Meantime it was desirable to have some portions of the Scriptures in the Lāo character; and, to accomplish this, the first requisite was a font of Lāo type. To this end, on my first furlough in 1873, I went from North Carolina to New York, and not only spent some time, but was at some personal expense, in the effort to secure such a font. The American Bible Society voted a liberal sum for the purpose. But there turned out to be some mechanical difficulties to be overcome in making and using the type, which were beyond my skill to solve. So, lest the attempt should fail in my hands, I gave it up. And having accomplished nothing, I presented no bill of expense either to the Bible Society or to the Board. There seemed, indeed, to be some fatality attending our efforts in this direction. Mr. Wilson, on the furlough from which he was but now returned, had gone further. He actually succeeded in getting a font of Lāo type. But the whole of it was lost, and never reached the mission.[11] It was not until Dr. Peoples’ furlough in 1889 that we succeeded in getting our present type. Meanwhile we had used the Siamese Scriptures, with some present disadvantages, indeed, but with some advantages as well. Some of our first Christians were attracted to our religion by their desire to learn Siamese; and the Siamese Bible and catechism were our textbooks. And now, under Siamese rule, knowledge of the Siamese opens the way to promotion in the government service. Siamese alone is taught in the government schools. Young monks are more eager to study Siamese than their own tongue. Footnote 11: Mr. Wilson brought only a few specimens with him. He writes:—“The rest of the type was to be boxed up and sent to Mr. Cutter, and the boxes were to be put away in the store-room of the Mission Rooms at 23 Centre Street, and forwarded when called for. They must have been lost when the Board moved from 23 Centre Street to the Lenox property, and then to 156 Fifth Avenue.” But the important thing, after all, was that we had a school actually begun, and that there was teaching in _both_ dialects. It was like a new beginning of our work under conditions more favourable than at the first. For twelve years it had been a hard, and, sometimes, an apparently hopeless struggle. But the history of missions affords many similar instances with even fewer visible results. In twelve years we had gathered forty converts into the church. Some of these were among the most useful we have ever had in the history of the mission. It is hard to estimate rightly the importance of work spent on the foundations of such an enterprise. But now, with that church organized, with the medical work well established, the evangelistic work strengthened, and the initial school, begun long before by Mrs. McGilvary, placed on a permanent basis, we could write in large letters on our altar, “Jehovah-Nissi”—Jehovah our banner. * * * * *