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

79 страница из 101

In one sense our work during the first year was very desultory. I had always to shape my instruction to the individuals before me. It would often be in answer to questions as to where was our country; in what direction; how one would travel to get there; could one go there on foot; and so on. Or the question might be as to the manners and customs of our nation; or it might be directly on religion itself. But as all roads lead to Rome, so all subjects may be turned to Christ, His cross, and His salvation.

Of the friends found in those early days I must mention two. One was Princess Būa Kam, the mother of the late and last Lāo Prince, Chao Intanon. At our first acquaintance, she formed for us a warm friendship that lasted till her death. Nor could I ever discover any other ground for her friendship than the fact that we were religious teachers. She was herself a devout Buddhist, and continued to the last her offerings in the monasteries. I believe that the Gospel plan of salvation struck a chord in her heart which her own religion never did. From Buddha she got no assurance of pardon. The assurance that pardon is possible in itself seemed to give her hope, though by what process a logical mind could hardly see, so long as she held on to a system which, as she confessed, did not and could not give pardon. She was always pleased to hear the story of the incarnation, the birth, life, and miracles of Christ. She was deeply touched by the recital of His sufferings, persecutions, and death. Illustrations of the substitutionary efficacy of His sufferings she readily understood. She acknowledged her god to be a man who, by the well-nigh endless road to nirvāna, had ceased to suffer by ceasing to exist. The only claim he had to warrant his pointing out the way to others was the fact that he had passed over it himself. There was one ground, however, on which she felt that she might claim the comfort both of the doctrines which she still held and of ours, too. A favourite theory of hers—and of many others—was that, after all, we worship the same God under different names. She called hers Buddha, and we call ours Jehovah-Jesus.