Inasmuch as my certificate of dismissal had never been formally presented to the Fayetteville Presbytery, I preferred to return it to my old Orange Presbytery, and to receive my ordination at its hands. On December 11th, the Presbytery met at my old home in Pittsboro. The installation of a foreign missionary was new to the Presbytery, as well as to the church and the community. When the ordaining prayer was ended, there seemed to be but few dry eyes in the congregation. It was a day I had little dreamed of sixteen years before, when I first came to Pittsboro an orphan boy and an apprentice. I felt very small for the great work so solemnly committed to me. Missionary fields were further off in those days than they are now, and the undertaking seemed greater. The future was unknown; but in God was my trust—and He has led me.
III
BANGKOK
On reaching New York I went directly to the Mission House, then at 23 Centre Street. As I mounted the steps, the first man I met on the landing was Jonathan Wilson. We had exchanged a few letters, and each knew that the other had not forgotten Siam; but neither expected to meet the other there. “Where are you going?” said one. “I am on my way to Siam,” said the other. “So am I,” was the reply. In the meantime he had married and, with his young wife, was in New York awaiting passage. We took the first opportunity that offered, the clipper ship David Brown, bound for Singapore, and sailing on March 11th, 1858.
Sailors have a tradition that it is unlucky to have missionaries on board; but the weather was propitious throughout, and the voyage a prosperous one. We three were the only passengers, and we proved to be good sailors. Our fare was reasonably good. We had plenty of good reading, and soon settled down to steady work. The ship was somewhat undermanned; and this fact was given as an excuse for not having service on Sundays. But we had a daily prayer-meeting throughout the voyage, with just a sufficient number present to plead the promise: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name.” We also had free access to the men in the forecastle when off duty.
We had the excitement of an ocean race with a twin ship of the same line, which was to sail a week after us. As we reached Anjer Straits on the seventy-eighth day out, a sail loomed up which proved to be our competitor. She had beaten us by a week! Ten days later we reached Singapore, where, indeed, we met no brethren, but were met by welcome letters from Siam. Like Paul at the Three Taverns, “we thanked God and took courage.” One of the letters ran thus:
“Those were good words that came to our half-discouraged band—the tidings that we are to have helpers in our work.... In our loneliness we have sometimes been tempted to feel that our brethren at home had forgotten us. But we rejoice to know that there are hearts in the church which sympathize with us, and that you are willing to come and participate with us in our labours and trials, our joys and sorrows, for we have both.”
We were fortunate to secure very early passage for Bangkok. On Friday, June 18th, we reached the bar at the mouth of the Mênam River. The next day we engaged a small schooner to take us up to Bangkok. With a strong tide against us, we were not able that evening to get further than Mosquito Point—the most appropriately-named place in all that land—only to learn that we could not reach Bangkok until Monday afternoon. There was no place to sleep on board; and no sleeping would have been possible, had there been a place. By two o’clock in the morning we could endure it no longer;—the mosquito contest was too unequal. At last we found a man and his wife who would take us to the city in their two-oared skiff.
Fifty years’ residence in Siam has not surpassed the romance of that night’s ride. Leaving our goods behind, we seated ourselves in the tiny craft. With gunwales but two inches above the water’s edge, we skimmed along through a narrow winding canal overhung with strange tropical trees. The moon was full, but there was a haze in the air, adding weirdness to things but dimly seen. The sight of our first Buddhist monastery, with its white columns and grotesque figures, made us feel as if we were passing through some fairyland.
Just at dawn on Sunday morning, June 20th, 1858, we landed at the mission compound. Our quick passage of only one hundred days took our friends by surprise. Dr. House, roused by our voices on the veranda, came en déshabillé to the door to see what was the matter. Finding who we were, the eager man thrust his hand through a vacant square of the sash, and shook hands with us so, before he would wait to open the door. We were in Bangkok! It was as if we had waked up in a new world—in the Bangkok to which we had looked forward as the goal of our hopes; which was to be, as we supposed, the home of our lives.