The living pageant, “The Big Mountain and the Little Chisel,” had not ended, but some of the actors had to retire. Dr. House, who had been in the leading rôle for twenty-nine years, and Mrs. House, who had been his loyal understudy for twenty, handed their lines to other willing players and took their seats on the dais of time to watch the Divine plot unfold. Repeated efforts on the part of Mrs. House to recuperate her health only confirmed the physician’s surmise that the immediate cause of her suffering was the tropical climate. There was no alternative of wisdom but to return to her native clime. So it came about that Dr. and Mrs. House resigned.
Their leave-taking was almost like laying down life itself, for their hearts had become intimately entwined with the lives of the Siamese people. In March, 1876, the two sailed for “home again.” But to return to America was not to abandon their zeal for Siam; they made themselves ambassadors at large to the Church in the United States in behalf of the Kingdom of Christ in that land.
REARING TWO SIAMESE LADS
Most notable and doubtless most valuable of their services for Siam after their retirement was the rearing and educating of two lads whom they had brought from that country, Boon Itt and Nai Kawn. These lads are still remembered by the people of Waterford who were associated with them in their earlier years in America. The story is told of the two boys having their first experience with snow. One autumn morning, finding that a light snow had fallen during the night, the two went out into the back yard, dropped down on their knees and began to feel the snow; and then getting down on all fours touched it with their tongues again and again. Among Mrs. House’s letters was a copy of a letter which Kawn wrote to a boy friend in Siam, in which he labours to explain how the water of the river had become hard so that he could walk on it with skates.
Boon Itt was the son of Maa Tuan, the matron of the girls’ boarding school under Mrs. House. Dr. and Mrs. House chose him to be the subject of a Western education partly because he had shown himself to be a bright pupil in the boys’ school, and partly because he was one of the few children of second generation Christian Siamese. After the completion of his elementary education at Waterford, Boon was sent to Williston Academy, Williams College, and Auburn Theological Seminary. This long course of education occupied seventeen years. In 1893 he returned to Siam as a Christian missionary to his own people. His life and work, worthy of an extended account, will occupy a separate chapter.
The other lad, known familiarly as Nai Kawn in America, was Kawn Amatyakul, born 1865, the son of a nobleman Pra Pre Chah; and the grandson of Kuhn Mote, one of the progressive nobles who early formed a lasting friendship with Dr. House because of their mutual interest in science. Before the boys’ boarding school had been fairly established, Kuhn Mote placed his son under the tutorship of Dr. House to learn English and chemistry. It was this son who, as Pra Pre Chah, learning that his former tutor was retiring to America, solicited Dr. House to take his son Nai Kawn along and supervise his education in Western science. To this Dr. House consented, with the understanding that the son of the nobleman was to be reared in a democratic fashion as a companion with the son of a plebeian, and that he would be subject to intensive religious training according to the Christian faith.
After his preparatory education, Kawn entered Lafayette College for a four years’ course in mining engineering, though not as a candidate for a degree. Finishing there in 1888, he returned to Siam early the next year. His life work was devoted to the educational program of the government, his professorial labours being chiefly in chemistry and physics in various schools and colleges of the government. At length he became chief of the examination division of the department of education. He was given the title of Luang Vinich Vidyakarn in 1902; and some years later was elevated to a higher rank with the title Phya Vinich Vidyakarn.
Kawn united with the Presbyterian Church of Waterford upon profession of faith in 1879. Although he gave evidence of sincerity in making this profession and in other ways manifested an earnest purpose to live according to the teaching of Jesus, yet it must be acknowledged that upon return to his native land he did not identify himself with the native church and eventually held himself altogether aloof from fellowship with the Christians. No doubt one cause for this course was the barrier of social rank. His education and culture led him to prefer his own class. On the other hand, it must be recorded that he never made open repudiation of his profession, at least in any formal manner, neither did he manifest any antipathy to the Christian faith. His death occurred April, 1922.
ABUNDANT IN LABOURS TO THE END
After her return to the United States, Mrs. House became the center of a strong influence in behalf of Siam among the women of the Church at home, especially as an advocate for female education. In 1878 she was elected president of the Woman’s Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions of the Synod of Albany and served five years in that capacity. When the several small synods within New York were united into the present Synod of New York, in 1883, Mrs. House was a member of the committee that planned for the consolidation of the several women’s societies into the Woman’s Presbyterian Foreign Missionary Society of New York Synod, and became the first president of the consolidated organisation. As a motto for the united society she proposed the ideal “Every Woman in Every Church Working for Jesus”—a motto that reads quite fresh to date. To Mrs. House is due the credit of originating the series of “Questions and Answers in Mission Fields,” beginning with a catechism on the work in Siam for children’s mission bands. This method of disseminating missionary information may possibly be the germ from which has developed the current system of mission study.