Siam and Laos, as Seen by Our American Missionaries
History
Siam and Laos, as Seen by Our American Missionaries
Laos -- Description and travel; Missions -- Laos; Missions -- Thailand; Thailand -- Description and travel
This was nearly completed when, June 20, 1858, the Rev. Jonathan
Wilson and wife and the Rev. Daniel McGilvary arrived. Messrs. W. and
McG. had been room-mates at Princeton Seminary; while there had both
felt the claims upon them of missionary work, and had become much
interested in Siam; but after graduating Mr. McGilvary was called to
become pastor over a church in North Carolina, and Mr. Wilson had gone
out as a missionary to the Choctaw Indians. Years passed, and each had
been led by the pressing needs of the field to offer himself to the
Board for service there, and most gratifying was it to find that they
were to be sent out together.
The number of ordained ministers now warranted the formation of a
Presbytery, and the Presbytery of Siam was duly constituted September
1, 1858.
In the study of the language, aiding in the instruction of the pupils
in the boarding-school and in tract-distribution the new brethren
found enough to busy them.
In January, 1859, the Rev. S. Mattoon, who had then for some twelve
years without intermission borne the burden and heat of the day,
returned to the United States for the much-needed change, rejoining
his family there.
Signs of more than usual religious interest appeared about this time,
and one of the native teachers, Nai Chune, applied for Christian
baptism. So deep, however, was the duplicity of this people generally,
and so many who professed interest in the teachings of the gospel had
proved to be influenced by purely selfish motives, that when this case
of genuine conviction of the truth occurred, just what they had been
hoping and praying for so long, the brethren distrusted the sincerity
of the man, and put him off from week to week until fairly compelled
to admit that the miracle of converting grace had actually been
wrought even in a Siamese, and they could no longer forbid water that
he should be baptized. The day of Nai Chune’s baptism (August 7, 1859)
was to them a jubilee indeed. With tears of joy they gathered in at
last, after more than twelve years of toil unblest, the first-fruits
of their labor among the Siamese.
It was singular that this same year (in December) the mission should
lose its first church-member――Quakieng, the faithful, consistent
Chinese native assistant. He was attacked by cholera and died,
commending his departing spirit to his heavenly Father. With his death
the Hokien-Chinese instruction in the mission-school ceased, and soon
after the teaching of the Hainan Chinese in their native tongue. The
school was too well established now to need to hold out this
inducement to attract pupils.
The cholera was quite prevalent in April, and Mrs. Wilson nearly
became a victim. Other diseases set in, and she lingered on the
borders of the spirit-land till July 10th, when she closed a blameless
Christian life and entered into the home of the blessed with words of
rapture on her lips.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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