The series of lectures started such a revival of interest in scientific matters among them that Dr. House soon found himself the frequent host of several princes and nobles, seeking instruction in all sorts of subjects; and he was on various occasions invited to their shops to inspect their work or elucidate some obscure difficulty, as though he were a peripatetic professor. He was even seriously troubled by the borrowing of books and instruments which they were not all punctilious to return. Moreover, he found himself an agent of some of these men, ordering machinery and supplies and tools from America for their use. Chao Fah Noi said to him confidentially that any one who wanted to do something new in those days must do it in secret, for if the king learned of their activities he would call upon them to work for him so as to keep them from pursuing investigations. This prince, however, was not altogether secret in his experiments, for under date of July 4, 1848, Dr. House writes: “This a. m., we saw something new on the river—a little model steamboat, not twenty feet long, with smoke-pipe, paddle wheel, all complete, steaming bravely against the tide, with H. R. H. Chao Fah Noi sitting at the helm. It was the first native steamer on the Meinam, entirely his own construction.” But not for one moment did Dr. House lose sight of his prime objective. The favour of princes was no reward in itself; he was always concerned for the influence he might exercise through his contact with men of power: “How taken with the new science is the Prince (Chao Fah Noi). Oh, that acquaintance and opportunity given me with him may be improved to win and turn him from his trust in false gods and rites! He has a good mind.” Not a lecture, scarcely a conversation, on science but Dr. House sought to point out the unanswerable argument from “design in nature” as a proof of a Creator and of the truth of Christianity. To some, the revelations of nature through science became also the revelations of a Divinity. “Brother Chandler spoke of a person (Godata) who after attending the chemical lectures last year, seeing evidence of wisdom and goodness in the composition of air and water, said ‘There must be a God—there must be.’” This same Godata it was who became chaplain to the army under King Chulalongkorn.