Upon the throne, as his successor, was now placed, by the concurrent voice of the grand council of princes and nobles, the Prince Chow Fah Mongkut, and Siam entered upon a new era in her history; for this remarkable man by his devotion to study during the twenty-seven years of his seclusion from public affairs in a monastery, while his inferior half-brother, who had artfully supplanted him, reigned with so strong a hand, and by his intimate association with the American missionaries, and especially by his having been long under the almost daily tutelage of one of them, had become emancipated from many of the prejudices of his countrymen, and prepared to set the wheels of progress in motion.
Bright now were the prospects of the missionaries. Their teachers and their old servants returned, and, as the sovereign was known to be personally friendly to the missionaries, they were treated with respect by all ranks, and had everywhere a civil hearing for the message they brought. Indeed, they were assured from the throne on the day of the coronation, when they were invited to the palace, that they should be unmolested in their work. Lest, however, they should be too exultant in their new hopes, Providence was pleased to order trials and bereavements to each of the missions. Mrs. Bush had an attack of hemorrhage from the lungs, that on the 22d of July, after six short weeks of illness, resulted in her death. No, it was not death, but a translation. To those who witnessed her triumphant departure it seemed as if her spirit, when it reached the threshold of the gate of the heavenly city, turned to tell them what she saw. “Beautiful!” she said—“beautiful! Heaven is one great beauty.”
Early in January, in the midst of the other discouragements, the Baptist mission had suffered a great calamity. A fire in the night, doubtless of incendiary origin, had destroyed their dwelling-houses, chapel, printing-press—including a large edition just completed of the New Testament in Siamese—and nearly all their personal effects. Their loss amounted to ten or twelve thousand dollars. A temporary house of bamboo and thatch was hastily thrown up, but new dwellings must be erected, and from exposure to the sun and fatigue in procuring timber for the rebuilding Dr. Jones was taken ill, and, his constitution being impaired by a score of years spent in the tropics, he succumbed to disease on the 13th of September, and passed peacefully away—an irreparable loss to his mission and to Siam. He was a man of excellent judgment, piety and culture, and had a rare mastery of the Siamese language with its curious idioms that made him most acceptable to the natives as a preacher and writer. His translation of the New Testament and several tracts that he prepared attest his scholarship in Siamese and his ability.
Just before this sad event the Rev. William Ashmore and wife, who had been sent out by the Baptist Board to take charge of the Chinese department, arrived in Bangkok.
And now the Presbyterian mission obtained at last what it had so many years sought in vain. An eligible location was tendered them near the centre of the city, not far below the palace, adjoining one of the largest wats and in the neighborhood of several others.
About this time the king, with a singular appreciation for an Oriental monarch of the importance of female education, in a note in which he says he “desires several ladies who live with him to acquire knowledge in English,” invited the wives of the missionaries to visit his palace and alternate in giving regular instruction to his numerous family. Gladly and with much interest did Mrs. Mattoon, Mrs. Dr. Bradley and Mrs. Dr. Jones, representing the three missions in the field, enter upon their work—the first zenana-teaching ever attempted in the East.[2]. Twenty-one of the thirty young wives of the king, and several of his royal sisters, composed the class. During the three years these labors continued much Christian as well as secular knowledge was imparted to these secluded ones—saving knowledge, it was hoped, in the case of one at least, a princess of the highest rank.
As soon as the rains were over and possession was given of their new premises, Messrs. Mattoon and Bush proceeded to enclose the ground, dig trenches for the foundations, purchase rafts of teak-wood logs and superintend their sawing by hand into the timber and planks required to put up two plain but convenient brick dwelling-houses. Mr. Bush’s experience and practical skill here proved of great value. Before the rains fairly set in, early in June, one house was finished, and Mrs. Mattoon and family removed into it from the floating house on the river, lent to them by a friendly prince, which had been their temporary home while the new building was going up. They had found it not an undesirable residence, though one memorable dark night, having been detached from its moorings that it might slip away from a fire that was raging on a river-bank near, through the carelessness of a servant it got adrift and carried its inmates off against their will, with a rapid tide, seven or eight miles down the river before its progress could be arrested. The truant dwelling, however, with all its contents undisturbed, with the turn of the tide was brought back to its old moorings safe and sound.
The other dwelling-house was soon completed and occupied. The mission having now a home of its own and ample room, in October, 1852, a boarding-school for Siamo-Chinese boys was opened, and Quakieng, who was an experienced Chinese teacher, put in charge—the free tuition the lads would receive half of each day in their father-tongue being, it was hoped, an inducement that would attract such pupils within the reach of Christian instruction.
Before the first year ended twenty-seven had been enrolled. All attempts to gather Siamese boys in a school had failed thus far, though some individual scholars had been taught, as the wats gave free tuition to all, and merit was made by providing the priests with their pupil-attendants.
An interesting, amiable young Hainan Chinese, See Teug by name, had the year previous been baptized by Mr. Mattoon, in whose family he long had lived—the first of that people to become a Protestant Christian—and gave pleasing evidence of his love to his Saviour by the interest he manifested in bringing his fellow-countrymen to the knowledge of the gospel. A Sabbath evening-service was held for their benefit, the new convert acting as Bible-reader and interpreter. Afterward a Hainan teacher was secured, and for many years a Hainan-Chinese department of the boarding-school maintained, in the hope of bringing under saving Christian influences some of the many Chinese in Siam from the island of Hainan, which had been hitherto entirely unreached by Protestant missionary effort. A day-school for the Peguan girls in the neighborhood was started by Mrs. Mattoon, who had also two or three native girls in her own family under Christian training.