Introduction
to the Articles
The
three brief articles that follow in this issue of HeRB
are based on two letter books belonging to the Rev. Charles R.
Callender (1867-1952), which are now housed in the Presbyterian
Historical Society, Philadelphia. Callender was a missionary in
northern Thailand and, briefly, in Kengtung, Burma, from 1896
to 1907 and from 1909 to 1919, after which he was assigned to
the Presbyterian mission in Yunnan Province, China. Although I
have long been aware of the potential value of these two letter
books, it was only this past summer (2002) that I had a chance
to do research on them, and as I had expected they proved to be
an invaluable source of information on the history of the church
in northern Thailand.
The
two letter books contain carbon copies of Callender's correspondence
to other members of the Laos Mission as well as letters to the
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in New York and friends
back in the United States. The bulk of the correspondence, however,
is addressed to his colleagues in the mission, and in that regard
these two volumes provide a unique perspective on the history
of the Laos Mission. Historians of the northern Thai church have
to depend largely upon the official correspondence of the missionaries
to the Board as well as articles and edited versions of their
letters reproduced in the Presbyterian press. The historical record
also includes a few collections of letters written to relatives
in the United States and, of course, a number of books written
by the missionaries themselves over the years. There are obvious
limitations to each of these sources, particularly in that the
recipients are generally not knowledgeable about the people and
churches on the mission field. The missionaries, thus, leave out
names and other insider information and details. They also show
a strong tendency to withhold distasteful or potentially embarrassing
information from the Board as well as the Presbyterian public
and private correspondents. Callender's correspondence to his
colleagues, in contrast, is often written to individuals who are
familiar with the churches, institutions, and people he is writing
about. Callender, thus, names names, refers to places, and alludes
to events frequently missing from other types of correspondence.
Within his circle of trusted friends, he also discusses other
missionaries and mission issues more
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freely and more critically than
he would ever think of doing in correspondence with the Board.
Callender
was a veteran missionary who seems to have been well respected
by most of his colleagues in the Laos Mission. The letter books
cover the years 1907 through 1913 and include Callender's work
in three stations, Phrae, Lampang, and the Kengtung Station
in the Shan States of Burma. For a period of time during these
years, Callender was on the mission Executive Committee as well,
so that the letter books provide insights into the inner workings
and politics of the mission from that perspective as well. They
are, in all, a rich, valuable source for the study of the Laos
Mission, especially for the period 1910-1913.
The
letter books themselves, unfortunately, are not in good physical
condition and are also made somewhat difficult to use by the
manner in which Callender pasted carbon copies of his correspondence
into them, generally but not always in chronological order.
He used a thin paper for those copies, and while the typewritten
copies are generally legible, if often faint, his hand-written
items are sometimes impossible to read. The two volumes themselves
are slowly falling apart and in need of conservation. The Presbyterian
Historical Society, for these reasons, refuses to make photocopies
of material in them.
The
contents of these two letter books, in any event, provide us
with a wealth of detailed information and insights into the
Presbyterian missionary and church work in northern Siam, some
of which does not appear elsewhere in the historical record
of the Laos Mission. That information includes gossip. It includes
feelings about people and events. It includes missionary attitudes,
commitments, prejudices, strengths, and weaknesses. The letter
books, that is, more clearly reveal the humanity of the missionaries
than do most other sources, a revelation of great importance
to understanding the history of Presbyterian missions in northern
Siam and the formation and early history of the northern Thai
church.
Although
I've retained the term "article," each of the following
articles are actually informal historiographical essays rather
than formal academic articles. They represent a personal response
to the contents of Callender's letter books, which I trust
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will be of some value to those interested in
the life and history of the northern Thai church.
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