KING OF SIAM.
The royal messages of peace and good-will may find an echo in the freedman's heart and in his home, but they must ever come with a darkening power and as a saddening cloud to the home and the heart of the slave. An irredeemable beast of burden, what has he to hope from an auspicious reign, or the enthronement of a promising sovereign?
Yet that these millions of enslaved men and women are not brutes or wild beasts, or even devoid of noble and generous emotions, is proved by the most astonishing acts of devotion and self-sacrifice performed by slaves for the masters and mistresses whom they have learned to love.
Any one who from curiosity or with a higher motive may visit the prisons in the city of Bangkok will find, to his great surprise, that nearly one half of the inmates are slaves voluntarily expiating the crimes and wrong-doings of their masters and mistresses, or, as is often the case, mothers, daughters, wives, or sisters enduring all the hardships of a Siamese prison—and words would fail me adequately to describe the amount of suffering which those two words imply—in the place and for the sake of sons, husbands, or unworthy relatives. The strength that is in these slaves to suffer is the strength of love. Love combined with despair gives them the awful and wonderful power of utter self-sacrifice.
The rights which every man should enjoy in his wife, his children, and his own labor, and which should be the most sacred and inviolable rights, are here placed at the mercy of a master, and are oft-times to the slave the very fetters of his galling servitude.
But, since that ever-to-be-remembered 11th of October, 1868, a new empire has arisen out of the ashes of the old. The traditions and customs of centuries are as naught. A fresh start has been made, a young king full of generous impulses and noble purposes reigns; and how he intends to govern may be gathered from his second royal proclamation to his people on the subject of religion:—
"In regard to the concern of seeking and holding a religion that will be a refuge to you in this life: it is a good and noble concern, and it is exceedingly appropriate and suitable that you, as a nation, and each man individually, should investigate for himself, and according to his own wisdom, which is the right and which the wrong; and if you see any religion whatever, or any body of men professing any religion whatsoever who seem likely to be an advantage to you,—a true religion in accordance with your own wisdom,—hold to that religion with all your heart; hold to it not with a shallow mind, or after slight investigation, or even because of its tradition, saying this is the custom held from time immemorial, but from your own deep faith in its excellence; and do not profess a religion for the truth of which you have not good evidence, or one which frightens men through their fears and flatters them through their hopes.
"Do not be either frightened or flattered into doing what is right and just, and do not follow after fictitious signs and wonders.