Mr. Caswell’s death and Mr. Hemenway’s illness threw now upon Mr. Mattoon, though he had been but eighteen months in the field, the Sabbath preaching-service at the station and a tri-weekly service at a hired room used as a chapel in the bazaar. There were, too, many applicants for books daily at the houses of the missionaries, and they had to be instructed and supplied. In 1849 the Presbyterian missionaries were made glad by the arrival in April of the Rev. Stephen Bush and wife, as were the Baptists by the Rev. Samuel J. Smith’s arrival in June. When a lad Mr. Smith had been taken into the family of Dr. Jones, came on with him to Siam, had been sent by him thence to the United States to be educated, and now came out to assist that veteran missionary in his work. The newly-arrived missionaries were busy in the acquisition of the language when suddenly the pestilence like a thunderbolt burst upon the inhabitants of Bangkok, sweeping to destruction in less than one month full thirty-five thousand, or about one-tenth, of its population. For days together, when this epidemic of Asiatic cholera was at its height, there were two thousand deaths in the twenty-four hours in Bangkok alone. The mission families were graciously permitted to abide in peace and safety. As may be imagined, the whole time of the missionary-physician was engrossed by attendance on the sick and the dying in princes’ palaces and in bamboo huts, and, through the blessing of Providence on remedies to which he was directed, many lives were saved and many lifelong friends secured to himself and the religion he professed. Of all those thousands that perished, alas! but one died in hope――an old man from a far-distant up-country home, who from the reading of Christian tracts alone, without ever seeing the living teacher, had joyfully received the truth, and, finding his way to Bangkok and to the Baptist mission to be instructed more perfectly, got there just in time (so it was strangely ordered) to become one of the earliest victims of the epidemic. He died without fear, trusting in the Saviour he had found. August 29, 1849, witnessed the organization of the first Presbyterian church in Siam. Earnest prayer went up that day that the little vine there planted might flourish and increase, and at last overshadow the land. To this church, made up of the mission families, a worthy native brother was added by certificate from the church in connection with mission of the A. B. C. F. M.――Quakieng, who, it will be remembered, had been baptized by Mr. Johnson in 1844.