During his minority the affairs of the kingdom were successfully administered by the regent, the one who had been prime minister during the late reign――a man of great executive ability. The conservatism of this ablest and wisest statesman of Siam was perhaps a needful check upon what were possibly too strong tendencies toward reform in the youthful sovereign, who would fain have abolished slavery for debt and suppressed gambling by an immediate decree. But his minority was well improved. He was the first ruler of Siam to break over the superstition that would prevent his setting foot outside of his own dominions, and before he was twenty had visited other countries――the first year Singapore and Java; in a subsequent one, British Burmah, Calcutta, Bombay, and other cities of British India――intelligently observing everything, and returning with many ideas of improvements to be made at home. In January, 1869, the missionaries were reinforced by the addition of the Rev. James W. Van Dyke and the Rev. John Carrington and their wives to the Presbyterian mission, and Rev. S. B. Partridge to the Baptist. Mr. Van Dyke was assigned at once to the Petchaburee station as a colleague to Mr. McFarland, then laboring alone. Mr. Carrington remained at Bangkok, and while acquiring the language gave valuable assistance in the school. At the Laos mission the brethren had much to encourage them. The king of Cheung Mai had granted them a spacious lot of ground on the river-bank for their homes; the gospel truth they preached was working in the hearts of those who heard it, and one, whose heart had been won before, when the falsity of his own sacred books’ scientific teachings had been shown by the fulfillment of the foreign teachers’ prediction of the great eclipse, was brave enough to renounce Buddhism and receive Christian baptism. The name of this first convert was Nan Intah. Others too were brought out of darkness into light, till in the first seven months of the year 1869 seven converts were baptized. But a storm was gathering, soon to burst upon them. The king, a brave warrior, but a narrow-minded, arbitrary, superstitious ruler, who had never comprehended their true errand, though apparently friendly, when he saw they were beginning to draw his people over to the new faith determined to uproot it from his dominions. He first attempted to get rid of the missionaries themselves, forwarding a complaint against them to the authorities at Bangkok and requesting their removal. The nature of the charge so illustrates the superstition of the people and the character of the man that the story of it must be given.