Of his titular successor, Prince Intanon, and of his noble wife, I have already spoken. His real successor in the government of the land, and in his championship of the old régime of feudal autocracy, was the Chao Uparāt. But he had neither the commanding dignity of Kāwilōrot nor his interesting personality;—had little, in fact, of any of his qualities save his lodged and settled hatred of all innovation. For him we had none of a certain kind of respect which the late Prince inspired; and we were under no constraint of gratitude for favours. The only debt of gratitude the mission owed him was for being, by his lawless acts, the unwitting and unwilling cause of the proclamation of religious freedom. But the crisis which he precipitated hastened likewise that centralization of government which Siam was waiting for. The tendency of the age is everywhere toward centralization. Strong central governments are everywhere taking the place of weak and scattered ones. Chiengmai itself and all the existing Lāo states have grown by the capture and absorption of their weaker, though by no means insignificant, neighbours. The authority and fear of Siam had long been felt indirectly in preventing those petty wars in which one weak state captured and enslaved another. That authority was now to be exerted more directly to bring to an end the era of arbitrary, personal, autocratic rule among its dependencies, and to establish in its place the more equal and stable reign of law. Feudalism with its “organized anarchy” was to give way to the Nation. Such was the period at which we have arrived in this narrative of our life and work in the Lāo states. It is a wonderful thing to have lived through such a series of changes, and possibly to have been, under Providence, the means of bringing some of them about. We work for an end apparent to ourselves; but God’s designs are deeper and broader than ours. “He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him.” Of nations, as well as of individuals, is it true that “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.” Among the Christians the Edict, of course, was greeted with an outburst of joy. To Nān Inta it was like life from the dead. It was in reality freedom from slavery. And no man made such efficient use of it as he did. With the sealed copy of the Edict in his hand, he returned to his village; and wherever he went he could assure the people, on the faith of his Sovereign, that a profession of the “Jesus-religion” meant neither the ruffian’s club nor slavery. The effects of the Edict upon the church will be traced in its future growth as our story moves on. I may venture, however, to anticipate so much—that within two years’ time two of our strongest village churches were organized; one of them in Nān Inta’s own village. Neither of these churches could have existed had not the Uparāt’s power been abridged.