The governor was a warm friend of mine, and was urgent that we establish a mission and a church there before Buddhist temples could be built. The province was virgin soil. A great mortality usually attends the repeopling of deserted places and the clearing of the land. The governor was very anxious that we should send a physician. Had we gone then with five hundred ounces of quinine, we should have had command of the situation. As it was, Nān Suwan was furnished with some quinine, which gave him the name of doctor. Broad-minded, hospitable, kindly, and thoroughly upright, there could have been no better selection. He became the real father of the Chieng Sên church. His family was a light in the city. His youngest daughter, Kūi Kêo, one of Mrs. McGilvary’s first pupils, taught most of the early Christians there to read the Scriptures in Siamese. The elder himself became a great favourite with the governor, who used to say that the fact of his being governor, and, therefore, under authority, alone prevented him from uniting with the church. Another of the returning captives was Sên Yā Wichai, the first believer in Chiengmai. He settled on the western border of the Chieng Sên plain. * * * * * The Lāo as a race have been in bondage to the spirits. We have already had frequent occasion to refer to the slavish fear of them among all classes, from the highest to the lowest. No event in life, from birth to the last offices for the dead, could be undertaken without consulting or appeasing the presiding spirits of the clan, the household, or the country. Their anger is the fruitful cause of every disease and calamity that flesh is heir to. In many ways this would seem a less elevating and ennobling cult than pure Buddhism. But really it has a much closer affinity with Christianity than has Buddhism, whether as scientifically held by the learned, or as embraced by the common people. Buddhism is too atheistic to bring it into comparison here with Christianity. It lacks the essential attribute of religion—a sense of dependence on some higher power. It belongs to a different order of thought. The spirit-cult, on the other hand, does recognize invisible powers whose goodwill or illwill brings prosperity or adversity. From this to one Great Spirit, who is sovereign over all, is but another step on the same line of ascent. So their spirit-offerings come nearer the idea of propitiation than do the offerings of Buddhism, which in some quite unaccountable manner are supposed to bring merit to the offerer.