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

by Daniel McGilvary

DR. McGILVARY
1881

MRS. McGILVARY
1881

While waiting for the Theological Seminaries to re-open after the Christmas recess, I was the guest of my wife’s cousins at Castleton Corners, Staten Island. There I had the very pleasant experience of observing “Watch Night” with the Moravian Church, of which my friends were members. They called on the Lāo missionary for an account of his experience in the field. In that, of course, there was nothing remarkable. But near the close of the next year, when writing to the family, I alluded to the pleasant memory of Watch Night and sent my greetings to the church with a request to be remembered in their prayers. Instead of giving my message verbally, my friends read the letter itself, and it seemed to be appreciated. The result was that the Lāo letter came to be looked for regularly as a part of the watch service, and one was sent to them every year—if I were on the field—for seventeen years. It was a comfort to know that special prayer was always offered for us by that great missionary church as the old year was dying, and the new year was coming in.

The Professors at Princeton, Union, and Allegheny all gave their cordial endorsement and aid to me in my efforts to secure men. “We want you to get our best men,” they said, and the Lord gave them to us. From Princeton came Chalmers Martin of the senior class. He had been chosen, however, for the Hebrew Fellowship, and was, therefore, delayed a year before entering upon his missionary work. Though his career in the Lāo field was a short one, he left a lasting mark there, as we shall see. Allegheny gave us Rev. S. C. Peoples, M.D., and his brother-in-law, Rev. J. H. Hearst. Dr. Peoples’ bow still abides in strength. His double preparation both as a minister and as a physician, gave him unusual equipment for the work he has accomplished. Mr. Hearst, however, soon succumbed to the Chiengmai climate.

Union gave us that consecrated young man, McLaren, who chose the great city of Bangkok—a fitting field for him, since his broad sympathies were bounded by no one race or people. His career also was cut short within a few months by cholera, contracted while ministering to dying seamen in the harbour during a severe epidemic of the disease.

The Northwestern Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions was then, as it has been since, a great centre of missionary enthusiasm. It had sent out Miss Cole and Miss Campbell; and now the sudden death of the latter had caused its interest and that of the Chicago churches to concentrate upon the Lāo mission. It was to this combination of circumstances that I was indebted for an invitation to attend its Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, and to speak there. Then the appointment of Dr. L. E. Wishard’s daughter (afterwards Mrs. Dr. Fulton of Canton, China), and that of Miss Sadie Wirt (Mrs. Dr. S. C. Peoples), from his church in Chicago, gave me a pleasant visit in the Doctor’s family both as I went up to Minneapolis and as I returned. On a Sunday at Lake Forest, between the Sunday School, the University, the Ladies’ Seminary, and the church, the Lāo Mission had four hearings. At Minneapolis we learned that Miss Warner from the Northwestern Woman’s Board, and Miss Griffin from the Southwestern, were also appointed to our mission, and Miss Linnell to Lower Siam. This completed our number, the largest reinforcement the mission has ever received at one time.

After the adjournment of the Northwestern Board, a Sunday was spent with the family and the church of Miss Mary Campbell. After that, appointments with other churches filled up my time till the meeting of the General Assembly in Springfield, Illinois, which I attended, though not as a delegate. Our Presbytery of North Laos had not then been organized, and Dr. E. P. Dunlap was the representative of the Presbytery of Siam. At that meeting it seemed to me that a golden opportunity was missed for drawing together in a closer union the Northern and the Southern branches of the Presbyterian Church. The outcome threw the Southern church, much more weakened by the war than the Northern, on its own resources. In proportion to its financial strength, it has developed into one of the strongest missionary churches in the land, both as regards the home work and the foreign. Meantime, with the growth of the country generally, the Northern Assembly is becoming too unwieldy a body for its best efficiency. I believe the time will come when there will be three Assemblies rather than one, with a triennial Assembly of all on a basis of representation agreed upon by the three—somewhat after the plan of the Methodist and the Episcopal churches; or, more nearly still, after the plan of the Pan-Presbyterian Council.

In duties and pleasures such as have just been described, the time slipped by till it was the 6th of June, 1882, before I again reached my family in Statesville. We were to start Lāo-ward about the middle of July. My furlough ended with a visit to my old charge at Union, to attend the dedication of a new church there, and to see my old friends once more.