Part 20

Our first visits to these new places were intensely interesting. It seemed as if the Gospel would be embraced by whole villages. But the burning of the chapel tells a tale of a strong adverse influence. Opposition usually drives off the timid and the merely curious. The lines, then, are sharply drawn, and the Christian society really finds itself.

During the last week of the year I spent a few days at the village of Mê Dawk Dêng to hold a communion service there, and incidentally to give my family and the teachers of the Girls’ School a much-needed outing. It was at the height of the rice-harvest, and, one evening, we all greatly enjoyed the sight of a regular rice-threshing “bee” at the farm of one of our elders. The “bee” is always at night. The bundles of rice from the harvest-field are piled up so as to form a wall five feet high around a space of some twenty-five feet square, with an opening for entrance at one corner. In the centre of this square is a horizontal frame of bamboo poles, against which the bundles of rice-heads are forcibly struck. The grain falls to the ground below, and the straw is tossed outside. In those days the whole plain at rice-harvest was lighted up by bonfires of the burning straw—a glorious sight as I have watched it from Doi Sutēp.

We pitched our tent near by to enjoy the scene. The men and boys do the threshing, while the women and girls do the cooking for the feast with which the work ends. The village maidens are always on hand to encourage their beaux in their work by passing to them water or betel-nut, and to serve the viands at the feast. It reminded me much of the husking bees I had seen as a lad in the South seventy years ago. How near of kin is all the world!

We had a delightful communion service on the Sabbath. Seven adults and six children were baptized. On Monday morning we returned home refreshed and better prepared for the work before us.

* * * * *

The year had been one of marked progress. The Girls’ School had been strengthened by the arrival of Miss Lizzie Westervelt. The new station at Lakawn had been opened, and Dr. and Mrs. Peoples had been installed there. More new work had been opened in the neighbourhood of Chiengmai and Lampūn than in any one year of the history of the mission. One hundred and two adults were added to the communion roll, and about as many children were baptized. Our new “witchcraft-house” at Bān Pên, with its hospitable family, afforded a comfortable prophet’s chamber for the missionaries and a chapel for worship. The Bethel church was afterwards organized in it. That family became highly respected, and has furnished some of the most influential members of our church. The work in Nawng Fān, seven miles south of Chiengmai—Nān Inta’s village—had steadily grown. It still continues to be one of our best out-stations, and will, during the present year [1910] be organized into a church.

XXV

CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES PLANTED

The year 1886 opened auspiciously. But Mr. Martin had brought malaria in his system from his old home; and the Lāo country is a better place for contracting the infection than for eradicating it. He worked indefatigably, but seldom with a blood-temperature down to the normal. In January he accepted an invitation from Mr. Gould, the British Vice-Consul, to accompany him on a tour of inspection through the northern provinces, hoping that the change might prove beneficial. It afforded, moreover, opportunity for some missionary work in places seldom or never visited. He was the first to visit the Mūsô villages high up among the mountains. He baptized a few converts in Chieng Sên, and reported an interest there that should be followed up.

About this same time Krū Nān Tā—for such, though not yet ordained, I shall in future call him—returned from Chieng Rāi with a most encouraging report of developments there. Later a deputation of seven men, with Tāo Tēpasing as their leader, came to us from the village of Mê Kawn in the Chieng Rāi province, earnestly entreating a visit from the missionary. In their number was Pū King from Chieng Rāi, who had been a notorious bandit, robber, and murderer. He had now submitted to the government, and was given a place as public executioner and as doer of other jobs from which only a lawless man would not shrink. Before meeting Krū Nān Tā, he had gone so deep in sin that no hope was left him, and he became hardened in despair. But his conscience was ill at ease. Hearing rumours of the Christian religion, he determined that if it could give him hope of pardon, he would seek it at any cost. He and his wife walked one hundred and ten miles to see if it were really true that Jesus could save even him. Our good friend the governor encouraged his coming, and said, “If the Christian religion can make a good man out of Pū King, I shall have no more doubts of its truth and power.” And we have no doubt that it did that very thing.

In a few days Krū Nān Tā and I returned with the party. Elder Āi Tū of Chieng Rāi,[14] with his family, accompanied us. We thus had quite a little congregation to worship nightly about the camp-fire, and every one of the party was either a Christian or an enquirer. This was my third trip to the north, and the first of those annual trips that have made that road so familiar to me.

Footnote 14:

Afterwards Prayā Pakdī.

The little colony of Christians at Wieng Pā Pāo was prospering. One of them was the man whom his wife had driven off, elephants and all, for witchcraft. Nān Tā reported the governor of the place as a believer. He had ceased to make offerings in temples, and he ridiculed the idols. He received us most hospitably, and desired to have a mission station there. Afterwards, however, through policy and the influence of a Burmese son-in-law, he resumed his old worship; though to the last in his heart of hearts, I think, he believed our teachings to be true. In the case of subordinate officials, the final step of joining the church is terribly hard to take.

At Salī Toi, “Grandma” Pan had been praying day and night for our coming. She lived some distance away from the road, and feared that we might pass her by. She was overjoyed to see us, and we had to check the homage she offered us. The poor woman was sadly in need of support. She was the only Christian in the place, and was surrounded by hostile neighbours who absolutely rebelled against her establishing herself in the place. Her family had renounced the spirits, and therefore her “patriarch,” to whom she could rightly look for protection, became her chief accuser. He went to the governor of Chieng Rāi for an order forbidding her to settle there. But he had his thirty-mile walk for his trouble. The governor told him that the family was not to be interfered with. How could he forbid those whom the King’s edict allowed?

Having failed with the governor, they tried to draw away the daughter-in-law. But she said she would stick by her husband and his family. Their religion should be her religion, and their God should be her God. The villagers then notified the family that it would be held responsible for the value of any buffalo or elephant that might die in the village. The theory was that the demons would take vengeance on the village for allowing the trespass of an enemy on their domains. But all their efforts to shake the poor woman’s faith were futile.

At Mê Kawn village, from which the delegation had chiefly come, of course we were received with a warm welcome. On the recent visit of Nān Tā, when the leading supporters of the temple became Christians, the less religious families also deserted it. I even saw oxen sheltered from the rain under its roof. A club-footed man, Noi Tāliya by name, a good scholar in Ngīo, Burmese, and Lāo, had been the life of the temple. And it is the earnest Buddhist that makes the earnest Christian. His son first heard the Gospel, and, coming home, explained it to his father. Calling his family together, the father said to them, “There are the spirit shrines. Any one may have them who wishes to continue their worship.” No one making a bid for them, a bonfire was made, and the once valued treasures all vanished in smoke. When he went to Chieng Rāi to announce his conversion to the governor and to the Uparāt, he said that he prayed all the way that he might answer their questions discreetly and wisely. He did not know that the governor had no more confidence in his deserted idols and spirits than he himself had.

On the evening of our arrival, the largest house in the village was filled to overflowing till late in the night. Before Sunday the people had extemporized a chapel which afterwards became the foundation of the Mê Kawn church. Two Sundays were spent in teaching these people before we moved on to Chieng Rāi, leaving the new disciples under the oversight of Noi Tāliya.

On reaching Chieng Rāi we were invited by the governor to take up our quarters in his old residence, which we did. It was a better house than his present one, but there had been two deaths in it, and it was pronounced unlucky. He knew we were not afraid of ill luck. On the contrary, it was very good luck that we got it, for the rains were now falling daily. The governor and Nān Tā were near relatives and very intimate friends withal. His interest in us was as teachers of the only religion that ever afforded him a ray of hope. But on this trip Pū King, the reformed bandit, and his family, were the centre of our interest there. And it was not long before he, too, like Saul of Tarsus, became a striking illustration of the grace of God.

A few hours beyond Chieng Rāi on the road to Chieng Sên, was the home of Āi Tū. His was the first Christian family in the province. He had built—in part that it might furnish a guest-chamber for the missionary on his visits, and in part that it might serve as a chapel for worship—the largest house in all that neighbourhood. When we arrived, he had already vacated it for us, and had moved his family down into a shed. A number of families had begun to attend worship, and to keep the Sabbath; but were frightened away by that ridiculously stale story that missionaries were making Christians in order to carry them off in their ships to feed the Yaks! Strange that such a palpable absurdity should deceive any one; yet we have known whole villages to be frightened away by it.

At Chieng Sên, in the home of Nān Suwan, we were at once aware of being in a Christian atmosphere—in a consecrated Christian family. That family was a city set upon a hill—a leaven in the new city and province. It alone had given Christianity a good name. The governor was free to say that if Christianity made such men as Nān Suwan, he would like to see the whole country Christian. The influence of the Girls’ School in Chiengmai was strongly reflected in his daughter, Kuī Kêo. She taught no regular school other than her Sunday School; but from time to time during the week she taught the neighbours. Young men who began by trying to ridicule her out of her religion, now treated her with the greatest respect. We were told that rude young fellows singing vulgar songs would lower their voices when passing by the house.

We crossed the river in a small boat to spend a few days in teaching four new families of Christians on the eastern side. One of the men was Tāo Rāt, the village officer, and another was his son, Noi Chai. The latter became an influential ruling elder, and, like Nān Suwan, one of the pillars of the church.

From Chieng Sên we crossed the broad prairie-like plain westward to Bān Tam. The officer of the village was Sên Yā Wichai—mentioned in the early part of this narrative as the very first believer in Chiengmai. The journey was one of the worst for elephants that I ever made. Heavy rains had soaked the ground so that at every step it seemed almost impossible for them to pull their huge feet out of their tracks. The Sên lived only a quarter of a mile from a remarkable feature of the mountain ridge. The Mê Tam, the largest river in the plain, flows bodily out from under the mountain, much as does one of the sources of the Mê Ping at Chieng Dāo.

It was a great pleasure to spend a Sunday with our now venerable Christian and his family. It was a family of officers, his three sons all being either of the grade of Tāo or of Sên—which shows the esteem in which the family was held. But, unfortunately, their official position made it more difficult for the sons to follow the example of their father.

On Sunday night the rain came down in torrents, reminding us that it was better for us to be at home. We started homeward early the next morning. Our route skirted the beautiful mountain range, crossing brooks and the larger streams of the Mê Tam and the Mê Chan. Already the road had become almost impassable except for elephants and natives unencumbered with shoes or trousers.

We have already spoken of the great mortality incurred in the attempt to people these new Lāo states. Occasionally the straggling remnant of a family might be seen returning. One poor little boy awakened my deepest sympathy. All of his family had died except himself and his brother, a monk, who were trying to save themselves by flight back to their old home in the province of Chiengmai. After I passed them I began to wonder whether the pale, weary-faced, and exhausted travellers would ever reach the rest they sought. Then I began to think that here I was enacting again the old tale of the priest and the Levite who passed by on the other side. At last I could stand it no longer. I stopped and waited for them to come up. I offered the pitiful little skeleton of a boy a seat with me on the back of the elephant. At first he somewhat distrusted my motive, wondering what I wanted to do with him; but he was too weary to refuse. When he revived, he proved to be a veritable little chatterbox, and good company. I kept him nearly a week, till we entered the Chiengmai plain at Doi Saket. Only four years ago, eleven children out of five Christian families who had settled in Wieng Pā Pāo, died during the first year.

Returning through Chieng Rāi, we revisited the new families of Christians in that province. In the city the governor’s wife asked us to have worship in their new house, to which they reverently listened. When we ended she said, “Why, they pray for everybody!” Pū King, the executioner, was holding on with a death-grip to the hope of salvation for the chief of sinners. The case of the apostle himself, and of the penitent thief, greatly encouraged him. Nān Tā also was greatly rejoiced that his brother Sên Kat became a believer on this tour.

On my return I found Mr. Martin but little, if at all, improved, by his trip. He was so thoroughly discouraged that he felt that he could not face another hot season. He remained with us till the end of the rainy season, and then, with his family, left Siam for the United States. I never had felt so thoroughly crushed as I was at his departure. During three whole years we had lived in the same house, and worked together hand in hand in the evangelistic work, of which he was very fond.

Dr. Cheek already had severed his official connection with the mission, and had gone into business of his own. But he kindly gave his professional service to the missionaries, and was ready to perform pressing surgical operations for the natives who came to the hospital.

* * * * *

I have often wondered whether all foreign missions, have as many and as rapid alternations of sunshine and shadow, as the Lāo mission. Our medical work was once more at a standstill; and by the departure of Mr. Martin, the evangelistic work again was crippled. But at Hong Kong Mr. Martin met Rev. and Mrs. D. G. Collins, Dr. and Mrs. A. M. Cary, and Rev. W. C. Dodd, on their way out for the Lāo mission, with Rev. W. G. McClure for Lower Siam. Mrs. Cary had become so exhausted by continual sea-sickness during the whole voyage, that, on her arrival in Bangkok, many thought her unable to endure the long river trip of six or seven weeks. Mr. McClure offered to exchange fields with the Carys; but Mrs. Cary, with true pluck, said that she had been appointed to the Lāo mission, and to the Lāo she would go. But, alas! it was to be otherwise. She became worse soon after leaving Bangkok. On Sunday, January 16th, 1887, a mile above Rahêng, she became unconscious, and shortly after gently passed into her everlasting rest.

It was still a month’s journey to their destination. There was nothing to be done but to lay the body to rest in the grounds of a monastery. Who can portray that parting scene, or adequately sympathize with the bereaved husband and sister (Mrs. Collins), or with the other members of the party, as they performed the last sad offices, and then resumed their lonesome journey!

When the party reached Chiengmai on the 17th of February, they found there only the McGilvarys, Miss Griffin, and Miss Westervelt. Miss Cole had gone to Bangkok. But the Girls’ School was flourishing under the direction of the two ladies last mentioned. Former pupils of the school were then doing good service in three different provinces as teachers. But the arrival of the new forces made possible for the first time a Boys’ High School. Circumstances now were much more favourable than they were when Mr. Wilson made the attempt in the earlier days of the mission. We now had Christian patrons, and there was a growing desire in the land for education. Buddhist pupils were willing and anxious to attend our school. Mr. Collins preferred the educational work. As soon as he acquired the language sufficiently well, he was put in charge of the school for boys, and it was soon crowded with pupils.

Mr. Dodd’s preference was along the line of a Training School for Christian workers. Happily, the taste and preference of both these men were along the lines of greatest need. Meanwhile Mr. Dodd entered into the evangelistic work also with a zeal that has never abated. As newcomers see things with different eyes, it is always interesting to get their first impressions. Mr. Dodd’s first experience is thus given in a letter to the Board of June 9th, 1887:

“On Friday, June 3d, Rev. D. McGilvary of the Lāo mission left Chiengmai by boat for a tour southward, taking attendants and all necessary equipments, accompanied by a raw recruit, and three efficient native helpers. We arrived at our first station about the middle of the afternoon, and before bed-time held religious conversation with as many enquirers as time would permit. Our audience chamber was the house of one of our newly-received members. Our ‘outward and ordinary means’ of attracting an audience was a watch, two mariner’s compasses, a magnifying glass, a stereoscope with an assortment of views, and a violin. The raw recruit played the violin, and thus called the audience together. We used both the other attractions to hold them and to gain their confidence and interest; and afterwards Dr. McGilvary easily and naturally drew them into religious conversation. Soon the conversation became a monologue of instruction in the religion of the great God. The violin was no longer needed to arouse or sustain an interest. Every day, and late into the evening, the Doctor and the three assistants conversed; sometimes to quite an audience, sometimes to individual enquirers.

“The religious attitude of the people was a revelation to the newly-arrived missionary, and doubtless would be to most of God’s people in the United States. Nearly all of these people had heard of the ‘religion of the great God,’ but knew nothing about it, since the district had never before been visited by a missionary.... But their receptivity was marvellous.... Without exception these Buddhists confessed at the outset, or were soon brought to concede, the immeasurable superiority of Christianity. Many said, ‘It is of no use to argue. Your books tell the beginnings of things; ours do not.’ On one occasion when Dr. McGilvary had finished reading and explaining the first chapter of Genesis, one of his auditors remarked to his fellows, ‘There is more real information on that one page than in all Buddha’s writings.’ The sense of sin is universal, so too is the insufficiency of the works of merit. Many sad souls confessed that they had long been dreading the penalty for sins for which they feared that ‘merit-making’ could not atone.

“The results we cannot measure. We were absent two weeks. Religious service or conversations were held in more than twenty different homes, and in some of these several times. Audiences varied from a single enquirer to fifty. Thus hundreds heard the gospel for the first time. Many who seemed above the suspicion of hypocrisy professed to believe and accept what they heard.... One principal reason for this tour just now, was to baptize in his own home and among his subjects the chief officer of the district. Himself, his wife, and his whole family were baptized—a most interesting household. The abbot of one village monastery professes to accept Christianity. For some time he has been sending his parishioners, including his own sister, for instruction. There is another district officer of the same rank as our newly-baptized convert, a constant visitor and deeply interested. This is a specimen tour, neither better nor worse than the average taken these days. For the last two years, although most of the time there have been but two ordained missionaries in the field, over ninety ascessions have been made to the First Church.”—_Church at Home and Abroad_, May, 1888.

Before the short trip reported by Mr. Dodd, I had taken a longer one to the northern provinces, going over the same ground which Mr. Martin and I had travelled the season before. This time I baptized thirty-six adults and thirty-two non-communing members. The communion was administered eight times. I married two couples and ordained one elder. Each Sunday was spent in villages where there were already Christians. This encouraging success was the harvest of seed sown on former tours, but gathered largely through God’s blessing on the work of faithful elders. Both in Chieng Rāi and in Chieng Sên we might then have organized churches with a goodly number of members communing and non-communing, and with very good material for officers. Nān Suwan at Chieng Sên, like myself, never had the gift of fluent speech, but his reputation for sterling integrity has left a mark that eloquence might envy. And Āi Tū at Nāng Lê bids fair to be another power in the province of Chieng Rāi. Both of them are strongly aided by their daughters, the first-fruits of our Girls’ School.

During the year 1887 the whole number of adult accessions was one hundred and seven; and one hundred and eleven non-communing members were added to the roll, making two hundred and eighteen additions to our little flock, exclusive of Lakawn. As I now look back over these years, it is plain to me that the great lack of the mission all the way through has been the lack of well-trained native helpers; and for this lack the mission itself is largely to blame. Those who are eager to accomplish the evangelization of the world within the present generation, should first of all lay hold of the present generation of Christians in every mission field. Fill _these_ with enthusiasm, qualify them, and send them forth, and we have a lever that will lift the world.