Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/109

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minded of what had just been said, they laughed heartily, hut I fear were not convinced of the folly of doing such things.

In the listening group one day was a gray-headed man, who asked, "Is Jesus the same as God?" "What must we do that the Lord Jesus may save us?" "What deeds of merit must we do to be followers of the true God?" When we told him that we left our home, our parents and our friends, and journeyed many thousand miles over the sea, on purpose to tell him and his countrymen of the religion of Jesus, the only Saviour from sin, he thanked us. We gave him a gospel tract on prayer, hoping that the light he had received might lead him to pray for more.

On one occasion we stopped at an old preaching-place to rest. Let me tell you what a queer place it was for a sermon. It was a large room open on all sides and decorated with sticks of very small bamboo, to which were pasted small triangular pieces of white paper. Thousands of these were clustered fancifully together. From the ceiling in the centre of the room hung a piece of cloth two or three yards long, on which was a coarse picture of Buddha with a disciple on each side of him, and above them in the clouds angels with flowers. Below them, on a black ground to represent darkness, were painted persons suffering the torments of hell and the priests trying to assist them.