Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/398

This page needs to be proofread.

The year following the Rev. Jonathan Wilson and wife undertook the formidable journey, and left Bangkok to join the McGilvarys at Cheung Mai. Not long after their arrival, during a visit of Dr. House to the new mission, a church was organized in that remote heathen city, with many an earnest prayer that the "little one might become a thousand." On his way thither over the Laos Mountains, Dr. House had a narrow escape from death. The elephant on which he had been riding unexpectedly turned upon him, struck him down with its trunk and then wounded him severely whilst attempting to transfix him with its tusks.

In May, 1868, the Rev. P. L. Carden, who had lastly been stationed at Petchaburee, was obliged to withdraw from the field on account of the serious illness of his wife. This year the Rev. Samuel J. Smith and wife (formerly Mrs. Dr. Jones), who had been so long connected with the American Baptist Board, became self-supporting, Mr. Smith having charge of a large printing-establishment and a weekly English newspaper, but maintaining Sabbath preaching and other services in Siamese, and Mrs. Smith, able and indefatigable as a teacher and writer, doing much in the work of instruction and in other ways for the good of Siam.

As Mr. Chandler's connection with the Board had been severed some ten years before, the Siam-