he had never seen a missionary, from some two or three portions of the Scripture and a few Christian tracts that had fallen in his hands, taught by the Spirit of God, he had gained, and accepted too, a wonderfully clear view of salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Gladly he received other portions of the New and Old Testament, and, further instructed, he became a fearless and efficient witness for the truth before his countrymen of high and low degree.
The brethren at Petchaburee, with the freest access to the Siamese everywhere, found a peculiarly inviting field of labor among a colony of Laos numbering ten thousand or so, settled near them. These people, adherents of a prince who had failed in his struggle for the throne, had fled in a body from their own land in the far north-*east some eighty years before, and, seeking refuge in the dominion of the king of Siam, had been assigned a home and lands in this fertile province. They were made serfs of the king, however, and much of the time had to work for their new royal master. A preaching-place was secured in one of their villages, and these toiling exiles seemed to be interested hearers of the word.
But to return to Bangkok. In December, 1861, Esther, a young native woman who had been brought up in the family of Mrs. Mattoon, was baptized,—the first native female member of the Presbyterian mission-church of Siam.
