Читать книгу A Half Century Among the Siamese and the Lāo: An Autobiography онлайн

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Inasmuch as my certificate of dismissal had never been formally presented to the Fayetteville Presbytery, I preferred to return it to my old Orange Presbytery, and to receive my ordination at its hands. On December 11th, the Presbytery met at my old home in Pittsboro. The installation of a foreign missionary was new to the Presbytery, as well as to the church and the community. When the ordaining prayer was ended, there seemed to be but few dry eyes in the congregation. It was a day I had little dreamed of sixteen years before, when I first came to Pittsboro an orphan boy and an apprentice. I felt very small for the great work so solemnly committed to me. Missionary fields were further off in those days than they are now, and the undertaking seemed greater. The future was unknown; but in God was my trust—and He has led me.

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On reaching New York I went directly to the Mission House, then at 23 Centre Street. As I mounted the steps, the first man I met on the landing was Jonathan Wilson. We had exchanged a few letters, and each knew that the other had not forgotten Siam; but neither expected to meet the other there. “Where are you going?” said one. “I am on my way to Siam,” said the other. “So am I,” was the reply. In the meantime he had married and, with his young wife, was in New York awaiting passage. We took the first opportunity that offered, the clipper ship David Brown, bound for Singapore, and sailing on March 11th, 1858.