About this time great numbers came to the houses of the missionaries for books and conversation on religious matters, fifty or sixty in a day, attendance upon whom required the whole time of one of the brethren. Over a thousand Christian books a month were thus put into the hands of intelligent readers. Young priests and boys from the neighboring wats were frequent visitors, and as no second volume was given until they had been questioned on the contents of the first, and many thus received the whole series of the publications of the mission, much Scripture truth must have been imparted. So eager were some of these lads for books that they would swim across the river to get one, and then swim back with but one hand, holding up the prize high and dry with the other.
And now followed a time of great outward prosperity—the government friendly, the missionaries enjoying the respect of all classes, their schools flourishing, their books eagerly sought. The mission of the American Missionary Association, as a special token of the king’s regard for its senior member, Dr. Bradley, was permitted to occupy a very desirable location at the mouth of the principal canal of the city, the chief channel of travel west.
In December, 1852, Mr. Bush, whose health required a change, left for the United States.
The next year Dr. House made a tour of great interest, partly on foot, partly on elephants, to Korat, an important inland town north-east of Bangkok, over in the great valley of the Cambodia River, returning by Kabin, and distributing many books and making known to many a surprised listener in a wide district of country never before visited by a missionary, or a white man even, the strange doctrine—strange to them—of the being of a living God and salvation without personal merit freely granted for another’s sake. Much of Mr. Mattoon’s time was now given to the work of making a revised translation of the New Testament into Siamese.
In 1854 a Mormon missionary found his way to Siam, but, meeting no encouragement, soon withdrew. The Siamese did not need any urging to the practice of polygamy.
Prof. Silsby left Siam in May of this year, and Mr. J. H. Chandler and wife returned, and with them came the Rev. Robert Telford and wife to assist in the Chinese department of the Baptist mission.
In January, 1855, Dr. Lane of the A. M. A., on account of the health of his family, and Miss Morse of the Baptist mission, took their final leave of Siam.
The time was now at hand when Siam, so long secluded and almost unknown, was to enter more fully into the family of nations by treaties of commerce and friendship with the great powers of the West. Sir John Bowring, then governor of Hong Kong, arrived March, 1855, as British ambassador to the court of Siam, and was cordially welcomed by the king, with whom he had previously been in friendly correspondence. Aided by his able secretary of legation, Consul Parkes (now Sir Harry Parkes, British minister to Pekin), in one short month, in one week of actual negotiation, he overturned the customs and prejudices of centuries, and had conceded to him by the enlightened ruler of the land and his ministers of state the abolition of all the government monopolies of articles of trade, the removal of the old foolish prohibition of the export of rice and teak-wood, moderate duties on imports, the residence of consuls to protect the interests of their countrymen, and liberty for British subjects to travel and take up land in the country. This treaty opened the way for all subsequent treaties with other nations, and so opened Siam to the commerce of the world.
Dr. House availed himself, when the embassy left Siam, of the courteous offer of a free passage to Singapore, to make a brief visit to his native land to seek for the reinforcements his mission so greatly needed. While at home he was ordained and married, and, re-embarking with Mrs. House and the Rev. A. B. Morse and wife, reached Bangkok again in July, 1856, greatly to the joy of the solitary mission family that with faith and patience unwearied had been “holding the fort.”
Meanwhile, a month or two before, our United States government had by its ambassador, Townsend Harris, Esq., negotiated a treaty almost identical with the British, and, to the great satisfaction of the Siamese, Mr. Mattoon was appointed consul. Dr. William M. Wood, late surgeon-general U. S. Navy, who accompanied the embassy, testifies in his book, Fankwei, that the “unselfish kindness of the American missionaries, their patience, sincerity and truthfulness, have won the confidence and esteem of the natives, and in some degree transferred those sentiments to the nation represented by the missions, and prepared the way for the free national intercourse now commencing. It was very evident that much of the apprehension they felt in taking upon themselves the responsibilities of a treaty with us would be diminished if they could have the Rev. Mr. Mattoon as the first U. S. consul to set the treaty in motion.” Mr. Mattoon accepted the office, however, only till a successor should be appointed at Washington. Meanwhile, his mission-work—preaching, translating, etc.—was not intermitted.