Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/374

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come one of the earliest victims of the epidemic. He died without fear, trusting in the Saviour he had found.

August 29, 1849, witnessed the organization of the first Presbyterian church in Siam. Earnest prayer went up that day that the little vine there planted might flourish and increase, and at last overshadow the land. To this church, made up of the mission families, a worthy native brother was added by certificate from the church in connection with mission of the A. B. C. F. M.—Quakieng, who, it will be remembered, had been baptized by Mr. Johnson in 1844.

With the last week of the year 1849 the Rev. Asa Hemenway, the sole remaining missionary of the A. B. C. F. M., after just ten years of faithful service on mission-ground, embarked with his family for the United States, and the operations of that Board in Siam closed. For fifteen years its missionaries had cultivated this interesting and inviting, but as to visible results most barren, field. From none of the native races of the land had they gathered one reliable convert. Their missionaries had labored, and labored well, but others were to enter into their labor. The "set time" for Siam's visitation had not yet come. It would seem that "he that letteth must let, till he be taken out of the way" of this man-fearing people before gospel truth could have "free course, run and be glorified." The books