To be more specific:—If any person or persons wish to embrace the Christian Religion, they are freely permitted to follow their own choice.
This Proclamation is to certify that from this time forth all persons are permitted to follow the dictates of their own conscience in all matters of religious belief and practice.
It is moreover strictly enjoined on Princes and Rulers, and on relatives and friends of those who wish to become Christians, that they throw no obstacles in their way, and that no one enforce any creed or work which their religion forbids them to hold or to do—such as the worship and feasting of demons, and working on the Sabbath day, except in the case of war and other great unavoidable works, which, however, must not be a mere pretence, but really important. Be it further observed that they are to have free and unobstructed observance of the Sabbath day. And no obstacle is to be thrown in the way of American citizens employing such persons as they may need, since such would be a breach of the treaty between the two countries.
Whenever this Proclamation is made known to the Princes and Rulers and Officers and People, they are to beware and violate no precept contained therein.
Proclamation made on the Thirteenth Day of the Eleventh waxing Moon, in the Eleventh Year of His Majesty’s Reign, October the Eighth, Eighteen Hundred and Seventy-Eight.
The Edict furnishes a second natural division in the history of the Lāo mission. Its first period was one of struggle for its very existence, culminating in positive prohibition to preach the gospel and virtual expulsion of the missionaries. That situation was abruptly brought to an end by the death of Prince Kāwilōrot and the appointment of his son-in-law, Prince Intanon. In our second period of struggle, the conclusion of which we have just witnessed, the conditions were in many respects similar to those of the first. Our chief antagonists in the two contests were alike in their love of absolute power, in their determination to break down all rival influences, and alike, therefore, in their settled hostility to our work. In neither case was their antagonism to Christianity primarily on religious grounds. But Kāwilōrot was of much more imposing personality and figure than the Uparāt.
Within his own realm Kāwilōrot was really “Lord of Life.” He was absolute head both of church and of state. He brooked no rival and no contradiction in either. The highest positions in the religious hierarchy were bestowed or withdrawn at his pleasure. His own brothers-in-law languished in exile in Siam, because it was not thought safe for them to return and be within his reach. At home he had vanquished or terrified into submission all possible rivals. Even the court of Siam seemed inspired with a wholesome fear of meddling with him. The crime of the first Christians was the unpardonable one that they had dared to become such against the will of Kāwilōrot. But the time and place for such rulers had passed. Such attitude and temper suited neither a position under superior authority, nor the policy of a government striving to rise with the progress of the age. But he served his purpose in the world, and Providence used him.
Of his titular successor, Prince Intanon, and of his noble wife, I have already spoken. His real successor in the government of the land, and in his championship of the old régime of feudal autocracy, was the Chao Uparāt. But he had neither the commanding dignity of Kāwilōrot nor his interesting personality;—had little, in fact, of any of his qualities save his lodged and settled hatred of all innovation. For him we had none of a certain kind of respect which the late Prince inspired; and we were under no constraint of gratitude for favours. The only debt of gratitude the mission owed him was for being, by his lawless acts, the unwitting and unwilling cause of the proclamation of religious freedom.
But the crisis which he precipitated hastened likewise that centralization of government which Siam was waiting for. The tendency of the age is everywhere toward centralization. Strong central governments are everywhere taking the place of weak and scattered ones. Chiengmai itself and all the existing Lāo states have grown by the capture and absorption of their weaker, though by no means insignificant, neighbours. The authority and fear of Siam had long been felt indirectly in preventing those petty wars in which one weak state captured and enslaved another. That authority was now to be exerted more directly to bring to an end the era of arbitrary, personal, autocratic rule among its dependencies, and to establish in its place the more equal and stable reign of law. Feudalism with its “organized anarchy” was to give way to the Nation.
Such was the period at which we have arrived in this narrative of our life and work in the Lāo states. It is a wonderful thing to have lived through such a series of changes, and possibly to have been, under Providence, the means of bringing some of them about. We work for an end apparent to ourselves; but God’s designs are deeper and broader than ours. “He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him.” Of nations, as well as of individuals, is it true that