It is a noteworthy testimony to the influence of the American missionaries that through their instruction in modern science the most enlightened monarch of the Orient should have come to his death as a result of his zeal in behalf of astronomy. Although since he had ascended the throne King Mongkut had not been able to devote time to pursuit of the sciences as he had done while a priest in the watt, yet he maintained a real interest. His requests to Dr. House for translations from foreign journals included items of scientific interest. His patronage of the mission school in favour of the sons of nobles was not merely to have them taught English, but that through that language they might obtain instruction in the sciences.
When circumstances brought it within his power to lend assistance to the scientific world he seized the opportunity with a royal will. Astronomers had predicted a total eclipse of the sun for the year 1868, and indicated that the southern peninsula of Siam would be the sole place on the globe where the eclipse would appear in totality. In his great enthusiasm, desiring to be a patron of science, the king determined to lead an expedition to witness the phenomena. Dr. House describes the preparations in a letter (Aug., 1868):
“The gulf of Siam lay in the greatest duration of the solar eclipse since the sun began to shine, as some say; attracting to these realms astronomers from Western Europe. Great preparations were made to receive them with all honor and to join them in witnessing the solar phenomena, on the part of our science-loving king and his government. Large levies of men were made to put up at the spot fixed by the French astronomical expedition suitable buildings for all who were present. No expense was spared in the way of entertaining the numerous guests. It is said that two thousand catties of silver ($96,000.) were expended upon the affair by our public spirited king. A free ticket on a beautiful ship of war, and entertainment while there, to all us foreign residents. But as Mr. McDonald (now acting consul) desires to go and both could not well be absent so long from the station, I did not go down; and then, too, we were sure of a very respectable eclipse here in Bangkok, which I wished to improve for the benefit of the pupils in our school and our native friends.... Here we saw stars distinctly in the day time during the greatest obscuration.”
“The gulf of Siam lay in the greatest duration of the solar eclipse since the sun began to shine, as some say; attracting to these realms astronomers from Western Europe. Great preparations were made to receive them with all honor and to join them in witnessing the solar phenomena, on the part of our science-loving king and his government. Large levies of men were made to put up at the spot fixed by the French astronomical expedition suitable buildings for all who were present. No expense was spared in the way of entertaining the numerous guests. It is said that two thousand catties of silver ($96,000.) were expended upon the affair by our public spirited king. A free ticket on a beautiful ship of war, and entertainment while there, to all us foreign residents. But as Mr. McDonald (now acting consul) desires to go and both could not well be absent so long from the station, I did not go down; and then, too, we were sure of a very respectable eclipse here in Bangkok, which I wished to improve for the benefit of the pupils in our school and our native friends.... Here we saw stars distinctly in the day time during the greatest obscuration.”
The site chosen by the astronomers was in the jungle, in which the king caused a clearing to be made and temporary huts to be constructed. During the brief sojourn in this unhealthy spot, the king contracted a fever. The disease proved fatal, death occurring shortly after the king returned to the royal palace.
The death of the king was a sore loss to the world. Dr. House wrote:
“The missionaries lost, some of them a kind personal friend and a ‘well-wisher’ as he used to sign himself, and all a friendly-disposed liberal-minded sovereign, who put no obstacle in the way of their evangelising his people.”
“The missionaries lost, some of them a kind personal friend and a ‘well-wisher’ as he used to sign himself, and all a friendly-disposed liberal-minded sovereign, who put no obstacle in the way of their evangelising his people.”
Western nations lost a royal friend who had opened the gates of his kingdom for intercourse. But Siam herself, while mourning the death of an enlightened sovereign, had gained so much through the seventeen years of his felicitous reign that his death could not stop her progress in the paths he had opened for her. The light which had found its way into the jungle of human notions through the clearing Mongkut had made was never again to pass into eclipse.
With the death of King Mongkut the personal relations of the pioneer missionaries with the reigning monarch were terminated. Concerning the successor, Chulalongkorn, Dr. House wrote:
“I have not seen much of the young prince in childhood; he had been under the tutorship of the English governess Mrs. Leonowens and, later, of Mr. Chandler (formerly a lay Baptist missionary).... He had grown to maturity during the nearly three years of my absence in America.”
“I have not seen much of the young prince in childhood; he had been under the tutorship of the English governess Mrs. Leonowens and, later, of Mr. Chandler (formerly a lay Baptist missionary).... He had grown to maturity during the nearly three years of my absence in America.”
As second or vice-king there had been chosen Prince George Washington, with whom Dr. House was better acquainted.
The missionaries were eager to learn whether the new government was to be as progressive as the old, and especially to know the attitude to be assumed towards their work. Signs that progression was to be the order of the reign were not long wanting. Custom hitherto required that the coronation should be in the presence of the princes only. At the coronation of Chulalongkorn an innovation was introducedby invitations to the official representatives of other nations resident in Bangkok to attend. Shortly after the coronation the missionaries arranged, through the United States consul, to pay their respects to the new king. They were graciously received, and although the young king was suffering from effects of a fever contracted on the ill-fated astronomical expedition, he gave them an audience and conversed with them a few minutes. When the consul was arranging for his official visit of congratulations upon the vice-king, that personage requested as a personal favour that the consul be accompanied by Dr. House. The king was but fifteen years of age when he came to the throne, and during his minority the government was under the regency ofSomdetch Chao Phya Boromaha Sri Suriwongse, an able and upright statesman.
With rapid succession came decrees changing age-long customs and bringing Siamese social and civil institutions into line with Western civilisation. The most radical and noteworthy of these changes were: the abolition of the practice of prostration by which everyone, of whatsoever rank, had been obliged to prostrate himself on the ground, face downwards, in the presence of any who had a superior rank in the social scale; the introduction at court and in the army of a modified European dress to cover the near-nudity which formerly prevailed; the prohibition of enslavement for debt, a pernicious custom by which parents could sell their children, husbands their wives, and anyone himself into servitude to discharge a ruinous debt, resulting in a state of peonage from which the hopeless victim could scarce escape; reformationof unjust political practises; and the initiation of a state system of schools, telegraphs and posts.
Concerning two of these reforms interesting sidelights have been cast by writers. Mrs. Leonowens, by whom the prince had been tutored in English, relates that when he heard of the death of Abraham Lincoln he declared that “if he ever lived to reign over Siam he would reign over a free and not an enslaved nation, and that he would restore the ancient constitutional government and make Siam a kingdom of the free.” Mr. J. G. D. Campbell, in his volumeSiam in the Twentieth Century, sketches the court-scene when the ancient custom of prostration was abolished:
“In 1874,” he writes, “King Chulalongkorn assembled his ministers and nobles and, having ascended the throne, promulgated a decree emancipating them and all subjects from the degrading custom of crawling on their knees in the presence of a superior; after which, at his command the whole assembly arose from their prostrate position on their hands and knees and stood erect for the first time in the presence of their sovereign.”
“In 1874,” he writes, “King Chulalongkorn assembled his ministers and nobles and, having ascended the throne, promulgated a decree emancipating them and all subjects from the degrading custom of crawling on their knees in the presence of a superior; after which, at his command the whole assembly arose from their prostrate position on their hands and knees and stood erect for the first time in the presence of their sovereign.”
Though his personal relation with the occupant of the throne was terminated, Dr. House found that the new government included many of his old-time friends from the days of his lectures on science. Among these were the regent himself, the minister of foreign affairs, the master of the new mint and the commander-in-chief of the army. A new office also had been established, and the doctor found his friend Godata, formerly a priest in Chao Fah Yai’s watt, appointed as court preacher with the duty of preachingon the Christian Sabbath a moral lecture to the soldiers and cadets, by the king’s orders.
The mission workers hoped that a change in sovereigns would mean no reaction; they scarcely expected more. But while King Mongkut had “put no obstacle in the way,” King Chulalongkorn soon removed the remaining obstacles by making effective the treaty provisions even in the dependency of Lao. For it was the rapid development of the work in that new station that precipitated a condition in which the good offices of the new government alone saved the day. Within two years of the beginning of work at Chiengmai the first convert made a confession of faith, Nan Inta; and in seven months more six others had received baptism. Then suddenly the virulence of the king of Lao was manifested by the martyrdom of two of these converts, put to death on his orders.
As the Lao state was subject to the king of Siam, and as the government had given permission for the missionaries to work in that dependency, appeal was taken promptly to the regent for protection of the Lao missionaries whose lives were in danger. The regent sent a commissioner with all dispatch to Chiengmai with stringent orders to the Lao ruler that the missionaries must receive the full protection guaranteed by the treaty between Siam and the United States. Enraged by this invocation of a higher authority, the Lao king declared that while the missionaries might remain as the Siamese government had ordered, yet they must not teach religion or make Christians; and openly vowed his purpose to kill anyof his people who should become converts to the new religion. The situation had apparently become impossible; and to gain time while deciding what course was best under the circumstances, the work was suspended, and the workers had virtually decided to leave in the spring. About that time, however, the tyrant with a large suite left for Bangkok to attend the cremation ceremonies of his late suzerain. While there he fell sick, and before he could reach his Chiengmai capital he died. Upon his death the supreme power within the province passed to the hands of one kindly disposed to the missionaries.
In the same year as the death of the Lao king, 1870, a royal proclamation was issued which appeared in part in the Bangkok Calendar for the next year. This proclamation was a decree of religious liberty. Apparently, although not of a certainty, it had some connection with the recent affair among the Lao. A paragraph from this proclamation shows the broadmindedness of the government at that period:
“In regard to the concern of seeking and holding a religion that shall be a refuge to yourself in this life, it is a good concern and exceedingly appropriate and suitable that you all—every individual of you—should investigate and judge for himself according to his own wisdom. And when you see any religion whatever, or any company of religionists whatever, likely to be of advantage to yourself, a refuge in accord with your own wisdom, hold to that religion with all your heart. Hold it not with a shallow mind, with mere guess work or merely because of its general popularity or from mere traditional saying that it is the custom held from time immemorial. And do not hold a religion that you have not good evidence is true and then frighten men’s fears andflatter their hopes thereby. Do not be frightened and astonished at diverse fictitious events and hold to and follow them. When you shall have obtained a refuge, a religious faith that is good and beautiful and suitable, hold to it with great joy and follow its teachings, and it will be a cause of prosperity to each one of you.... It is our will that our subjects of whatever race, nation or creed live freely and happily in the kingdom, no man despising or molesting another on account of religious difference, or any other difference of opinion, custom or manners.”
“In regard to the concern of seeking and holding a religion that shall be a refuge to yourself in this life, it is a good concern and exceedingly appropriate and suitable that you all—every individual of you—should investigate and judge for himself according to his own wisdom. And when you see any religion whatever, or any company of religionists whatever, likely to be of advantage to yourself, a refuge in accord with your own wisdom, hold to that religion with all your heart. Hold it not with a shallow mind, with mere guess work or merely because of its general popularity or from mere traditional saying that it is the custom held from time immemorial. And do not hold a religion that you have not good evidence is true and then frighten men’s fears andflatter their hopes thereby. Do not be frightened and astonished at diverse fictitious events and hold to and follow them. When you shall have obtained a refuge, a religious faith that is good and beautiful and suitable, hold to it with great joy and follow its teachings, and it will be a cause of prosperity to each one of you.... It is our will that our subjects of whatever race, nation or creed live freely and happily in the kingdom, no man despising or molesting another on account of religious difference, or any other difference of opinion, custom or manners.”
Oddly enough, Dr. House, who seemed always to make mention of the innovations of the progressive government under the new king, makes no reference to this proclamation in his letters, nor does he mention it in his chapter on the history of missions inSiam and Laos. In this last named work, however, he states that on Sept. 29, 1878, the king of Siam issued “a proclamation establishing religious toleration in Laos and by implication throughout all his dominions.”
Early in 1871 an incident occurred which was fraught with great consequence for native Christians, and one in which Dr. House’s friendly intimacy with the high officials enabled him to render a service of far-reaching consequence to the young native church. One of the girls of the school, Ooey, shortly after she had made a confession of faith, was called as a witness in court upon a suit in behalf of another member of the church. It was then the custom to allow the Chinese to take oath according to their religion; but there was no provision in the law for the Christian oath. When this young girl was asked to take the native oath, she told the court boldly that she was aChristian and that she could not take an oath based on the native religion; and she demanded to be sworn upon her Christian faith. The court tried to induce her to accede to custom, assuring her that it was but a harmless formula. But she steadily refused, although she was an important witness, the lack of whose testimony was greatly to the disadvantage of a fellow-Christian. In consequence the case was suspended, in hopes that she would change her attitude.
The matter was at once brought to the attention of Dr. House, who recognised that the situation involved elements which were of serious consequence to the religious rights of native Christians. If compelled to take oath, it would infringe upon their conscience. If not permitted to substitute the Christian oath, they would have to forfeit their standing in the court in all cases. The doctor at once sought an interview with the minister of foreign affairs, his old friend and former Lieutenant-Governor of Petchaburi, and also with the regent, an old-time friend. After laying before them the nature of the case, an order was issued directing that a witness be sworn by the faith to which he claimed allegiance. This action, so far as appears, was the first step in the legal recognition of the Christian faith on the part of the government.
During the last decade of Dr. House’s services there were many recruits to the force of workers. But these additions were not a net gain, for in the meantime there were numerous withdrawals on account of health. In 1869 came Revs. J. W. VanDyke and John Carrington with their wives. Two years later were added Rev. and Mrs. R. Arthur, Rev. J. N. Culbertson and Miss E. S. Dickey. Miss Arabella Anderson came in 1872 to assist in the new boarding school for girls. The year 1874 saw the arrival of an unusual number of unmarried women missionaries. They were Misses S. M. Coffman, M. L. Cort and E. D. Grimshaw. Then, in 1875, Rev. and Mrs. Eugene P. Dunlop reached Bangkok and began a very long period of valuable service.
Increase of workers meant not diminution but rather increase of work. This is typified in the case of Dr. House himself, who jocularly wrote to his brother that “Satan will not likely find mischief for my hands to do,” and then recounts the duties that devolve upon him. The varied activities that he mentions not only show the versatility required of a missionary but indicate the manifold duties that each missionary has to perform. He writes:
“I have recently become a theological professor, four evenings of the week gathering around me in my study the more advanced and promising of the native church members ... and try to pilot them through the leading principles of a system of divinity.”
“I have recently become a theological professor, four evenings of the week gathering around me in my study the more advanced and promising of the native church members ... and try to pilot them through the leading principles of a system of divinity.”
One of these men, Ooan Si Tieng, was ordained in 1872. He had been the first Chinese convert in the mission and now became the first to receive this full authority from the Presbytery. As pastor of the native church Dr. House had a full measure of sorrows as well as joys, for there is a tide in spiritual affairs that has its ebb as well as its flow, and the years of spiritualawaking were followed by periods of depression. Thus at the beginning of 1869 he writes:
“Our spiritual prospects at the opening of the year are not as bright as last new year—one or two sad and unexpected fallings away from the faith have greatly tried and pained our hearts.”
“Our spiritual prospects at the opening of the year are not as bright as last new year—one or two sad and unexpected fallings away from the faith have greatly tried and pained our hearts.”
But this reaction was transient, for two years later, in telling of the week of prayer in January, he writes:
“Our native Christians are quite interested, sustaining the meetings nobly. Indeed I have thrown the meetings upon them altogether and they take turns in leading them. You do not know what comfort it is to have in my little flock enough able and willing to carry on these meetings.... It would do you good to witness the spirit of faithfulness on their part to the souls of their impenitent friends and neighbours.”
“Our native Christians are quite interested, sustaining the meetings nobly. Indeed I have thrown the meetings upon them altogether and they take turns in leading them. You do not know what comfort it is to have in my little flock enough able and willing to carry on these meetings.... It would do you good to witness the spirit of faithfulness on their part to the souls of their impenitent friends and neighbours.”
In addition to his duties as pastor of the mission church, Dr. House was appointed superintendent of the mission press in 1870, and for that year also was elected secretary of the mission in charge of the records and correspondence. At the same time he was offered a royal appointment:
“Projects are now on foot in both kings’ palaces for schools for the instruction of the young nobility of Siam in English and the sciences. I have been earnestly solicited by the Second King George to aid in establishing the one he is planning. Happy would I be to lend a helping hand if other duties would allow.”
“Projects are now on foot in both kings’ palaces for schools for the instruction of the young nobility of Siam in English and the sciences. I have been earnestly solicited by the Second King George to aid in establishing the one he is planning. Happy would I be to lend a helping hand if other duties would allow.”
After two years the doctor was relieved of the charge of the Press and appointed again to the more congenialtask of supervising the mission school, a position which he continued to fill until his final withdrawal from the field.
In the midst of these incidents the actual growth of the Mission must not be overlooked. It has to be recorded that in spite of arduous and faithful labours of the increasing corps of workers and in the face of all the encouraging marks of advance in Western civilisation, Siam responded very slowly to the spiritual appeal of the Gospel. While she gladly recognised and sought after the material benefits of Christianity she continued to manifest her characteristic indifference to its more vital message. Mr. McDonald, in his book onSiam, Its Government, Manners and Customs, says that when he arrived in Siam in 1861 there was but one native convert in connection with the mission, whereas ten years later there was a church in Bangkok with only twenty members and another in Petchaburi with a like number. He then adds:
“It is just to state that there is scarcely any other field in which modern missions have been established where the introduction of the gospel has met with so little opposition as in Siam proper.... It is equally just to say that there is scarcely any other field which has been so barren of results. Pure Buddhism seems to yield more slowly to the power of the gospel than any other false system.”
“It is just to state that there is scarcely any other field in which modern missions have been established where the introduction of the gospel has met with so little opposition as in Siam proper.... It is equally just to say that there is scarcely any other field which has been so barren of results. Pure Buddhism seems to yield more slowly to the power of the gospel than any other false system.”
The reason for this unyielding nature of Buddhism seems to lie in its ethical theories which are the result of its philosophy of life. In some measure, too, this indifference of Buddhism to a spiritual interpretationof life accounts for its non-resistance towards the preaching of an antagonistic religion. The primary fallacies of Buddhism from the Christian point of view are:
“1. No Creator and no Creating: Things just happened. This conception leads to indifference to nature and to a belief that the body is vile, to be despised and disregarded.“2. No idea of a Spiritual Personality, whether human or divine. Emphasis is placed on mind and intellect to the exclusion of will and feeling. Hence Buddhism is a philosophy rather than a religion, a theory of existence rather than a motive force.“3. No true sense of relationship of man to man or of man to God, in the absence of spiritual personality. Everything is ego-centric, each for himself. Hence incomplete ideas of love, faith, sin, holiness, suffering; in the absence of hope fear dominates life.“4. The greatest fundamental error is the assertion of the Karma law as the sole principle that explains all (the law of ethical causation, by which the merit or demerit of every act in this life effects the future life). This leads to a denial of personality and to fatalism, formality, trust in the individual’s merit, denial of forgiveness and self satisfaction.”
“1. No Creator and no Creating: Things just happened. This conception leads to indifference to nature and to a belief that the body is vile, to be despised and disregarded.
“2. No idea of a Spiritual Personality, whether human or divine. Emphasis is placed on mind and intellect to the exclusion of will and feeling. Hence Buddhism is a philosophy rather than a religion, a theory of existence rather than a motive force.
“3. No true sense of relationship of man to man or of man to God, in the absence of spiritual personality. Everything is ego-centric, each for himself. Hence incomplete ideas of love, faith, sin, holiness, suffering; in the absence of hope fear dominates life.
“4. The greatest fundamental error is the assertion of the Karma law as the sole principle that explains all (the law of ethical causation, by which the merit or demerit of every act in this life effects the future life). This leads to a denial of personality and to fatalism, formality, trust in the individual’s merit, denial of forgiveness and self satisfaction.”
But if the work at that stage had few numerical results to display, yet a keen discernment would show that other larger results were being accomplished. Mr. George B. Bacon, in his volume on Siam, shows a true appreciation of what missions had accomplished up to that time:
“At first sight their efforts, if measured by count of converts, might seem to have resulted in failure.... But really the success of these efforts has been extraordinary,although the history of them exhibits an order of results almost without precedent. Ordinarily the religious enlightenment of a people comes first and the civilization follows as a thing of course. But here the Christianisation of the nation has scarcely begun, but its civilisation has made much more than a beginning. For it is to the labours of the Christian missionaries in Siam that the remarkable advancement of the kings and nobles, and even of the common people in general is owing....“When Sir John Bowring came in 1855 to negotiate his treaty ... he found the fruit was ripe before he plucked it. And it was by the patient and persistent labours of the missionaries for twenty years that the results which he achieved were made not only possible but easy.”
“At first sight their efforts, if measured by count of converts, might seem to have resulted in failure.... But really the success of these efforts has been extraordinary,although the history of them exhibits an order of results almost without precedent. Ordinarily the religious enlightenment of a people comes first and the civilization follows as a thing of course. But here the Christianisation of the nation has scarcely begun, but its civilisation has made much more than a beginning. For it is to the labours of the Christian missionaries in Siam that the remarkable advancement of the kings and nobles, and even of the common people in general is owing....
“When Sir John Bowring came in 1855 to negotiate his treaty ... he found the fruit was ripe before he plucked it. And it was by the patient and persistent labours of the missionaries for twenty years that the results which he achieved were made not only possible but easy.”
But there is evidence of even more subtle effect of the gospel. No one who reads of the notable changes in the social customs and political institutions introduced by the young King Chulalongkorn can resist the conclusion that it was the religious support of these ancient practises that had given way under the disintegrating light of the Christian Gospel. Even that earlier attempt of Chao Fah Yai to modernise the religious teachings among his followers shows that the religious philosophy of Buddhism could not stand before the truth of Jesus.
In the literary field Dr. House was receptive rather than creative. He was a lover of books but not of writing:
“How irksome and difficult the labour of composition has been to me,” he says, “I’d rather be a ditch diggerand shovel mud. The getting of a certain amount of writing done by a given time is out of the question in my case.”
“How irksome and difficult the labour of composition has been to me,” he says, “I’d rather be a ditch diggerand shovel mud. The getting of a certain amount of writing done by a given time is out of the question in my case.”
He was appointed the first “librarian” of the Mission back in the early days when the library consisted of two shelves of books and some unbound magazines, besides “some Malay, Tamul, Bengali, Portuguese and Indo-Portuguese books for a long time handed down in the mission.” His reluctance at the pen partly accounts for the sparsity of matter published under his name in the missionary magazines. But the refusal on his part to appear in print in this fashion was due perhaps more to his fear that journals or newspapers containing articles on missions would find their way into the hands of the Siamese government, which might be displeased with any frank narrative of observations. For this reason he frequently admonished the recipients of his letters that they should not take advantage of his absence to publish his comments.
When it came to the needs of the mission, however, he lent his hand and brain to supply the requirements. The following tracts are ascribed to him:
Scripture Facts, 1848.
Watt’s Catechism, bound with The Speller, 1853.
Child’s Catechism with Commandments and Lord’s Prayer, 1854.
Questions in Gospel History, 1864.
Stand by the Truth, 1869.
These last two in conjunction with Mrs. House.
After return to America he wrote a pamphlet,Notes on Obstetric Practises in Siam, (Putnam, 1897). Inthe volume,Siam and Laos(Presbyterian Board, 1884), several chapters were contributed by Dr. House, including the very comprehensive and accurate chapter onHistory of Missions in Siam; but so impersonally did he write the record that it would be almost impossible for the reader to detect that a good part of the story had been created in action as well as recounted by the writer.
The school for boys which Dr. House fostered almost continuously from its beginning was merged into the Boys’ Christian High School in 1889. This institution in turn developed in scope until it was enlarged into the “Bangkok Christian College,” which was organised in 1915.