Dr. Cheek’s arrival was a matter of great rejoicing. He was very young—only twenty-one, in fact, on the day he sailed from San Francisco. The trying drudgery that he and others of our early medical missionaries had to endure, is now in great measure obviated through the help of native assistants. The remainder of the year 1875 I devoted very largely to assisting in the medical work, interpreting, helping in operations, and caring for the souls of the numerous patients, without feeling the weight of responsibility for their physical condition, as I had done before. Dr. Cheek came out a single man; but, like others before him, he lost his heart on the way. Toward the end of that year he went down to Bangkok, and was married to Miss Sarah A. Bradley. He returned to Chiengmai just as Mr. Wilson was ready to start for the United States on his second furlough. The April communion was postponed a week that the newly-arrived and the departing missionaries might commune together before separating. It was Mrs. Wilson’s last communion with us.
In May, 1876, Nān Inta was ordained our first ruling elder. The story has often been told that before his ordination the Confession of Faith was given him to read carefully, since he would be asked whether he subscribed to its doctrines. When he had finished the reading, he remarked that he saw nothing peculiar in its teachings. It was very much like what he had read in Paul’s Epistles! In January Pā Kamun, the widow of Noi Sunya, was baptized. It was thus appropriately given to her to be the first woman received into the communion of the church. Two of her daughters, and Pā Peng, the wife of Nān Inta, soon followed. Lung In was elected the first deacon, but was too modest to be ordained to that office. Meanwhile he was becoming a most useful assistant in the hospital. Strange as it may seem, the office of hospital nurse is one of the most difficult to get a Lāo to fill. Lung In, however, was not above the most menial service for the sick. His real successor was not found until the present incumbent, Dr. Kêo, was trained. Dr. McKean’s testimony is that it would be scarcely more difficult to procure a good surgeon than to fill Kêo’s place as nurse and assistant among the hospital patients.
During the summer of 1876, in company with Nān Inta, I made a tour among the four nearest provinces to the north and west. The governor of Mûang Kên had long given promise of becoming a Christian, and now invited me to visit his people. On his frequent visits to Chiengmai on business, he always called on me, and no subject was so interesting to him as the subject of religion. Before the proclamation of toleration, while the common people were still afraid of making a public profession of Christianity, our most effective work was probably that with the higher class of officials, who stood in somewhat less fear of the known antagonism of the Chao Uparāt. They were, besides, a more interesting class than the common people, for they were better educated, were more accustomed in their daily duties to weigh arguments and decide on questions of evidence, and many of them had been trained in the religious order.
This governor of Mûang Kên had learned enough of the tenets of Christianity to become unsettled and dissatisfied with the prospects of salvation offered by a purely ethical religion. He saw the weakness of the foundation on which he had been taught to rely, and the difference between the authors of the two religions. So he stood on the border land between the two, at the very gate, wishing to enter in, but with many obstacles in his way, and strong opposing influences to overcome.
My first objective, then, on this tour was Mûang Kên. The governor had asked me to come and smooth the way for him by teaching his under-officials and his townsmen. Nān Inta was the living, concrete argument, and he put his whole heart into it. We had a few days of deeply interesting work. Few, however, saw the matter as the governor did. Most of them “would consider it.” Some would go further and say that they worshipped Jesus under the name of their promised Buddha Metraya, yet to come.
From Mûang Kên we went to Chieng Dāo, where we visited the great cave with its famous Buddhist shrine. Ever since Nān Inta became a Christian, he had been anxious to test the truth of some of the legends connected with the place—a thing he dared not do before. The cave is the abode of the great Lawa spirit, for fear of offending whom Prince Kāwilōrot was afraid to allow us to build to the north of the city bridge in Chiengmai. Chieng Dāo mountain, which rises above the cave, is seven thousand one hundred and sixty feet high—one of the highest peaks in all Siam, and visible from Chiengmai, some thirty-seven miles away. One of the sources of the Mê Ping River, twenty feet wide and knee-deep, flows bodily out from the cave. Since no animal is allowed to be killed in so sacred a place, the stream abounds in a great variety of beautiful fish waiting for the food which no visitor fails to give them. The scramble for it is as interesting to watch as the performance of the sea-lions at San Francisco.
The legend is that no one can cross the stream inside the cave and return alive; and that beyond the stream, under the crest of the mountain, there is an image of pure gold seven cubits high. One enters the cave at a little distance from the stream, and finds first a grand chamber which is a veritable temple, with arched dome, natural pulpit, and innumerable images of Buddha, large and small. This place is regarded as a most sacred shrine. Buddhist monks are always there performing their devotions. The chamber is so dark that they have to use tapers to see to read. The dim light and the long-drawn tones of the worshippers produce a very weird impression.
From the temple-chamber narrow passages lead off in different directions, till there is danger of losing one’s way in the labyrinth. I followed Nān Inta and his sons to the stream, which is reached at some distance farther on. Being neither tall nor a swimmer, I stopped and sauntered about in the various rooms, waiting for my companions to verify or to disprove the legend. Needless to say, both parts of it were proved myths. My companions did return alive, and no golden image was found. The cave is too damp to make it safe for one to remain long in those distant passages. Farther on the tapers burned but very dimly; and one would not choose to be left there in pitch darkness. We could understand very well how the legend arose of Yaks that devour those that intrude into their dark caverns. There is no doubt of the presence of a deadly gas much more to be feared than the spirit of the great Lawa king, which is believed to have taken up his abode there. We all experienced more or less of the symptoms premonitory of malarial attack, and before we got back to the town Nān Inta was shaking with a genuine chill. A heroic dose, however, of Warburg’s tincture with quinine soon set him to rights. In this case, then, as in many others, there is a foundation of truth at the bottom of the legend.
That night we had a great audience. It was generally known that we intended to explore the cave, and many, no doubt, came to see how we had fared. It was well that Nān Inta had so far recovered from his morning’s chill as to be ready to join in bearing testimony not only to the falsity of the legend, but also to the truth of the Gospel. It was a bright moonlight night, and the people listened till very late, while we sang hymns, preached the Gospel, and pointed them to the better way. The result was seen years after in the founding of a church there.
All these provinces that we were now visiting, and others more distant still, were originally settled by refugees driven from the more southern districts by the persecution for witchcraft. Now they are important provinces. Since these people had been ruthlessly driven forth because of the spirits, I thought they would willingly accept any way of escape from their control. But they seemed, if anything, more superstitious and harder to reach than others. Having suffered once, as they supposed, from the malicious power of the spirits, they seemed even more than others to dread to incur their anger again by deserting them. But there were many hopeful exceptions.
Mûang Pāo was the next city visited. From the incidents of our stay there I select the cases of two persons who excited our deepest sympathy. One was an aged Buddhist monk, a Ngīo, who, with a younger companion, visited our tent daily. The monk was a venerable man, with striking features, serene countenance, earnest and intelligent. His long life had been spent in worship, meditation, and study. All this he soon told us with some quite natural pride. While not bold, he was not reticent, freely stating his own doctrines, hopes, and fears, and asking ours. To the question what were his hopes for a future life, he frankly said, “I don’t know. How can I? I have tried to keep the commandments, have performed my devotions, have counted my beads. But whether I shall go up or down [indicating the directions with his finger] I do not know. I have done what my books tell me, but I have no light here [pointing to his heart]. Can the teacher’s religion give me any light?”
The earnestness and the despondency of the man drew me to him. I asked, what of his failures and transgressions? “That,” he said, “is the dark point. My books say that all my good deeds shall be rewarded, but the failures and transgressions must be punished before I can reach Nirvāna, the final emancipation of the soul by the extinction of all desire.” “How long will that be?” we ask. He answered by giving a number that would baffle even astronomers, who are accustomed to deal in almost fabulous numbers.
“But is not that virtually endless?”
“Yes; but what shall we do? That is what our books say.”
“But is there no room for pardon?”
“No. Buddha only points out the way that he followed himself. He reached the goal by the same almost endless journey. How shall we hope to do so by any shorter or different route?”
“But supposing there is a way—that there is a great sovereign of the universe, before all Buddhas and higher than all Buddhas, who has the right and the authority to grant full pardon through his own infinite merit, and his vicarious assumption of all our obligations and payment of all our debts. Would not that be a joyful message?”
“Yes; if true, it would be.”
And so we argued till light seemed to gleam for once into his mind. But the image of the dear old man pointing up and then down with the sad confession, “I know not whither I shall go,” is a vision that has saddened me many a time since.
The other case of special interest I state as it occurred, with no attempt at explanation of the dream involved in the story.—On the morning after our arrival, Nān Inta and I started out to visit monasteries or houses, wherever we might find listeners. I was dressed in white clothes, and Nān Inta had on a white jacket. We had made a number of calls, and were about to pass by a house in which we saw only an elderly woman and some children, presumably her grandchildren. We were surprised to see her come down from her house and run out after us, and prostrating herself with the customary salutation given to priests and princes, she begged us to stop and come in. We accepted her invitation, though surprised at her evident demonstrations of joy. Sitting down on the mat, we began to explain that we were teachers of religion, pointing out the sure way of happiness both in this life and in the life to come. Our message was one from the great God and Creator to all races and nations, inviting them to return from all other refuges, and He would give them an inheritance as His children in the life to come. She listened with marked interest as we explained to her our religion, and urged her to accept it. We were surprised at the explanation she gave of her intense interest.
Not long before our arrival she had a dream that two men dressed in white came to her to teach her. What they were to teach her she did not know; but when she saw us walking up the street she said, “There is the fulfilment of my dream!” She had watched us as we entered other houses, fearful lest we should omit hers. Now she was so glad we had come. It was at least a strange coincidence, for she affirmed that the dream was before she had ever heard of us. Whatever may have been the cause, it was a delight to instruct one who seemed to receive all that we said as a direct message to her. This at once attracted Nān Inta to her, and she listened to him with frequent exclamations of delight, while he, in his earnest manner, explained the Gospel message of pardon and life eternal through Him who liveth and was dead, and behold He is alive for evermore. She said her one great desire had been to escape from the punishment of her sins; but she never before had known that there was any other way but to suffer for them herself. She, too, was a Ngīo. We visited her frequently during the week of our stay in Mûang Pāo, and to the last she interpreted our coming as the fulfilment of her dream. This was the last that we knew either of her or of the aged monk. Before we visited the place again she was dead, and he had moved away.
In those days when the people were afraid to make a public profession of Christianity, it would have been a great gain to the mission if we could have had schools, and used them as a means of evangelizing the youth. A first attempt, indeed, had been made by Mr. Wilson with a few Burmese boys. A young Burmese who had been trained in Maulmein, and who spoke English, was employed to teach them under Mr. Wilson’s oversight, in the hope that Lāo boys would presently join them. This hope was not realized, and the experiment was presently abandoned.
The first call for a Christian school was for the education of girls. In the first Christian families girls predominated. Mrs. McGilvary collected six or eight Christian girls, and devoted as much time to them as her strength and her family duties would permit. They were really private pupils, living on our premises and in our family. More wished to come than she could do justice to. Hence about this time an appeal was made for two single ladies to devote their whole time to the school. But it was not till four years later that Miss Edna E. Cole and Miss Mary Campbell of the Oxford Female Seminary, Ohio, reached Chiengmai. Very soon they had twenty pupils. From this small beginning has grown our large Girls’ School. Two of Mrs. McGilvary’s pupils were soon made assistants. These and others of the first group became fine women, who have left their mark on the church and the country.
Notwithstanding our disappointment in the delay of the school for boys, it proved a wise arrangement that the Girls’ School was started first. A mission church is sure to be greatly handicapped whose young men must either remain single—which they will not do—or be compelled to take ignorant non-Christian wives. Such are a dead-weight to the husband, and the children almost surely follow the mother. After marriage, the almost universal custom of the country has been that the husband lives with the wife’s family. He becomes identified with it, and for the time a subordinate member of it, almost to the extent of becoming weaned from his own family. Where all the atmosphere of the family is strongly Buddhist, with daily offerings to the spirits and gala days at the temple, the current would be too strong for a father, with his secondary place in the family, to withstand. For a while it was feared that Christian girls would have difficulty in finding husbands. But, on the contrary, our educated girls become not only more intelligent, but more attractive in manners, dress, and character; and, therefore, have been much sought after. The homes become Christian homes, and the children are reared in a Christian atmosphere. The result is that, instead of the wife’s dragging the husband down, she generally raises the husband up; and, as a general rule, the children early become Christians.
In August, 1876, our beloved Princess became very seriously ill. Dr. Cheek had been called upon to treat domestics in the family, but not the Prince or Princess. Hearing that she was in a critical condition under native doctors, and fearing the worst, I took the liberty of suggesting that they consult Dr. Cheek. They seemed pleased with the suggestion, and asked me to accompany him—which I did for one or two visits. His treatment was very successful, and soon she was convalescent.
About this same time we had an adventure with white ants which came near costing us our much-valued cabinet organ. It will serve to illustrate an experience formerly common enough, and still not unknown. One Wednesday evening before prayer-meeting Mrs. McGilvary sat down at the instrument to look over the tunes, when she found it full of white ants. Our house was built on higher ground, into which the creatures are driven when the lower grounds are filled with water from the annual floods. They do not attack the teak walls and floors of our houses, but, climbing up the posts, at last they stumbled upon the soft wood and leather inside the organ, and were just beginning their feast when our meeting broke in upon them. Had we not discovered them then, the instrument would have been completely wrecked before morning.
Once the white ants destroyed a trunkful of our children’s clothes, once a box of “knock-down” chairs, and once they attacked my library—evidently not at all deterred by the learned discussions and deep thought of Dr. Joseph A. Alexander’s Commentary on Isaiah. They had got through the margin, and would soon have digested the rest, had not an unexpected occasion for opening the library saved it.