VI
CHOLERA COMES BUT THE DOCTOR
CARRIES ON
The first recruits for the Presbyterian work came in 1849, when Rev. Stephen Bush and his wife arrived. Mr. Bush had been a college mate of Dr. House and Mr. Mattoon, and he came from Sandy Hill (now Hudson Falls), N. Y., the home town of the Mattoons. This little company of Christian men and women now decided to organise a church as a bond of fellowship and for the orderly administration of the sacraments. When it is considered that they had not yet won a single convert from either the natives or the Chinese, it is a remarkable testimony to their faith that they should have taken this step in anticipation of the future harvest. Dr. House records this action in his journal under date of Aug. 31, 1849:
“After tea we had a meeting of the members of the mission, and with all due solemnity organised a Presbyterian church in Bangkok, by the election of Rev. Stephen Mattoon as our pastor, and S. R. H. [Doctor House] as ruling elder. Brother Mattoon as senior member of the mission presided, reading at the opening of the meeting the first chapter of Revelation, that introduces the address to the seven churches of Asia by their Glorious Head.
“In the name of the Great Head of the Church we, a little band of five, united together in a separate church organization, the beginning of great things we hope—the germ of the tree that shall overshadow the land. The lay members of this infant church were S. R. House, Mrs. Stephen Mattoon, and Mrs. Stephen Bush.” [Mr. Mattoon and Mr. Bush being clergymen were not eligible to membership in a local church.]
At the first communion of the new church, held on Sept. 30, a Chinese Christian was received:
“In the evening at a meeting of the Church Session Quasien Kieng, the native member of the A. B. C. F. M. mission church (received by Messrs. Johnson and Peet on January 7, 1844) was received into our membership on certificate of recommendation from the pastor, Rev. A. Hemmenway. An interesting occasion to us. A worthy brother, this Chinese disciple; may his wife and many others come in with and through him.”
This Chinese Christian, whose name is spelled variously in the doctor’s journal and elsewhere, was Kee-Eng Sinsay Quasien, who served as the first Chinese teacher in the boys’ school and who became the grandfather of Boon Itt, concerning whom more notice will appear later. Up to this time, so far as records show, there had been no genuine converts from among the Siamese in any of the missions. There had, however, been several from among the Chinese. Indeed when the king was urged to take action against the first missionaries he replied: “Let them alone; no one will give heed to them except the Chinese.” The first convert from among the Chinese sojourners in Siam was Boon Tai, who had come under the personal influence of Dr. Gutzlaff previous to 1831. A few others were converted under the teaching of transient missionaries, and then came Mr. Dean, who established the first church of Chinese.
THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC OF 1849
One day, in 1849, the startling news reached the mission compound that cholera had appeared in Bangkok. The plague spread very rapidly; almost simultaneously it appeared everywhere in the city. The very first notice of the presence of the pestilence that came to the doctor was the news that the Siamese printer connected with the Baptist mission had been stricken without any premonitory symptoms and died within a few hours.
“As may be imagined consternation seized upon all classes. The native doctors fled from their patients. Everywhere propitiatory offerings were made to the spirits, the people generally believing the pestilence to be caused by the invasion of an army of cruel malicious demons who had come invisibly to seize mankind and make them their slaves. And in accordance with this theory the preventative most relied on was a strand of cotton yarns, blessed by the Buddhist priests, which, tied about the necks or wrists, it was thought the invisible army could not pass. A cordon of such yarn hung looped from battlement to battlement entirely around the royal palace, a mile in circumference....
“Awakened at day break by a Chinaman in a floating house across the river firing off crackers to propitiate his god. Met a Chinaman well-dressed, carrying a square frame on which little banners, red and white, some rice and fruit, little new-made clay images of men and animals, with little rags around them, red peppers, betel leaf and nuts ready for chewing, the end of an old torch—all laid down at a place where a dozen other such offerings to the spirits were placed.”
With such preventives as the sole protection against the cholera it is no wonder that the plague spread like wildfire. It was no respecter of persons—a dowager in the palace, a prince of Cambodia, a wealthy Hindu merchant were victims like the most wretched natives. The mortality was so inclusive that in many a house there were more dead than living; and in some instances the remnant of a family would abandon the house with its horde of corpses. Many of the mission servants and members of their families were attacked, and some of these sent in great haste for Dr. House. From early morning, all through the day, far into the night he visited the sick.
Terrifying as the plague itself was, the fear of death was almost eclipsed by the revolting disposal of the dead:
“You know it is the Siamese custom to burn their dead, but so fearfully did deaths multiply that a shorter mode of disposal was resorted to, and multitudes of corpses were thrown without ceremony, as you would throw the carcass of a dog into the river. These dead bodies could be seen any day floating back and forth with the tide before our doors, in all stages of putrefaction—on some of them crows perched, picking away at their horrid feast.
“Go where you would through the streets, we would meet men bearing away the dead, hastily tied up in a coarse mat. The Siamese make loud lamentation at the moment of the death of friends, and as one would pass along it was no uncommon thing to hear the voice of wailing from this house and that. Once on my way to see a patient, the voice of one crying in great distress induced me to enter the little bamboo dwelling, whence the cry proceeded; and there on the mat-covered platform of a gambler’s shop (for such it was) sat a middle-aged Chinaman with his head against the wall, sobbing at a piteous rate. He took no notice of my entrance; but, telling his only comrade that I was a doctor, I stepped up to him to feel his pulse, but he was pulseless and his limbs cold as stone—the hand of death was upon him. And I went on my way leaving him all heedless of my coming, crying bitterly as before.
“The most revolting spectacles were at the watts where Siamese custom requires the dead to be brought for burning or interment till burning is possible.... I have seen in one of these gehennas hundreds of loathsome corpses in every stage of putrefaction lying around unburied, unburned just where the hirelings that brought them or their friends, too poor to pay the expense of their burning, might throw them down—the hot sun and the rain doing its work awfully.... My own eyes have seen of such human carcasses, sixty thrown together in one huge pile with sufficiency of wood and over thirty in a smaller one near, all roasting, frying and burning to ashes with a thick black smoke going up from the dreadful pyre; with skull bones, legs half consumed, arms stiff in death projecting on this side and that as the pile settled down, till the men in charge with long poles would thrust and twist them back into the blazing heap. All day long, from an area of nearly an acre covered with the ashes of other freshly burned victims of the pestilence, would be continually going up the flames of scores of individual funeral piles; and this not on the grounds of one temple only, but from a dozen here and there about the city. And then when evening came, with the night air would be wafted to us such an unmistakable odor of burning flesh and singeing hair and bones.”
In the midst of his heroic labours, Dr. House awoke one morning with what he felt to be the symptoms of the cholera, and for a time he had dire thoughts of a certain and speedy death; but instant resort to his effective prescription and a quiet rest in bed for two days averted the threatened disease. Then he promptly resumed attendance upon patients. When it is considered that his professional services were sought in only a few instances, chiefly among the friends of the mission servants, and that his own aggressive zeal increased the number of patients treated by him, the heroism of his conduct stands out in bold relief. Even though there was no place of refuge for the missionaries, had it been possible for them to flee, yet their greatest security was to remain in such isolation as possible within their premises. But Dr. House’s eagerness to save the lives of men that they might have a further chance to hear the Gospel impelled him to risk his own life to minister to every victim who would receive his services.
Concerning the prescription used during this epidemic, Dr. House published a report of his experiments, while in America in 1865, when there was prospect of an outbreak of Asiatic cholera in the United States. At first he began with the common prescription of the medical books of that date; then he turned to the use of calomel in very large doses, with better results; later he says that he hit upon the use of a mixture of spirits of camphor and water taken every few minutes and found this to be a specific for the disease, losing no patients under this treatment provided the attack was taken in time.
In general, however, he was handicapped by two difficulties. The disease made its attack so suddenly and developed so rapidly that unless remedies were applied at the earliest possible moment the end was fatal; but to many of the cases to which he came, the summons of the physician had been delayed until there was no hope of saving life. The other difficulty was equally fatal; utter heedlessness to the directions. No amount of caution seemed sufficient to secure the imperative attention to the prescription. One patient, with a mild attack, he found to be dying when he called later; and upon investigation found that she had taken the medicine once when she should have taken it twenty times, but in the meantime had resorted to the powders of a native doctor. But in spite of these obstacles, Dr. House reported that of eight or ten really severe cases in the households of the missionaries, none died, and that he had records of seventy or more cures of persons elsewhere dangerously attacked.
The mortality of this plague of ’49 was frightful. During the climax of the epidemic deaths were occurring at the rate of fifteen hundred a day in Bangkok. The river was thick with floating bodies, and vessels coming in reported that they had counted hundreds of corpses floated by the tide seven days out to sea. When the plague had at last abated the official estimate of the number of deaths in Bangkok and vicinity during the seven months was not fewer than forty thousand.
A CURIOUS MARK OF ROYAL GRATITUDE
The episode of the plague had rather a curious conclusion. When the pestilence had spent its force, King Phra Chao Pravat Thong decided that he would perform an “act of merit” in honour of Buddha for the cessation of the epidemic. Since the religion of Buddha requires great veneration for the life of animals one of the surest means to merit is to grant freedom to animals that are in captivity. Accordingly a levy was made upon every citizen to bring to the palace ground a stated number of animals or birds during a fixed period, and upon a given day these were all to be liberated at the king’s command. To the surprise of the foreigners residing in Bangkok, they in common with the citizens received a demand for a gift of pigs and fowls and ducks in varying numbers and assortments.
The members of the Presbyterian Mission, assuming that this liberating of the animals was a religious rite, declined to make the requested present upon the ground that they could not “consent in any way to have anything to do with the system of idolatry in the land”; but, to avoid the appearance of offense, added that if the gift were a mere matter of custom, they would offer the required present as a compliment to the king. On the following day they received word from the Pra Nai Wai, who had charge of the levy, that the desired present had nothing to do with the religion of the country but was merely intended as a token of congratulation to the king on the occasion of the abatement of the pestilence. In view of this explanation, Dr. House and Mr. Mattoon reconsidered their decision; and accordingly the required donation was sent, accompanied by a letter of congratulation with an expression of thanks to God and of a Christian prayer for His Majesty’s welfare.
For three days the river was alive with craft bringing the gifts to the landing at the king’s palace, where the donor was credited. Then the gifts were taken to the depot where the aggregation was being fed by proper officers till the day of liberation arrived. It was estimated that more than two hundred pails of rice were necessary each day for feed. Then on the great day a river procession took place, a gala affair such as the Siamese frequently held on festal occasions:
“The river at one time this morning, as far as eye could see around the bend and to the palace, had a procession of boats with banners, white and red, with music and beating of cymbals, with cages of all colours and sizes and shapes—some one, two or four stories high, some like beautiful pagodas, some shaped like vases; some with flowers, some with banners representing by picture the animals or birds contained in the cages.”
All proceeded to the river landing at the palace, where the captives were set free. It was estimated officially that nearly one hundred thousand fowls and ducks, some five hundred pigs and numerous boat-loads of live fish were included in the donations and were set free.
The incident, however, did not end here. A like request had gone to the French priests and the members of their parishes. At first the Bishop gave permission for the making of the present to the king; but later when it was rumoured that the king would liberate the captives to “gain merit,” the bishop not only declined himself to make the gift but withdrew his permission previously granted to his people. This reversal caused great indignation among the officials responsible for gathering the presents. After a conference in which the bishop was informed, as the other foreigners had been, that the gift was not regarded as a participation in a religious rite but only as a customary token of congratulation, the bishop returned to his original attitude, restored permission to his people and offered a gift in his own behalf.
But thereupon a new turn in the affair developed; the eight French priests conferred together and concluded that the explanation was only a subterfuge, the real object of the gift being an act of worship; and they decided not to participate for themselves, notwithstanding the bishop’s permission. This course had the disadvantage of placing them in the position of disrespect to the government, since their superior had approved of the participation. Accordingly the eight priests were admonished by the government that if they refused to acquiesce in the royal request they must leave the country. Remaining inexorable, the order was given for their banishment, but the bishop was permitted to remain because he had complied with the request. This decree remained in force until revoked by King Mongkut in 1851.
Some months later the foreign residents of Bangkok were surprised to read in an English paper of Singapore a statement that the deported priests, on their passage through Singapore, had given;—a version of the affair in which they appeared as heroes who had chosen expulsion rather than participation in pagan rites while the Protestant missionaries had purchased exemption by acquiescence. Unfortunately this interpretation of the incident to the glory of the eight priests placed their own bishop in an unfavourable light.
ABANDONING THE MEDICAL PROFESSION
The distress of mind which Dr. House felt so keenly over the perplexities of his profession, coupled with eagerness for work that would give more direct propagation of the Gospel, caused him to determine that as soon as another medical man should come out to Siam he would abandon medical work. When at length Rev. D. B. Bradley, M.D., returned after a sojourn of three years in America and brought with him yet another doctor, Rev. L. B. Lane, M.D., Dr. House supposed that his longed-for time of release had arrived. In that expectation he wrote:
“After all, now that my looked-for medical helper has come, I do not find myself so inclined to give up the practise of medicine and surgery as I expected to. Indeed, I believe I verily love my profession more, now the time has come which I so long ago fixed as the time when I should most certainly renounce it. It is not such a burden to me as it once was.... And yet I must have time granted me for study. My heart is quite set on fitting myself to preach the gospel from house to house as a colporteur. Have I not the right to take time for the study of the language in which I am so sadly deficient!”
This reaction from his former depression is natural under the circumstances. Remembering that Dr. House had had no independent practise before going to Siam, not even having performed a surgical operation alone, it is no wonder that the large and varied number of cases which presented themselves to his untested skill should challenge his small degree of self-confidence. But the instant other physicians are at hand, that mental burden seems to find a measure of support in their presence.
In the entry of the journal just quoted, however, there appears in the open what hitherto he had not even written in privacy—another and controlling reason for giving up his profession, viz.: the desire to give his whole time to direct dissemination of the Gospel. First he would devote himself to gaining proficiency in the language, for the chief purpose of evangelising. All through his journal in these early years it appears that his heart was more occupied with the healing of souls than of bodies. To him the hospital was a means of gaining intimate contact with people that he might tell them about Jesus.
Great was his chagrin, therefore, when he found that the arrival of two physicians was to give no immediate release. Dr. Bradley had returned with the intention of devoting himself to unattached practise, the A. B. C. F. M. having withdrawn its mission. Dr. Lane, who went out under the American Missionary Association, which for a time became the successor of the A. B. C. F. M., would not consent to take charge of the dispensary until he could command the language. There was nothing for Dr. House to do but to meet the exigency of the situation, and this he did by consenting to hold fixed hours at the floating dispensary but leaving to Dr. Bradley all outside calls. This arrangement allowed Dr. House half his time for the study of the language.
During this period of his connection with the hospital, in 1851, the smallpox broke out in Bangkok. Dr. House sent to Singapore for vaccine virus and at once began vaccinating any child whose parents he could induce to submit. For weeks he roamed about the city in his free hours soliciting patients for vaccination, explaining, entreating, warning, and almost hiring parents to permit him to inoculate their children. As one reads through the daily entries of the journal at this time, he receives an odd impression of this foreign doctor going about the city begging permission to administer an ounce of prevention. Back of this he had two very earnest desires. The first and immediate purpose, of course, was to save life and to prevent the dire results of the disease, evidences of which he saw everywhere. But the deeper motive was, by the demonstrated advantage of vaccination, to induce confidence in Western sciences in general and in the good motives of the missionaries in particular, so that the people would be ready to give more serious attention to the gospel message.
After eighteen months of this arrangement, Dr. Lane took charge of the dispensary and Dr. House formally abandoned his profession. During the four and a half years he had a record of seven thousand three hundred and two patients. With characteristic unselfishness, however, he consented for a time to substitute when the other physicians could not respond to calls; but soon he found that old patients were taking advantage of this consent by expressing a preference for him, so that the cases were gradually increasing. Finally he took a firm stand and declined to do any professional work, except to assist in surgery.
After Dr. House had altogether retired from his profession there appears in his journal a soliloquy which indicates that another motive had been subconsciously urging him to this course which, only after he had some months’ retrospect, had been permitted to come to expression:
“April 17, 1853. Is it not my duty to write a full expression of my feeling of my lost confidence in the healing art to the executive committee. I fear my parents would be tried when the faculty cast me off as I do their traditionary notions. Peace with them is better than war, perhaps. And yet perhaps I am doing very wrong by standing in the way of some other medical missionary who would be sent out if I was not believed to be a regular practitioner.
“But the last consideration does but little trouble my conscience, believing as I do from the bottom of my heart, that the more medicine given the worse the patient is off; and the less, the better.”
When once this idea gained the strength of expression he freely declared his opinion to his fellow missionaries. Then we find the curious anomaly of a graduate in medicine arguing against the use of drugs and his patients contending for them. However this was only a passing phase of “unbelief” in an extreme degree, and his seeming trend towards faith cure had its own reaction when, a few years later, we find him having recourse to physicians and drugs when unaided nature did not bring relief for a wife’s constantly aching head.
The change from the medical to the evangelistic and educational form of mission work had an effect upon Dr. House of which perhaps he was not quite conscious, but which is quite evident to one who reviews his life in the foreshortened perspective afforded by the journal. As manifest in the quotations already given, the medical profession proved to be depressing to him because the sense of responsibility in decisions coincided too closely with his natural diffidence; and there was a slow but constant ebbing of self-confidence. Continuance in the medical work was liable to have lessened his general effectiveness for missions for this reason. But the more direct Gospel work of colportage, touring and teaching seemed to harmonise better with his mind so that he was buoyed up with hope and inspired with a courage that knew no obstacles. He had a greater faith in God than in himself, and the evangelistic work gave the fullest range to that faith, impelling him to attempt whatever he believed to be his duty without fear of failure.
AT THE TRACT HOUSE
The larger object which Dr. House had in view in abandoning his profession was to devote himself more directly to the propagation of the Gospel. His observation of the physical ailments of the people disclosed that a large portion of the cases was attributable to sensualism, brutality or ignorance. This brought him to the conviction that however merciful and needful was the work of healing, the Gospel was of primary importance to remove the infection of sin which was largely responsible for the bodily sufferings. When others arrived who with greater relish took over the medical work, he was eager to give himself to the Gospel.
But he found himself sorely handicapped for this work. The urgency for opening up the dispensary had allowed him no time for careful study of the language. After two years of constant practical use of Siamese he was afraid to undertake public address, for fear his blunders would bring ridicule upon his purpose. When he terminated his medical work entirely at the end of four and-a-half years he was inclined to reproach himself for his defective pronunciation and faulty diction, a shortcoming which he never wholly remedied because the tongue had acquired its tricks through lack of early discipline. During these years the Gospel fervour in his heart consumed him with a fury because he could not give vent to his passion for evangelising. In the arguments with himself concerning the relinquishment of medical practise, he always came back to the imperative need for time to gain facility in the language. So, as soon as Dr. Lane took over the work of the dispensary, Dr. House gave himself to a diligent course of study under the tutorship of Kru Gnu.
The three missions maintained jointly a Tract House in the bazaar. Upon arrival of Drs. Bradley and Lane, Dr. House was sufficiently relieved from the stress of medical work so that he promptly took his turn at the tract house.
“Today I commenced going over to the tract house in the bazaar to distribute books. It will be long before I shall feel at ease in this necessarily hurried, confused mode of trying to do good, but I trust to be enabled to go through with it. The crowd not particularly unruly, but Satan put it into the heart of one of them to attempt to impose upon the newcomer again and again; now as a Siamese, now as a Chinese, now with and now without a hat,—to see how many books he could get from me. This is disheartening.”
An example of another kind of trial in this street work, Dr. House relates concerning Dr. Bradley:
“A Siamese nobleman told Dr. B. that he had watched him these many years, had seen him imposed upon every way by the Siamese, yet he did not get angry; ‘there must be something in your religion different from ours.’”
The distribution of books in the bazaar had a manifold value. It not only put the printed word in the hands of those who did not come to the mission compound, but it also served to advertise the mission, resulting in daily calls of a score or more seeking additional books. The free distribution of tracts in the bazaar had the advantage of opening the way at once for a public explanation of the contents of the tracts; and as these conversations were carried on in the hearing of a large circle, the propagation of the word was multiplied beyond the readers.
The men of the mission had devised a unique method of economising and at the same time assuring that the distribution should be as effective as possible. The printed matter was arranged in series. When any one applied for a book, he was asked if he had previously had one. If he had not, he was given the first in the series, but if he had, he would be catechised to see whether he had read it. If he showed that he was familiar with the contents, he was given the next in the series; but if he had not, he was advised to read the one he had. In many cases the applicant was able to give a very detailed account of the Bible story he had read, and frequently asked questions. This scheme made sure that the printed matter was being judiciously distributed and that there was being slowly but surely implanted in the minds of many people the simple facts of the Bible, preparing them for fruitful attention to preaching in after years. Just recently a missionary magazine told the story of a woman of Bangkok who made a profession of Christian faith; and upon being asked where she first heard the Gospel story, replied that she first heard of Jesus from a street preacher in her childhood in the early fifties. The reach of faith in which those early missionaries sowed beside all waters was greater than the reach of our imagination to estimate the harvest.
Dr. House enters in his journal the story of several conversions which illustrate the extraordinary fruitage from these tracts carried away by visitors to the capital. The first of these cases came under his own personal notice, and the other was related to him by Mr. Jones, of the Baptist mission:
“A copy of the Chinese gospel of Mark had been given months ago to a boy in one of the Chinese schools. He took the book home; it was given to the children to play with, till only a few leaves remained. A relative of the man who had married this boy’s sister came from China, and was visiting in the home of this boy when he chanced to pick up the tattered book. Reading, he became interested, and wished to know if he could get more. The next morning the brother of the boy fell in with the native assistant of the mission on his rounds distributing tracts, and invited him home with him to see the visitor. The inquirer was supplied with the book he wished and invited to come to the preaching at the station. He came, grew deeply interested, attended regularly and two weeks ago was judged a fit subject for Christian baptism, and received into the Church [Baptist]....
“At the Baptist mission there appeared one day a man of sixty years. He had come a six-day journey from the north. He had never seen a Christian missionary, but five years ago he came upon a Christian book. Becoming interested he gathered here and there several parts of the Old and New Testaments. From these alone he was led to forsake idols, and became well versed in scripture—better even than the servants in the mission compound. He came to Bangkok and sought the missionaries for further instruction. When asked, ‘Who has been your teacher?’ he replied: ‘Jesus; He has said, Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find.’ Within ten days after his appearance at the Baptist mission, he fell a victim of cholera.”
CANVASSING THE CITY
Dr. House devoted a part of each day to street work. He had previously in his walks about the city prepared an accurate map. He now laid this off in districts and entered upon a plan of systematic visitation to every house in the capital. This plan afforded unusual opportunity to see the people in their homes and to engage them in religious conversation.
“At 1 p. m. went out for a couple of hours distribution of books. Met at a watt gate two old men. To one gave books; the other said he was an old man (seventy-four); his ears were deaf—he could scarcely hear; his eyes had become dark—he could not see to read; and what should he do? He seemed to wish to be instructed in the way of happiness, and I stopped to tell him of the love of God. Then we walked on together.... I could not part from him with Christ yet unspoken of, and so in the road I stopped again, sheltered by my umbrella only, till I had given him the idea of the Son of God dying in the sinner’s place. I did not know or care what passers-by might think, I only thought of the poor old man’s need of the Saviour.
“My first visit was to a floating house where a Siamese lady was sitting in the shade of the veranda.... She was glad to get books—read fluently; said she already held to our way of worship, and gave a specimen of chanting some part of the Roman ritual.
“Next was sent for by a young prince to whose intelligent family I had given books last week. He gave me tea, etc. The woman at the next house said ‘Oh, yes, I would like books,’ and an interesting conversation ensued. She at once assented to there being a Creator, and though probably had never heard of one before, asked for His name. How happy I feel when coming to one such I tell of the God of creation, and unfold the wondrous story of redemption.
“At the next house found a clay modeler at work. He had a book, and brought it to me—proved to be an English speller. It had a hymn in praise of mother-love, also a church—, and a Watt’s catechism. The latter I translated to him, giving me an opportunity to give much religious instruction.”
This type of evangelistic work Dr. House very soon found to be much to his liking, and was surprised at his own versatility in religious conversation:
“I ought to bless God for giving me, as I believe I have, some talent for entering into conversation with strangers, introducing the great subject to those casually met. I was in early youth sensible of a great lack of talent of this kind, but cultivated it and now I am not the same I once was.... O, Master, fill my heart with Thy love, and then my lips must always and to all speak forth Thy praise.”
Occasionally he writes out an abstract of the conversation, especially if it had shown particular thought on the part of the interlocutor. A transcription of one of these entries will give a good idea of how the missionary “preaches”:
“Going over into the palace of our prince, found several Nai, intelligent headmen—one a Khun—gathered on the porch of the audience hall. They invited me to sit down and answer questions, ‘talk about religion’ they said.... Our religion differs in this, for one thing; whereas your god Buddha was originally a man who by merit attained to divinity, ours was originally God, who took on him the nature of man. ‘But what did he do that he might become God?’ they asked. So I told of eternity and Jehovah. They asked if we were hired to come over here; surprised we had no temple with idols; never was a more excellent opportunity to make known God’s blessed truth, or more respectful attention—all friendly, civil. And to many, what I said had all the interest of novelty.... What were God’s commandments? Is Jesus then the Son of God? Can a Siamese man, if he repent, be saved? Can you become God, will you become a God at last? Why did not God create all men alike? Why must he needs try us on probation? In what direction is hell?—these and innumerable similar questions were proposed mostly in good faith. And grace was given me and utterance to give what seemed a satisfactory answer to most of them.”
On another day, passing through the grounds of a watt, he was invited by a priest of his acquaintance to stop for a call. Tea was made ready and a pleasant discussion of religion ensued in the presence of several young priests:
“One thing he could not get over, we killed animals. Yes, so do you, I told him; and explained about animalculæ in water—promised to let him see them through my microscope when it came.
“Transmigration endless! He told me that Buddha taught that if any one took a needle and thrust it into the earth anywhere in the wide world, and was to ask his teacher if he had ever been there,—Yes, he had some time or other been buried there! So of any given place on the earth’s surface. (This beats geology for stupendous periods of time.)
“Buddha taught that time passed very slowly in hell; and he illustrated it thus: Now 2,395 years since Gotama Buddha died—all that time but as half an hour to those in hell.
“‘Let me see your god and I will believe,’ said some onlooker. I asked him if he could see his own god? ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Stop,’ said my host, ‘you had better say nothing of that.’ But I went on to ask him if he worshipped brick and mortar which could not lift its hand, nor see nor hear.
“They all thought Nippant (nirvana) preferable to heaven—till I told of the assurance we had that ‘they go no more out.’”
VISIONS OF THE REGIONS BEYOND
During this systematic visitation, Dr. House obtained glimpses of “the regions beyond.” Medical work had already brought him into contact with the aliens in Bangkok. As he became acquainted with these groups by his travels throughout the city he became deeply interested in their home lands. Small as the mission force in Bangkok was, he began to meditate whether their efforts should be confined to the Siamese to the exclusion of all these other peoples.
At that time it was estimated that the strangers within the gates were equal to the native population of Bangkok. Chief among these immigrants were the Chinese. The Chinese held nearly all the trading in Bangkok. The semi-annual trade winds brought numerous junks from China laded with Chinese products; and each of these junks had its cargo of human freight also. Sometimes a single junk would bring as many as three hundred; and the average annual immigration was estimated at one thousand. These people came largely from the Island of Hainan, and nine-tenths of those who sent their boys to the mission school were from this province.
There were but few Burmese in Bangkok; but of their old enemies, the Peguans, there was a large village on the west bank of the river. These people had originally sought refuge from the Burmese by taking service under the king of Siam, but in time had practically become his serfs. It was in their village that Mrs. Mattoon began her class of children which later was transferred to the mission compound. The Malays, few in number, could not be reached for want of acquaintance with their language. Dr. House records an anecdote which had come to his ears showing the shrewdness of these people in their native country:
“The chiefs obtained some Christian tracts. Whenever a trading vessel arrived, they showed these tracts to the captain. If the captain swore at the tracts, they concluded that he was not a Christian, and would have nothing to do with him. But if he displayed an interest and inquired about the tracts, they judged that he was sympathetic with religion and that they could trust him.”
During the cholera epidemic Dr. House was called to see the servant of a Cambodian prince living in Bangkok, and the visit resulted in an enduring friendship. The prince, the son of the king of Cambodia, was living in a grand palace provided by the king of Siam; and Dr. House was led to suspect that he was held as hostage for the good behaviour of his father, over whom Siam claimed suzerainty. The prince urged the doctor to go to Cambodia, assuring him that he would be welcomed with open arms by the king; and that the people did not approve of the worship of images, for the Cambodians held that “God made man, and man cannot make God.” The information gained from the prince prompted Dr. House and Mr. Mattoon to plan a trip into that country. They entered upon the study of the language for that purpose, but the death of the old king of Siam arrested these plans. However, the interest awakened in Dr. House led eventually to his notable trip to Korat.
But perhaps the most important of these chance relations was with the Lao. The doctor had early learned of the frequent trips of boatmen from the Lao land. With ears open for useful information, he gathered from a Siamo-Portuguese doctor, who had accompanied a Catholic priest to Chieng Mai, information concerning the route, knowledge of the receptive character of the people and of the deceptive nature of the reigning prince. His interest in the Lao grew until he felt prompted to leave the Siamese to his fellow missionaries and betake himself to the Lao country. A particular day of indifference to his message in the streets of Bangkok sent him to bed with a heavy heart:
“But ere midnight,” he writes, “my sorrow was turned into joy as the privilege was presented to my view of yet going a messenger of the glad tidings to the tribes of the Laos to the north. To them shall my thoughts be given and my future life, if Providence but opens the way.”
And again when he was depressed by the fruitlessness of the early labours he meditates:
“I believe all the past of my strange history has been for a purpose—yet all unrevealed—and I will not trouble myself about it. May I ever be ready to serve my Master, anywhere at all times. But should I be permitted in his Providence to carry his blessed gospel to the Laos some future day, then I can read and understand the why of some things. To be thus privileged were better than to visit the home of my childhood, my aged parents, my brother, again—’twere better than to be blessed with houses or lands or wife or children of my own.”
To him the mission in Bangkok at that time was like a candle in a starless night, very faint to be sure, but making more dense the surrounding darkness that seemed to confine its light. His eyes strained to look into the regions beyond and his heart beat with passionate desire to evangelise the unknown peoples.