A Half Century Among the Siamese and the Lāo: An Autobiography

by Daniel McGilvary

And take the teachings of the two systems—which is the more credible? The sacred books of the Princess teach that there is no Creator. Everything, as the Siamese say, “pen ēng”—comes to be of itself. All this complicated universe became what it is by a fortuitous concurrence of atoms, which atoms themselves had no creator. We come as honest seekers for truth. We look around, above, beneath. Everything seems to imply the contrivance of mind. The sun rises and sets with greater regularity than our clocks strike the hour of noon. The seasons follow each other with wonderful uniformity. Animals are born and die, plants and trees grow and decay, each after its kind, and in wonderful adjustment to the conditions about them. The eye is made for seeing, the ear for hearing, and the air for breathing. Light is necessary for work by day, and darkness for sleep by night. This city has its walls and gates; this palace has its beams, its roof, its doors and windows, and its different apartments, because it was so planned. The Princess gives her orders, and her servants in distant villages come at her summons. The Prince’s command is obeyed throughout all his dominions. Subjects obey because they are under constituted authority. Even so we obey Jehovah and not Buddha, because we believe that He is the Creator and the sovereign Lord of the universe.

In His word—His letter to our race—He claims to be Creator and Lord. We read His word, and then we look around for evidence as to whether this is really so. We find that evidence in earth and sea and sky. A letter comes from the King of Siam. How do we know that it is really his? It has his seal. Not otherwise “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork.” By faith, then, we believe that the worlds were made, as His word tells us. We read the account of that creation. What wonderful beings we are!—made in His image, endowed in our degrees with His own attributes, and with authority over the world in which He has placed us. He has given us dominion over all the beasts of the earth, the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea. Every time that a Buddhist kills a fish or a fowl, he sins, because he breaks a command of his religion. Why not so for a Christian? Because these creatures were made for man’s use, and were given to him. We partake with gratitude of the gifts our Father has provided for us. This one great truth, when received by Christians, relieves the conscience of one of the greatest burdens that the followers of Buddha must bear.

But if God made man in His image, why all this suffering that we see and feel? The best explanation ever given is that given in the Bible. Man was created holy, and was put on trial. He transgressed. A subject who disobeys the law of his sovereign incurs his displeasure. He suffers for it. We are suffering from this disobedience of our first parents by a law that we daily see exemplified. A man by extravagance or vice squanders his estate. His children are born penniless. The Prince of Wieng Chan rebelled against the King of Siam. His country was conquered and laid waste, and thousands of its inhabitants were made captive and deported. Thousands of the descendants of these captives are now serfs. Why are they so? Because of the errors or misfortunes of their ancestors. The Prince appoints a governor over a province, with the promise that if he is faithful, his children shall succeed him. Because of misdemeanor he is deposed. His descendants are born subjects and not rulers. We belong to a fallen race.

Somana Gautama belonged to the same race. He groaned under its pains and penalties. He saw a race sunk in misery. He saw its religion shamefully corrupt. He inaugurated one of purer morality. But he does not profess to be divine or a saviour. His religion does not offer a sufficient remedy. By asceticism and self-mortification it would extinguish all noble desire as well as the vicious instincts with which we are born. And then, after interminable cycles of transmigrations, we may hope to reach a state of unconscious sleep. Happiness and misery are inseparable things. We escape the one only by escaping the other. That is the dark prospect which makes Buddhism so pessimistic. To this the Princess assented, “That is so.”

Now compare this with the religion of Jesus. The sovereign Father who loves His wandering, sinful children, in His infinite wisdom devised a plan that satisfies their needs and desires, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Our Maker became our Redeemer by emptying Himself of His glory and becoming man. He is Himself the greatest possible illustration of the love of God to the race. He came to reveal the Father. His holy life we have in His word. He set us the only perfect example, full of pity toward the miserable and the sinful. Then, by a painful and shameful death, He became Himself a sacrifice for the sins of the world. He obeyed the law which we had broken, and which condemns us; and suffered in our stead the penalty due to us. He conquered death. He took away the sting of death by taking away sin. He arose from the dead, showing Himself for many days. He ascended to heaven before the eyes of His disciples. He has sent His servants and His word to offer a full and free pardon to all who will accept. He is now, and ever will be, our intercessor in heaven. He sends His Spirit to purify and fit us for an endless state of conscious existence which begins at death, and not cycles after. Millions of the best men and women the world has ever seen have given their testimony to the reality of this salvation by a triumphant death, with the assurance that all sin and all suffering were past. Jesus removed the curse, and brought to light the immortality which we had forfeited by sin. The missionary and his associates have left both parents and children that they might offer this to the Princess and to her people.

To all of this the Princess was mainly a most interested listener. She had asked to be taught. She put no captious questions. I have omitted an occasional assent that she gave, and an occasional difficulty or doubt—not all of which could be fully answered; as, for example, why an all-powerful God allowed the entrance of sin, and now allows wicked spirits to tempt us; or that other sad question, why the Gospel had not been sent to them, so that they might have known this from childhood—a question the burden of which should press on my readers as well as on the missionary.

At last, after a long pause, the Princess made a wonderful confession, the very words of which I can never forget:

“Tā chak wā dūi kwām ching, kā han wā paw krū ko tūk lêo.” To speak the truth, I see that the father-teacher is right. “Kā chûa wā kong chak mī Pra Chao ton dai sāng lōk.” I believe there surely must be some divine Lord who made the world. “Lê bat nī ko chûa tī paw krū atibāi dūi kān pon tōt dōi Pra Yēsū.” And now I believe what the father-teacher has explained about escape from punishment through the Lord Jesus. And then, sadly—almost despairingly—she added, “Tê chak yīa cha dai?” But what shall I do?—I fear it will not be well to forsake “hīt paw hoi mê”—the customs of my father, the foot-prints of my mother.

We were sitting in the new brick palace—the first ever built in the country. In the hall was a large pier-glass with numerous other foreign articles, most of them bought in Bangkok, and brought up for offerings at the coming dedication of the shrine. I asked, “Princess, did your father or grandfather have a brick palace like this?” Somewhat surprised at the question, she replied, “No.” “And I see the Princess riding down to the landing every day in a foreign carriage. Did your ancestors do that?” Before I could make the application, she blushed, perceiving that she was caught. I went on: “You do daily forsake old customs, and adopt new ones which your ancestors never knew. The whole method of government is changing. This foreign cloth, which your maidens are sewing for priests’ robes, was all unknown to your forefathers. These things all come from lands where the people worship neither the Buddha nor the spirits. These are only some of the fruits that grow on the tree. Better still, plant the tree; for all good fruit grows on it.” Just then our long conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the Prince, who had worked till he was tired. He asked what she and the teacher were talking about so long. She replied that we were discussing “bun lê bāp”—merit and sin.

The question often came up after this. She was in a position where it was, humanly speaking, almost impossible for her outwardly to forsake the customs of the country. But I have reason to know that on that morning she received truths which she never forgot. We have seen before that neither she nor her husband approved of her father’s act in murdering the Christians. She continued a warm friend to the last, and so did the Prince.