One of the results of the change of government was that we were able to build permanent houses. For three years and more we had lived within basket-woven bamboo walls that a pocketknife could pierce, neither secure nor wholesome nor favourable for our work. They bore silent but steady testimony that we ourselves did not regard our stay as permanent. The results of our manner of living were already seen in the impaired health of the members of the mission. My wife surely could never have lived another decade in the old sālā with bamboo walls and ceiling, where the dust from the borers in the wood constantly filled the air and poisoned the lungs. Mrs. Wilson bore up bravely for five years, until there was just ready for her reception the permanent house which she was never to enjoy. As soon as they could, the family started for the United States on furlough, all thoroughly broken down. After two years of rest Mr. Wilson alone was able to return to the field, leaving Mrs. Wilson behind. She never regained her health, and they never saw each other again. Her departure was a great loss to the mission. She was a gifted lady, a fine vocal and instrumental musician, and a consecrated missionary. She left one literary work in Lāo, the translation of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, which has since been published.

But as matters then were, there was much perplexing work to be done before we were at all ready to begin building. I was favoured in getting a lot of first class teak logs delivered at a very cheap rate. Then the trouble began. The logs must be hauled up from the river by elephants to the lot where they are to be sawn. The log is raised and mounted on two strong trestles. A black line to guide the saw is struck on either side. Two sawyers stand facing each other across the log, grasping the handles of a long framed saw with horizontal blade. Then the operation begins. The saw is pushed and pulled back and forth till the cut is carried through to the end of the log. This operation is repeated for every stick of timber put into the house.

But we are already too fast. Where are the sawyers to come from? There were then no good sawyers among the Lāo. No one dared to learn for fear of being appropriated by the Prince, or of being compelled to work on public buildings. There were, however, three pairs of sawyers, debtors to the Prince, whom he had brought up from Rahêng for his own work. Whenever not needed by him or by some other person of rank, they were allowed to seek employment elsewhere. So, at odd times, I was able to secure their services. But if the Prince needed them, they must at once drop everything and go. Scores of times our sawyers were called away, often for weeks at a time, and at the busiest stage of the work.

And now for the carpenter. The Lāo dared not be known as carpenters for the same reason as that given above in the case of the sawyers. They would have been constantly requisitioned for government work. There was in the place only one Siamese carpenter reputed to be a good workman. In order to get him, I had to advance him three hundred rupees, professedly to pay a debt, but most likely to gamble with. He was to build by contract. But he had already received his money, or so much of it that he was quite independent. He soon slashed and spoiled more timber than his wages were worth. So, to keep him from ruining the whole, I had to get rid of him, even at some sacrifice. Just then a Siamo-Chinese turned up, who took the job by the day under my direction, to be assisted by some Christians whom we trained thus as apprentices. The house was built on the plan of the East Indian bungalow—raised ten feet from the ground on posts, with single walls and a veranda all round. Its large lofty rooms, screened on all sides by the verandas, make it still one of the most comfortable houses in the mission. It was more than eight years from the time of our arrival when we entered it; and even then it was not finished.

Although the new government was friendly, yet some of the ruling spirits were in their hearts as hostile as the deceased Prince had ever been, and without his more noble qualities. There were two in particular who soon began to show that their secret influence would be against the mission—and their open hostility, too, so far as they ventured to let it appear. One was the adopted son of the late Prince, and the other the new ruler’s half-brother, who had been made Uparāt, or second in power, when the new Prince ascended the throne. Had these both lived, their combined influence would have been nearly as formidable as that of Kāwilōrot. Unfortunately, too, the actual business of the country was largely in their hands. Prince Intanon was not at all ambitious for power. He liked nothing better than to work without care or responsibility in his own little workshop, making fancy elephant-saddles, and let his half-brother rule the country. During the following year the adopted son went down to Bangkok to receive the insignia of his new rank, but never returned. His death was even more sudden than that of his foster-father. He was taken with the cholera, and died in a few hours. This left the elder of the two avowed enemies of Christianity, and the higher in rank and power. To give an illustration of the kind of spirit we had to contend with in him, I will anticipate an incident of a few years later.

Two native Karens, ordained ministers, were sent by the American Baptist Mission to initiate in Lāo territory a work among the Karens, a hill-people scattered sparsely throughout all the mountain region between Siam and Burma. The native evangelists brought with them letters from the missionaries in Burma, requesting us to aid them in getting Lāo passports. We went with them to the new Prince, and he very graciously gave direction to his brother to see that passports were issued, stating not only that the visitors were to be protected and aided as travellers, but also that they were to be allowed to teach the new religion, and that people were allowed to embrace it without fear.

I was specially interested that they should succeed in the first village which they were to visit, for it was the one where I had vaccinated the whole population during the first year of our mission. Since I had failed to make Christians of them—partly, as I supposed, on account of my ignorance of their language, but more on account of the persecution which followed so soon after—I hoped that when the message was delivered in their own tongue, with official permission to embrace it, the whole village might accept the Gospel. What was the astonishment of the preachers that, instead of being received with the characteristic hospitality of their race, they hardly found common civility! At last they learned the reason. The Chao Uparāt had secretly despatched a special messenger with a letter under his own seal, forbidding any Karen subject to embrace the new religion. All who did so were to be reported to him. What that meant, or what he wished them to infer that it meant, was well understood.

Our readers, therefore, will not be surprised that we found it necessary to keep an eye on the Chao Uparāt, and to use considerable diplomacy in counteracting his schemes against the church. It was my policy in those days to keep up as close an acquaintance as possible with the members of the ruling family. It was the misfortune of all of them that they were ignorant;^[9] and ignorance begets suspicion. Some of them were naturally suspicious of the missionaries. They could not understand what motive could induce men who were neither government officials nor merchants, to leave a great country and come to live in theirs.

Two objects were gained by keeping in contact with the rulers. They saw, then, with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears, what we were doing. In nearly every interview our one great work was magnified alike to prince, priest, and people. I have heretofore specially mentioned princesses, too, as well as princes, in this connection, because the Lāo have a proud pre-eminence among non-Christian races in the position accorded to woman. In the family, woman’s authority is universally recognized. At the time we speak of it was much the same in the government also. The influence of women in affairs of state was doubtless greatly increased during the previous reign, when, there being no sons in the royal household, the daughters naturally became more prominent. They were trained to understand and to deal with public business.

I have already referred to the kindness of the elder daughter, now not, as in former reigns, the head-wife, but the only wife of the new ruler. By birth she was of higher rank than he; and she was in every way worthy of the high position she now assumed. Hers was, in fact, the strong intelligence and steady will that kept her more passive consort from errors into which he would otherwise have been led. At this particular juncture she was needed as a check against the Prince’s more ambitious and less principled half-brother. She had a woman’s instinct to discern a point, and a woman’s revulsion against lawless acts, even when done by her own father. In honesty of purpose she and her consort were one, for his kindness of heart had drawn to him more dependents than any other prince in the land possessed. The murder of the Christians they both regarded as “worse than a crime—a blunder.” For the present, however, there was no indication of the sinister forces which came into play later. All in authority seemed to be honestly carrying out the orders from Bangkok concerning the missionary work.

A year was spent in preparation for the ceremonies attending the cremation of the dead Prince. During the last three months of this time, everything else in the whole land yielded place to it. Not only was there requisition of men and materials throughout the province of Chiengmai; but all the neighbouring states furnished large levies of men under the personal direction of their princes or officers of rank. Such occasions offer exceptional opportunities for meeting people from all parts of the country, for forming lasting friendships, and for sending some knowledge of the Gospel to distant provinces. In after years I never made a tour on which I did not encounter friends whose acquaintance I had made at the great cremation festival.

The preparations were hastened somewhat because of the unsettled state of the country. Chao Fā Kōlan, the Ngīo freebooter of whom we have already heard, was still at his old tricks. Emboldened by the death of the Prince, and the confusion incident to the change of rulers, he had become more insolent than ever. Villages had been burned within less than a day’s march from the city. Bands of men, euphemistically called an army, were levied and despatched to capture him; but long before they could reach him, he was safe within his stronghold in the mountains.

The dead Prince was born on a Sunday; therefore every important event of his life must take place on that day, even to the last dread summons, which is not under man’s control—and beyond that, to the final disposition of his mortal remains. Sunday, therefore, was the first day of the ceremonies. On that day the body was removed from the summer garden to the “Mēn,” where it was to lie in state to receive the homage of his relatives and subjects until the following Sunday. The morning of each day was devoted to “merit-making” of various kinds—feeding the monks, making offerings to them, and listening to the reading of the sacred books. The afternoons were largely spent in boxing games, a favourite amusement of the Lāo. The evenings were given up to gambling.

Everything went on according to programme until Thursday morning, when the festivities were rudely interrupted. Chao Fā Kōlan, the bandit chief, taking advantage of the occasion, made one of his sudden forays to within so short a distance of Chiengmai that he actually had posted on the city gates during the night an insolent manifesto to the effect that the assembled Princes need not trouble themselves further with the cremation of the dead Prince. He and his band would attend to that! The news produced a tremendous panic. The whole business of the cremation was incontinently stopped. A force was sent out after the marauder—with the usual result. Before the end of the week, however, the panic had sufficiently subsided to permit the ceremonies to be resumed. The cremation itself was carried out on the following Sunday as planned.

During all these years the demand for medical treatment, and the opportunity which its exercise brings, had been constantly growing. I made, for example, a second trip to Lampūn, this time at the call of the Chao Uparāt of that city. The poor man had consumption, and at first sent to me for some foreign medicine, thinking that would surely cure him. Judging from his symptoms as reported, I sent word that I could not cure him; that the soothing mixture which I sent was sent in hope that it might give him a few nights’ rest; but that was all I could do. Presently he sent an elephant with a most urgent appeal that I come to see him. I was glad of the call, for it gave me the opportunity of directing a dying man to something even more urgently needed than medicine. I spent a few days with him, and visited all of the leading families and officials of the place, establishing most valuable and friendly relations with them.

Long before this time, both the demand for medical treatment and the responsibility involved far exceeded what any person without complete professional training could undertake to meet. We had urged upon our Board the claims of our mission for a physician. The following touching appeal, which appeared in the Foreign Missionary for March, 1870, was made by Mr. Wilson not long after the death of his son Frank. After sending an earnest appeal from Nān Inta for helpers, Mr. Wilson says:

“Of course Nān Inta’s call for help includes in it a Christian physician. Who will respond? I am convinced there are many young men in the medical profession whose love for Jesus and whose sympathy with human sufferings are strong enough to bring them all the way to Chiengmai, if they will but yield themselves to this constraining influence. Christian physician, you are greatly needed here. The missionary’s family needs you. This suffering people needs you. You were needed months since, when a voice so sweet and full of glee was changed to piteous shrieks of pain. You were not here to give relief; and if you now come, it will not greet you, for it is hushed in death. You are needed here now. A plaintive cry comes to me as I write. It is the voice of our dear babe, whose weak condition fills our hearts with deepest anxiety. May I not interpret this plaintive cry as addressed to you? It is the only way that M. has of saying to you, ‘Come to Chiengmai.’ When you arrive, she may be sleeping beside her little brother. But you will find others, both old and young, whose pains you may be able to soothe, and whose souls you may win from the way that leads to eternal death.”

Great was our joy, therefore, when, in the summer of 1871, we learned that Dr. C. W. Vrooman, from Dr. Cuyler’s church in Brooklyn, had responded to our appeal, and already was under appointment of our Board for Chiengmai. His arrival was delayed somewhat because it was thought unsafe for him to make the river trip during the height of the rainy season. So it was January 22d, 1872, before we welcomed him to Chiengmai. He came with high credentials as a physician and surgeon with experience both in private and in hospital practice. He began work on the day of his arrival. He found Nān Inta at the point of death from acute dysentery; and his first trophy was the saving of that precious life. Had he done nothing else, that alone would have been well worth while. One or two operations for vesical calculus gave him such a reputation that patients came crowding to him for relief. In his first report he writes:

“I was very glad to commence work as soon as I arrived in the field. The number was large of those who came to the brethren here for daily treatment; and such is the reputation which they have established for themselves as physicians, that the demand for our professional services is greater than we can properly meet. I am satisfied that the demand for a medical missionary here was not too strongly urged by the brethren in their earnest appeals to the Board.

“I have already had much professional work to do, and while I am ministering to physical ailments, Brother McGilvary, who is kindly my interpreter, has opportunity to break unto many the bread of life.... Two men have just left who came a long distance, hoping we could bring to life a brother who had died hours before.”