In reviewing the history of the mission-work in the kingdom of Siam well may the Christian Church――the Presbyterian Church in particular――“thank God and take courage.” Buried in the deepest shadows of heathenish night, it long seemed as if the day of Siam’s awaking to welcome the light of the gospel would never dawn. But it came at last. The Lord had a people there whom he would call to the knowledge of himself, and there were men and women “willing to endure all things for the elect’s sake,” assured through all those years of almost utter barrenness that they or some one would yet “reap if they fainted not;” and then the Board, with everything to discourage it, _never gave up_, and so reinforcements were sent out and new fields opened and manned, and schools for girls as well as boys established and maintained, and the translation of the Bible carried on to completion, and Christian hymnals prepared, and catechisms and tracts, and the printing-press kept busy, and its issues distributed far and wide in city and hamlet, along the many rivers and canals, and the gospel message preached in mission-chapels and idol-temples and by the wayside, till now (1884) the truth has taken root in the land, and there are in the nine Christian churches in Siam and Laos, as we have seen, more than three hundred and fifty men and women, once idolaters and without hope in the world, who know the true God and love and try to serve him, and who rejoice, as we do, in hope of eternal life through Jesus Christ his Son. PART IV. LAOS. CHAPTER XXII. _LAOS LAND AND LIFE._ You will read in the following pages of a people about whom little is known and less published――a people possessing many qualities of remarkable attractiveness, and yet having not a few strange and semi-barbarous customs and beliefs; a people who seem in some respects to be peculiarly open to the influence of Christian teaching, and upon whose soil the Christian Church is rooted and growing; a people among whom the Lord assuredly has “chosen ones” who are hearing his voice one by one and answering to his call. You will read of their land, their homes, their temples, their worship, their lives and occupations. And of all these you will be told by those who have lived among them, who have learned to know――yes, and to love them, seeing the precious souls within as the sculptor sees the beautiful statue within the rough block of marble. CHARACTER AND GOVERNMENT. Some few points are especially to be noticed as general characteristics of the Laos. They are a kind, affectionate people, caring much for their family-life and morally superior to the races around them. By some they are supposed to be the original stock from which came the present Siamese race, but they have mingled their blood with so many tribes, and their country is divided into so many small kingdoms or provinces, that it is difficult to find any marked traces of a distinct nationality among them.