The tour of the previous season had been so hasty and unsatisfactory, that I was very anxious, if possible, to duplicate the homeward stretch of it as far as Nān, then descend the Pitsanulōk Fork to the Mênam, and so follow my family to Bangkok. But would it be safe to leave my wife to make the river trip without me, when she was in such weak condition, and burdened with the care of four children, the youngest of whom was but two years old? I embarked and travelled with them as far as the landing for Lampūn—where we must separate, if I were to cross over to Nān—still uncertain as to what I ought to do. It was then Friday. We decided to stop there over Sunday, and see how matters looked on Monday morning. The quiet and rest of the boat were improving her condition somewhat; and her own bravery made up whatever was lacking there. I had secured a strong letter from the Prince, calling for the best of steersmen through the rapids, and for protection where the boat should stop for the night. So, with some anxiety, but with strong faith that the plan in itself so desirable would prosper, we separated—one party going by boat down the Mê Ping, and the other going afoot across country to Lampūn. For the present we leave the wife and children, to hear their report when we meet again.
My plan was to rely on getting elephants from point to point. Elephants are always very hard to get; so it seemed doubtful whether my confidence were faith or presumption. But I was remarkably favoured. At Lampūn there was not an elephant nearer than the forests, save two of the governor’s own. I had trusted to his friendship, and it did not fail me. I got off in fine style next morning on the governor’s two elephants, with a letter to all the governors on the route directing them to see that I was supplied with whatever I needed on the journey.
I felt strong in having with me, in the person of Nān Inta, so wise a teacher and such a living witness of the power of the Gospel. On our first visits it has usually seemed wise to spend much of the time in visiting and making known the Gospel privately to those of reputation, as we know one wise missionary did in old times. It is necessary to give the rulers a clear idea of the non-political nature of our work. In order to do this, we must show positively what our message is—not merely that we are religious teachers, but that, as such, we have a message different from all others, not antagonistic or hostile to them, but supplementing rather that which they offer.
In visiting among the princely families in the old city of Lakawn we met one most interesting case. It was that of an aged bedridden Princess high in rank, who received the Gospel with all readiness of mind. By nature, habit, and grace she had been very religious. She had in her day built temples and rest-houses, had feasted Buddhist monks, and had fasted times without number, in order to lay up a store of merit for the great future. She hoped sometimes that she had laid up a sufficient store; but the five and the eight commands were against her. She had killed animals; and the command is explicit, and condemns without a saviour. That the Creator of all had made these creatures for our use and benefit was a new idea. That of itself would remove much of the burden on her conscience. And as one after another of the great truths of revelation was opened up to her, particularly the doctrine of the incarnation and atonement of our divine-human Redeemer, it seemed as if the burden was lifted. Nān Inta was himself a living testimony that the Christian teaching can and does give instantaneous relief when simply believed. It is difficult to tell which was more touching, the sympathetic earnestness of the speaker, or the comfort it imparted to the hearer. The Princess begged us to come again and often. And neither of us found any other place so attractive.
After a week spent in Lakawn, we departed on our way to Nān. The next Sunday we spent in the forest. I look back with delightful memories to the occasional Sabbaths thus spent in the deep forest after a busy week with no rest and no privacy—a Sabbath in solitude, away from every noise, and even every song except the music of the wind and the song of birds! We always had service with our men; and then, under the shade of some cool spreading tree, or beside a flowing brook, one could be alone and yet not alone. No one more needs such retirement than a missionary, whose work is always a giving-out, with fewer external aids for resupply than others have.
The next Sunday we spent in Wieng Sā, the first of the numerous little outlying towns of Nān. On Monday we reached Nān itself, the limit of our tour in that direction. The country was well governed, the princes intelligent, and the common people friendly. But the special attraction that Nān had for me largely centred around one man, the Prince’s nephew, Chao Borirak—the one that rode astride the young elephant to see us safe to Prê on our earlier trip, with whom we used to talk religion about the camp-fires till the small hours of the morning. We left him then apparently on the border land of Christianity, with strong hope that he soon would be ready to profess publicly the faith which he was almost ready to confess to us. His rank and connection would make him of great assistance in opening a station in Nān, which, next to Chiengmai, was the most important province in the Lāo region. Again he offered us a warm welcome, giving up his time to visiting with us the rulers and the monasteries, in one of which his son had long been an abbot. It seemed as if Nān Inta’s experience would be all that was needed to settle his faith. At his request I asked and received permission from the Prince for him again to accompany us—with his young elephant foal and her mother—five days’ journey to Tā It, where I was to take boat. Our walks by day and our talks by night are never to be forgotten. But the convenient season to make a public profession never came. He lived in hope of seeing a station in Nān, but died not long before the station was established.
At Tā It no boat was to be had either for sale or for hire. But my face was turned toward home, and I would have gone on a raft. I had to do the next thing—to take a small dug-out which the Prince got for me, and go on to Utaradit, the next town below. There I was able to purchase a boat, which I afterwards sold in Bangkok for what it cost me. Nān Inta was the steersman, and my four men rowed. Our longest stop was at Pitsanulōk, where the Siamese mission now has a station. On reaching Bangkok I was delighted to find that my family had made their long trip down the other river in safety, though not without great anxiety, and some threatened danger. Our oldest daughter had been quite ill on the way. Once they came perilously near falling a prey to a band of robbers. It was only by a clever ruse of the captain that they escaped. As soon as he caught sight of the suspicious-looking group of men on a sand-bar ahead, he had the gong loudly sounded. That and the waving American flag evidently made them think that this was the leading boat of some prince’s flotilla. They incontinently fled into the forest. At the next stopping-place our boatmen learned that it was, indeed, a marauding band that had committed many depredations on passing boats. What a merciful preservation!
We spent a few weeks in Bangkok, resting and visiting in the home of my father-in-law, Dr. Bradley, of sainted memory. It proved to be the last time that we ever saw him. He lived only a few months after that.
In fifteen years the world had moved. Going round “the Cape,” even in a good clipper ship like the David Brown, had become too slow. We took, instead, the steamship Patroclus from Singapore to London, via the Suez Canal. The Rev. Mr. Keyesberry, a missionary friend of Dr. Bradley’s, had been waiting to find an escort to England for two young sons and a daughter. We gladly undertook that service, and so had a flock of seven young folks to look after!
We were barely under way when our own children broke out with the measles. The disease, fortunately, proved to be of a mild type, and our new charges were not hard to manage. So, on the whole, we got along very well. In London we had unexpected trouble because the friend who was to meet Alice Keyesberry at the dock failed to appear, and, strangely enough, we had received no memorandum of her destination. It cost us two days’ search to discover her friends at the Walthamstow Mission School.
The boys I had promised to convoy as far as Edinburgh. So, leaving my family in London, I had the great pleasure of a visit to the beautiful Scotch capital. The day spent there was to me a memorable one. It was, however, a matter of great regret that, being so near the Highlands, I could not also visit the original home of my ancestors.
We arrived in New York on July 11th, 1873, after an absence of fifteen years. Under any circumstances fifteen years would work great changes. But that particular fifteen had included the Civil War. The changes in the South were heart-rending.
Though North Carolina was drawn late into the Confederacy, it is said that she furnished a larger number per capita of soldiers and had a larger number of casualties than any other state in the South. The havoc among my old schoolmates and pupils, and among my flock, was distressing. In many places, too, the sectional feeling was still bitter. The wisest of the people, however, were becoming fully reconciled to the results of the war. The largest slaveholder in my own section assured me that the freeing of his slaves had been a boon to him, and that he was clearing more from his old farm under free labour than he had done before with slaves.
Unfortunately in the churches the feeling was more bitter. My old associate, Dr. Mattoon, had accepted the presidency of Biddle Institute at Charlotte—now Biddle University (colored). For a time he was very coldly received except by such broad-minded men as his old Princeton classmate, and my friend, Dr. Charles Phillips. By virtue, however, of his noble Christian character and his conservative bearing, Dr. Mattoon overcame these prejudices, and lived to be welcomed in the largest churches in the state. I spent most of my furlough in North Carolina; and personally I received a welcome almost as warm as if I were a missionary of the Southern Board. Returned missionaries were not numerous then. It was not an uncommon thing for me to lecture in churches which had never before seen the face of a foreign missionary.
Soon after our arrival in the United States news came of the resignation of Dr. Vrooman; and my first duty was to find a successor. For myself, and even for my family, I could endure to return without one. But I could not face the distressing appeals from the sick whose ailments I was powerless to relieve. In my visits among friends in North Carolina I met a young medical graduate, Dr. M. A. Cheek, who received from warm friends of the mission flattering recommendations for the place. He himself was pleased with the opening, and would willingly accept it, if he could first take a graduate course in surgery. This was easily arranged, and he was ready to return with us the following summer.
The hardest thing to face was the parting with our children. But the bitterness of this pang was softened by the kindness of friends which opened the best of Christian homes and schools to receive them. We can never sufficiently express our gratitude for the kindness shown us in this matter by the late Mrs. E. N. Grant and Miss Mitchell of the Statesville Female College, and to Mrs. McNeill, the widow of my old pastor.
These two great questions settled, we left North Carolina in March, 1874—my wife with the two younger children, to visit friends and relatives in the North; and I, as I hoped, to visit the churches and the seminaries in search of recruits. But a cold contracted on the trip north ran into a dangerous attack of pleuro-pneumonia, followed by a slow recovery. Thus I missed my visits to the seminaries and the meeting of the General Assembly in St. Louis.
The return to the field was by way of San Francisco, and we reached Bangkok on August 27th, 1874. On November 14th a son was given us to take the place of the children left behind. In December began our river journey to Chiengmai. The river was low, and we were a month and a day from Bangkok to Rahêng. There we found four missionaries of the Nova Scotia Baptist Board seeking to establish a station among the Karens of Siam. But they found their villages too small and too widely scattered to justify the establishment of a station. So they were returning to Burma. On Saturday night we all dined together, and had a sociable hour. On Sunday evening we drew up our boats side by side, and had a prayer-meeting that we shall long remember. There was something delightful in thus meeting and enjoying Christian fellowship on a sand-bar, and then passing on to our respective fields of work. Some of these men afterwards went to India, and started the Telegu mission, which has had phenomenal success.
There were still the rapids and four more weeks of travel before we could reach our Lāo home. But the home-coming at last was delightful. Our faithful old coolie, Lung In, with his wife, met us in a small boat three days’ journey below Chiengmai, with fruit and fowls lest we should be in want. Then the tall figure of Nān Inta, with his face like a benediction!
It was February 7th, 1875, when at last we drew up alongside our own landing-place, and felt the warm handshake of old friends. Among the Lāo at last!—and no place that we had seen would we exchange for our Lāo home. For the first time since our arrival in 1867 we had a permanent house to enter!