He looked them over with this one question in view: Is there hope of pardon offered to sinners? He went a second time for more. At his third coming the abbot, finding out what he was after, refused to lend to him further. But he confessed that his search was in vain. He argued with the monks, refuted them; and they cast him off. Upon his arrival the Chao Uparāt had promised his assistance in the lawsuit. When, however, he found that the Prayā was becoming a Christian, he dropped him. But he had found an intercessor greater than any earthly prince. For Him he was willing to face all opposition and to bear all reproach.

He was baptized on the 8th of May, just before returning home. The rains had already set in, and were likely greatly to impede his journey. Yet he reached Lakawn without encountering a shower. His account of it afterwards was, that whenever he saw the clouds threatening, he would wave his hands and pray that they might be dispersed. Lāo Christians have not become befogged with doubts as to the efficacy of prayer for temporal blessings. After his return to his home, his family all became believers, and others also whom he taught. At his invitation I went over to instruct them and to administer the sacraments. Two years later the number was sufficient to warrant their organization into a church, of which the Prayā was made the first elder.

Dr. Cheek’s return at the end of April, 1878, took from my shoulders the care of the medical work—a very great burden. During his absence I had put up a hospital building of six rooms. This since then has been moved, and now forms the nucleus of the Chiengmai Hospital. The doctor soon found himself overwhelmed with practice. He was a fine surgeon and a good doctor, and had great influence both with princes and with people. Moreover, Mrs. Cheek’s inheritance of the language—like my wife’s—was a great advantage to them both. Only a few days after the doctor’s arrival we lost our valuable hospital assistant, Lung In. One evening he complained of some trouble about the heart. He talked a few moments with his family, then said he felt better and would go to sleep—and in an instant was gone.

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