Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/372

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His qualifications as a teacher were appreciated by the Prince Chow Fah Mongkut, who chose him as his instructor in the English language and science, and derived from him, chiefly during the eighteen months' continuous instruction he received, those enlarged and liberal ideas in government and religion which, when he succeeded to the throne, led him to open Siam to commerce and improvement. No wonder that after he became king he erected a handsome tomb over his esteemed teacher's remains and sent to his widow in the United States a gift of one thousand dollars, and subsequently five hundred dollars more, as tokens of regard for his memory. In February, 1849, Mrs. Caswell and family returned to America.

Mr. Caswell's death and Mr. Hemenway's illness threw now upon Mr. Mattoon, though he had been but eighteen months in the field, the Sabbath preaching-service at the station and a tri-weekly service at a hired room used as a chapel in the bazaar. There were, too, many applicants for books daily at the houses of the missionaries, and they had to be instructed and supplied.

In 1849 the Presbyterian missionaries were made glad by the arrival in April of the Rev. Stephen Bush and wife, as were the Baptists by the Rev. Samuel J. Smith's arrival in June. When a lad Mr. Smith had been taken into