In the spring of 1884 the mission sustained a great loss in the death of Princess Tipa Kēsawn, Prince Intanon’s consort, whom we were in the habit of calling “the Queen.” Placed as she was, she could not well have avoided the making of priests’ garments, and the going through with the form of making offerings to the spirits. But I seriously doubt whether she had any expectation of laying up thereby a store of merit for the future. One thing we do know, that in her last sickness she turned no anxious look to any of these things, at a time when thoughtful Buddhists are always most diligent in their efforts. Dr. Peoples of our mission attended her in her last illness, and the case was submitted entirely to him. Mrs. McGilvary and I were both with her the day before she died. Mrs. McGilvary was with her at her death, and remained to see the body dressed for the coffin. We missed her very much as a friend, and the whole country missed her as a balance-wheel for her husband. * * * * * On the arrival of the reinforcement in 1883, a Presbytery was organized of the four ministers, Wilson, Peoples, Hearst, and McGilvary. I was then full of the idea of a theological training-class. My experience of the accumulated power added to the missionary’s efforts by having such assistants as Nān Inta, Nān Suwan, and Noi Intachak, raised in my mind the question, Why not increase the number? Having had no schools, we had, of course, no body of young men educated on Christian lines whom we might train for the ministry; and we could not have such for years to come. But we had in our churches mature men of deeply religious nature, earnest students of Buddhism, and carefully educated in all the learning of their race. And a man so trained has many compensations for his lack of training in our elementary schools. He knows the sacred books of his own people, their strength and their weakness. He understands the thoughts, the needs, and the difficulties of a Buddhist enquirer, and the mode of argument by which these difficulties are to be met, as no young man of his own race, and as no foreign teacher can do. The training needed to make such a man an efficient preacher of the Gospel, is training in the Christian Scriptures, together with practical experience in evangelistic work under efficient direction. I was at that time giving regular instruction to Noi Intachak, one of the finest young men I have ever known in that country, and very anxious to become a minister.[13] To Nān Tā, afterwards our efficient minister, I was giving instruction less regularly, as it was possible for him to take it. But it would have been both easier and more profitable to teach a class of six or eight. By qualifying such a group of young men to work, and then working with them and through them, I believed that my own efficiency could be quadrupled, or even sextupled, as it was doubled when I had Nān Inta to work with. Footnote 13: