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The two decades from 1870 to 1889 marked a new era for the Laos Mission in which the mission found itself facing an entirely changed situation. The mission did not just have to start over. It had to start over in a much more hostile environment. Whatever attraction Christianity had in-and-of-itself as an alternative faith was considerably muted not only by Kawilorot's decisive act of repression but also by the increasingly clear alliance between the missionaries and other forces for modernization and "centralization" (of Bangkok's power) in the North. The struggle of the church to find a place in the traditional northern society was linked to the larger processes of modernization and centralization. Traditional society resisted the church just as it tried to resist other agents of modernization since they meant an end to the fully integrated way of life of traditional society.

Indeed, the spread of a system of faith alternative to that of the traditional society threatened the very heart of a society in which all facets of life inseparably integrated themselves with the religious faith of society. Traditional society allowed for only one system of faith, one so intimately connected to the rest of life that it functioned as the unquestioned ground for society and culture. One could not participate in the society fully or meaningfully without being rooted in that ground. An alternative system of faith immediately threatened all facets of social and political life including the systems of allegiance and power. Kawilorot understood the nature of the threat Christianity posed, and in the years after 1869 political and religious leaders as well as the people in a number of localities continued to resist Christianity, often quite openly and on a few occasions violently. Their resistance formed part of the larger struggle to maintain traditional structures, habits, and patterns in the face of modernization and centralization. (1)

In one sense, very little actually happened in the years immediately after Kawilorot's persecution of the Christian community. The Laos Mission spent

The small congregation created before September 1869 ceased to exist in any meaningful way in this period. Of the five Christians still living, only Nan Inta and Saen Ya Wichai associated with the missionaries, but Saen Ya Wichai lived near Chiang Rai and seldom saw them. In April 1872, Nan Ta (not to be confused with the clergyman of a decade later) converted and was baptized. In December 1872, another three men received baptism even though they did not especially please Wilson with the level of their understanding of Christianity. (2) However, two soon died, and by the end of 1873 there were only four Christians, all male. This situation continued through the end of 1875. (3)

In the absence of a meaningful Christian community, the mission carried on with its work. There were seven aspects of that work that I will comment on briefly here in the context of this period. Each aspect is important because it marked the emergence of a formative pattern of attitude or activity in the life of the northern Thai church

First, the mission believed that the animist/Buddhist faith of traditional society was "idolatrous" and therefore an affront to the holiness and majesty of God. (4) Since traditional faith sat at the core of all social life, this attitude meant that the missionaries felt alienated from northern Thai society and sought to alienate their converts from that society as well.

Second, the handful of converts themselves experienced continuing difficulties in their social relationships, especially within their families, because they did become alienated from their society when they converted. Family tensions became particularly acute in times of crisis. In 1873 Nan Ta and Lung (Uncle) Doong, two of the six remaining converts, both fell ill. Their families put great pressure on each of them to renounce their religion and seek healing from the spirits. Nan Ta gave in while Lung Doong refused. Both died. The following year one of the four remaining Christians suffered suspension from worship because he too participated in spirit propitiation. (5) These first converts found themselves in a particularly difficult position because they had no larger Christian community to help them adjust to their social isolation.

Third, we know surprisingly little about the daily relationships between the

Four, the Laos Mission began to create the northern Thai church in the image of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. with all of the organizational and theological implications that meant. The mission emphasized legal forms, procedures, and concerns by which the various governing bodies of the church functioned as "courts." This system of Presbyterian polity expected church members to adhere to certain standards of conduct. When they failed to do so, the ruling body of the local church, the Session, called them before it to present their case and be judged. (7)

Fifth, the Laos Mission perceived the church as an evangelistic agency for the conversion of northern Siam. (8) This untested assumption about what the church should be affected the structure of leadership and the focus of activity of the church in later years. At heart, the mission assumed that the northern Thai church should take as its model the mission itself.

Sixth, certain organizational weaknesses hampered the mission's ability to work effectively with the church. The first reinforcement for the tiny mission, Dr. Charles W. Vrooman, arrived in 1872, but he stayed only for a short time before resigning in discouragement. The McGilvarys left for their first furlough in early 1873 and did not return until February 1875. The Wilsons were both ill, and Wilson himself had to give much of his time to overseeing mission construction work. (9) Discouragement, furloughs, illness, and property and financial concerns limited the time the mission had for work with the churches. One of the most serious weaknesses of the mission was its lack of organizational continuity.

Finally, this period saw the first missionary tour of exploration. In April 1872, McGilvary and Vrooman toured Chiang Rai, Luang Prabang, Nan, and Phrae to survey the extent of their "Laos" field. (10) These trips established

In trying to understand the birth and development of the northern Thai church, the significance of the structures and activities of the Laos Mission itself cannot be overlooked. Nor can the fact that those patterns of structure and activity did not develop out of a stated plan be forgotten. The mission and, consequently, the churches did not emerge as a rational organization but rather came into being willy-nilly is a complex of ill-defined, contradictory attempt to deal haphazardly with problems as they arose.

Although the church in the North never actually recovered from the hammer blow dealt to it in 1869, it did begin to revive after 1875. Gradually, the nearly hopeless situation of the tiny group of Christians shifted as in ones, two, and threes new converts joined them. Thus, the five years from 1876 through 1880 marked the rebirth of an active Christian community.

A significant moment in this gradual rebirth came in January 1876 when Pa (Aunt) Kammol, wife of Noi Sunya, and Mae (Mother) Noo, a former mission employee, joined the church. (11) Until this time, all of the converts had been men. In September 1876, another three women including one girl of seventeen also joined, as did Nan Inta's daughter in November. At the end of the year, another four men received baptism, and the church then numbered fourteen members. Among the ten new members was Noi Aliya, the first convert living inside the city walls of Chiang Mai. Nearly all of these new converts had been patients in Dr. Marion Cheek's small, makeshift hospital, which he started after his arrival in 1875. Most of them, including the women, learned to read Siamese at the hospital in order to read the Siamese Christian literature there, since the mission had nothing prepared in northern Thai. Thus, by the end of 1876 a Christian community began to take form, one that included both sexes and families.

Yet, the gravitational pull of the vastly larger traditional society still weighed heavily on the community. The missionaries sitting with Nan Inta as the Session of the Chiang Mal Church finally reinstated Noi Chai, convicted of "complicity with spirit worship" to full membership after two years. In early December 1876, Ma Noo suffered suspension from communion for the same charge of "complicity with spirit worship". McGilvary felt that in spite of extenuating circumstances in her case he had to make an example of her for the sake of the other members of the church. (12)

None suffered for her conversion more than Pa Kammol. Her brother, head of her extended family, demanded that she make offerings to the family spirits. She refused. The brother then called a family conference and in a violent, forceful manner threatened to take Pa Kammol's "case" to the Chao Muang. She still refused to make an offering, but she did seek a compromise with the brother whereby she would pay the family one lump sum of money to free herself from any obligations to pay the spirit fees. (13) In effect, conversion to Christianity forced Pa Kammol into having to try to buy her way out of the traditional social system.

The first activity the mission engaged in after the beginning of the rebirth in early 1876 was the building of a small, temporary chapel on a corner of the mission compound. This chapel, however, did not satisfy McGilvary. He wrote the Board in New York that the mission needed a substantial brick building planned by an architect and seating 300-350 people. In later years, the mission used church buildings as a means of demonstrating that the church was "here to stay" and had a "substantial" presence, (see Chapter 7) Even at this time, McGilvary linked the need for a solid, permanent building to the fact that the church lacked stability. (14)

In November 1876, the mission started the first Sunday school for the church. It taught Siamese literacy and the Shorter Catechism, which is the traditional Presbyterian compendium of basic Christian doctrines. Literacy, particularly Siamese literacy, developed into an unofficial litmus test of the desirability of converts seeking admission into the church. Those who could already read northern Thai and/or showed a willingness to learn Siamese were deemed more acceptable as members. The missionaries assumed that these individuals had more intelligence and showed more initiative, traits valued for church membership by the mission. (15)

The emergence of Christian families led to the first infant baptisms on 7 January 1877 when Ootta. Kan Kao, and Kam Ai—children of Noi Wong and grandchildren of Nan Inta—received the sacrament. That same Sunday marked the beginning of the first "Week of Prayer' in the history of the northern Thai church. (16) Slowly, then, patterns of the future took shape in the development of church life in 1876-1877.

The situation of the church at this time was much like that of a small satellite launched at great expense from its parent body. The satellite orbited around the parent body in a precarious balance between its own inertia and the gravitational pull of the planet. Its tendency to fall back down into the gravitational well of the planet had to be resisted by counter-balancing force. Northern Thai society acted like a huge Jupiter-sized planet to the tiny Christian

Like other converts, Lung Tooi felt the gravitational pull of the larger society with particular force. In April 1877, a Chiang Mai chao ordered Lung Tooi to go into the fields and help build a small shanty on a Sunday. The chao warned him in advance that if he did not show up on that day he would go to jail. Lung Tool waited until Sunday afternoon and went at the last possible moment he could and still avoid jail. That way he had also been able to attend worship. Nevertheless, the Session of the church called him to task for having violated the Sabbath as well as on charges of having participated in spirit worship in his home. Lung Tool denied the latter charges, arguing that his family had held spirit services in his home, that he had tried unsuccessfully to prevent the services, and that he had left the house when they took place. The Session dismissed that charge.

However, on the previous charge of violating the Sabbath, Lung Tool admitted what he had done and explained his predicament. The Session pointed out to him that he had violated divine law by breaking the Sabbath and that he should fear breaking that law much more than breaking merely human civil laws. Visibly shaken at the prospect of being suspended from the church, Lung Tool seemed deeply repentant, and the Session decided to be lenient in his case. It took no action against him. (17) It required no small amount of skill for men like Lung Tool, an illiterate farmer, and Pa Kammol, a widow, to conform to the regulations and expectations of the new religion while avoiding tension with and persecution by the traditional structures of society.

Suspicion of the missionaries and their motives was so general in Chiang Mai that the mission did not even reveal to the converts that it kept minutes of the Session's meetings. Most people believed that the mission sent the names of its converts to Bangkok and the United States "to make servants and slaves of them." That impression would only be confirmed, the mission felt, if people knew they kept a record of Session meetings. (18) The populace associated the mission with alien powers and believed that it tried to create a new pattern of patron-client relationships in which it rather than the traditional rulers was lord. The northern Thai Christians were caught in the middle.

Looking back across some forty years of northern Thai church history, McGilvary pointed to the proclamation of the "Edict of Toleration" as an important turning point for the church. It opened up a new era in which the struggle for mere survival ended. (19) Within a few years of the Edict itself, a fundamental misapprehension, a "myth" if you will, grew up in which it was alleged that King Chulalongkorn himself issued the Edict and applied it to the entire nation. People believed it secured the fundamental rights of Christiana to freedom of religion. (20) An examination of events puts the matter into a more modest light.

Those events began when a Christian young couple decided to get married and hold the first Christian marriage in northern Siam They made their plans along with their parents and the missionaries, but when the day came and the wedding guests arrived a serious problem arose. The head of the bride's family refused to give permission for the marriage unless they paid a modest "spirit" fee, the traditional way to legalize a rearrange.

The missionaries appealed to the Siamese Commissioner, but he could only refer them to the Chao Uparat, the "second king" and real power in Chiang Mai. Strongly anti-Christian, he found the whole situation amusing as well as hopeful since Christianity could hardly survive if its young people could not marry. Finally. McGilvary appealed the entire matter to the King in Bangkok

King Chulalongkorn referred the matter back to the Commissioner in Chiang Mai and gave him the authority to issue an edict using whatever language he might choose. The Commissioner issued his edict on 8 October 1878, and the wording of the Edict was very strong. It addressed the leaders and people of the Chiang Mai, Lamphun, and Lampang states saying that a person may choose any religion he or she desires. It specifically affirmed that individuals may become a Christian without hindrance and that Christians had the right to observe the Sabbath. Finally, the Edict stated that no one could prevent American citizens from employing whatever help they wanted to hire. (21)

Contrary to what is generally believed, the King did not issue this Edict but only gave his permission for it. He left the actual wording and its strength or weakness, up to the Commissioner. The Edict did not apply even to all of the North, and it is questionable that the Edict in-and-of-itself secured the actual freedom of religion of Christians in the North.

McGilvary argued that the Edict had two main benefits for the church:

Contemporary records present a different picture. In July 1880, Wilson commented on two cases of persecution, one in a village and one in which a Chiang Mai chao whipped a slave for attending Christian worship. He concluded that while the Edict was a great event it did not solve every problem. In that same year, another chao threatened a potential convert with a whipping if he converted. (23) In late 1882, only four years after the Edict, the Chao Uparat of Chiang Mai took overt steps towards isolating the missionaries and preventing further conversions. Wilson understood that Bangkok agreed to leave the cases of new converts (for their punishment} entirely in the hands of the Chao Uparat. (24)

The widespread social and political harassment of the Christian community continued for years after the Edict. As late as 1894, the chaos of Lamphun, to which the Edict had been addressed, refused to acknowledge that it bound them in any way. (25) Long before that, the small Christian community in Lampang underwent a period of repression. Indeed, mission records document many instances of repression well into the twentieth century, including a major case in 1889 when the source of the repression was the Siamese Commissioner in Chiang Mai. Although instances did occur in which the Edict effectively ended a persecution of Christians, (26) those instances are not significant in comparison to the widespread harassment that took place throughout the region. The Edict did not bring about a fundamental change in the relationship between the church and the local political structures and society. Indeed, so much attention has been focused on the Edict, a paperish event, that it has been forgotten that the death of the Chao Uparat, the last anti-Christian northern Thai figure of political consequence in Chiang Mal, was what actually brought relief to the Chiang Mai Christians. In and of itself, the Edict amounted to just one more event in the contest of wills between Bangkok and Chiang Mai and one more moment in the development of a larger and more stable Christian community.

Throughout 1877, 1878, and into 1879, the small church grew at a modest rate. In the year ending September l879, it baptized seventeen adults and eleven children. Among those who now joined the growing band of Christians, was a man who had decided in 1869 become a Christian but fled the persecution by Chao Kawilorot and wandered for a decade. Nan Ta was originally a monk in a royal monastery with close connections to Kawilorot when he became interested in Christianity. In January 1879, he returned to the city and came under instruction. (27) In the years to come, Nan Ta would become the first ordained northern Thai cleric and the most important northern Thai church leader, an inheritance from the golden days before September 1869.

At some point either in 1877 or 1878, Sophia McGilvary tried to start a small school for girls. In fact, this small band of "scholars" was more of a class than a school until April 1879 when Mary Campbell and Edna S. Cole arrived and took charge. By October 1879, the two young missionaries had 25 students including ten Christians, and by December they had thirty students and an additional eight or nine boys studying with them. (28) This small girls' school limped along and suffered from a number of changes in missionary administration.

The number of adult baptisms rose from seventeen in 1879 to 39 in 1880, and by the end of the mission year in September 1880 the Laos Mission counted 83 total members in its churches. (29) Before the end of the year, the mission established three congregations: Bethlehem Church (in July), Lampang Church (October), and Mae Dok Daeng Church (on 25 December).

Bethlehem Church. This congregation, named after Wilson's hometown in Pennsylvania, grew out of the work of Nan Inta in his own and surrounding villages. The congregation began with seventeen members drawn from two extended families, and it faced serious opposition in the community even prior to its founding.

Local political leaders, including one official in particular, and neighbors opposed the establishment of a church in their village. After a number of people in the village converted in May 1880, the local people reported their situation to the Chao Muang of Lamphun. He feared that these converts merely sought to escape having to render service to him, and so he ordered them into the jungle on a Sunday to clear land for planting rice. The Christians tried to satisfy both church and state by hiring replacements to report for work on the following

The congregation elected Man Inta elder of the church, and he served as virtually the pastor of the congregation. The Bethlehem Church remained a weak, small congregation until after the turn of the century.

Lampang Church. The founding and first years of the Lampang Church were tied to the life of a high court official in Lampang, Chao Phya Sihanot. Some twenty years previously (about 1860), the Chao Phya visited Bangkok on official business and met Dr. Bradley. Bradley gave him some books, and he found that he largely accepted the contents of those books. After Chao Phya Sihanot became an important official, he became embroiled in serious legal and financial difficulties, which drove him to Chiang Mai to see the Chao Uparat for advice and assistance. Chao Phya Sihanot encountered McGilvary during this visit, and after about two months, he received baptism on 8 May 1878. In the meantime, the Chao Uparat refused to help Sihanot when he learned of his interest in Christianity. Sihanot was ordered to return to Lampang where he soon lost both his position and his wealth, but he gathered around him a small number of people who accepted the new religion.

In 1880, McGilvary spent about six months in Tak, and on his return trip, he visited Lampang in October, at which time he baptized five more converts and officially established a small congregation. Chao Phya Sihanot not surprisingly, was elected elder of the church. However, this small congregation soon suffered serious problems for in the following October the Chao Phya was jailed. Ostensibly, he still owed heavy debts, but the Christians believed that he was put in jail because of his religion. He was finally released in 1883, but by that time the small congregation had ceased to exist; and when the mission established its Lampang Station in 1885 the only Christians left were Chao Phya Sihanot, his wife, and one servant. (31)

To a degree, the Lampang Church's early experience proved to be quite similar to that of Chiang Mai. Initial interest in Christianity started with a person who already had a stake in society and whose contact with the missionaries pre-dated September 1869. When that person became a Christian, he had to try to establish a new relationship with a society that found his religion unacceptable. In the end, he suffered repression and the church disbanded.

Nan Suwan gathered the community at Mae Dok Daeng, but he did not participate in its founding as a church because he was among those ordered

A striking fact about the increased rate of church growth in this period is that the Laos Mission itself played little role in the founding of the Christian communities that grew into churches. McGilvary noted that all of this growth resulted from northern Thai work rather than mission evangelism. {34) Furthermore, each of these three churches formed around the leadership of one strong, dedicated leader. The Rev. W. C. Dodd commented a decade later that precisely this pattern occurred in nearly every Christian community in northern Siam, that is they were founded through and sustained by the initiative of key individuals (35)

Yet another pattern in the life of the churches emerged from the founding of the Mae Dok Daeng Church, the pattern of gaining conversions by assisting those accused of witchcraft/demon possession (phi ka). McGilvary dates the beginning of the mission's involvement with people accused of witchcraft as August 1878, when a chao requested that McGilvary take in a family accused of being phi ka that the chao could not protect himself. In later years, numerous people fled to Christianity to escape the persecution suffered by those believed to be under the power of evil spirits. Popular opinion held that the Christians had power over these spirits and freedom from them. (36}

The first period of sustained growth in the history of the church (1876 - 1880} came to an end in 1881, and the two years 1881-1882 proved discouraging. In March 1881, McGilvary left for his second furlough, and shortly thereafter, the tragic and disheartening news arrived that Mary Campbell, the lively young missionary teacher who had gone down to Bangkok, had drowned. Wilson, the leader of the small group of remaining missionaries, was generally distracted from church work by the burden of supervising the construction of a number of mission buildings, which remained his chief work throughout these two years. (37)

Thus, the mission and the churches still depended a great deal upon McGilvary as the leader of both. Even in his failures, he set the tone for the present end the future work of the Laos Mission.

When McGilvary returned from his furlough along with new recruits in early 1883, the Laos Mission entered a new phase in which it expanded geographically and institutionally. While on furlough, McGilvary had busily scouted out an impressive group of immediate and near-future reinforcements for the mission. The future of the mission looked bright once again.

However, nearly all of the reinforcements brought out by McGilvary became ill with three of the four withdrawing from the mission after only brief stays. (40) The Laos Mission remained very weak throughout the 1880s, although the situation did improve slightly in 1887 when another group of "second generation" missionaries arrived. Nevertheless, the situation in late 1885 was typical of the period: of the twelve missionaries on the field, two had withdrawn to engage in private business, two left the field because of illness, and two more were too ill to work. Of the remaining six, the four women engaged in educational or translation work. Only McGilvary and Dr. S.C. Peoples, newly arrived, were both healthy and able to work with the churches, but Peoples spent nearly all of his time supervising mission construction. That left McGilvary. (41)

In effect, the churches faced a permanent leadership crisis throughout the decade as the mission barely managed to hold itself together. While mission forces remained inadequate to provide leadership for the growing Christian community, the community itself lacked trained leadership since the mission failed to provide training. Throughout the years 1883-1889, members of the

Even in this depleted state, the Laos Mission turned its attention to geographical expansion. As early as 1880, McGilvary seriously considered the possibility of establishing a new station at Tak, but the Board of Foreign Mission refused to sanction such a move. (43) Now, his thinking turned to Lampang, and in late 1883, he visited Lampang both to try to free Chao Phya Sihanot from jail and to acquire land for a station.

Although he failed to obtain land on that trip, a new and more favorable opportunity arose in the person of the brother of the King, Prince Phichit Prichakon. The Prince took up residence in Chiang Mai in May 1884, and he brought with him a letter from the King that ordered the Prince to help the Laos Mission acquire land in Lampang and also forbid persecution of Christians. (The fact that the King felt he had to write specifically forbidding persecution of Christians further indicates how little attention the "Edict of Toleration" received and how little weight it carried). The King had long urged the mission to open a station in Lampang as a "civilizing agency." The Prince soon acquired very good land for the mission and even provided elephants and other assistance when McGilvary and Dr. and Mrs. Peoples took a survey trip to Lampang in early 1885. The King also sent a large gift of money to assist the mission in starting its Lampang work, and as a result, the Laos Mission appointed the Peoples to open a station there. (44)

When the Peoples' arrived in Lampang in September 1885, they found only the three members of the church still there. Over the next several years, they made very little progress in Lampang even after relations with the local chaos improved. As was generally the case in opening a new station, they had to give much of their time to buildings and property leaving little time for work with the church; arid even when Wilson and Kate Fleeson were assigned to Lampang in 1888, the situation remained largely static. At the end of 1889, the tiny church there still met in Chao Phya Sihanot's house and had only nine members. (45)

Although the congregation in Lampang made little progress, closer to Chiang Mai the northern Thai church underwent in 1885 another period of rapid growth into new areas. A Karen living in Thung Phaeng, south of Chiang Mai, learned about Christianity while traveling in Burma, and when he returned to the North, he sought out the missionaries and was baptized. He interested some of his

Soon, another group of "inquirers" built a chapel at Chang Kam under the leadership of a local man, Nan Chai. Two other villages in the nearby region of Lamphun also began to show signs of interest in Christianity. (46) McGilvary had an unfortunate experience in one of the villages, Mae Khum Wan, where a group of inquirers built yet another little bamboo chapel. When McGilvary arrived to dedicate the chapel, he discovered that the man who organized its building did so because he thought the missionaries paid all who helped build chapels McGilvary firmly corrected this misunderstanding and left an elder with the people to teach them.

In this same year of 1885, a number of groups of individuals living east of Chiang Mai in the San Kamphaeng area also began to show interest in Christianity, particularly in the villages around Mae Pu Kha, the area the two Martyrs came from. The mission baptized a number of people and made plans to start a church in the district. (47)

Thus. 1885 proved to be an important year in the expansion of the northern Thai church. The geographical extent of the church more than doubled while church membership grew from 151 to 241 (nearly 60%). On the basis of this growth, the mission established on 17 June 1885 the "Presbytery of North Laos," organized by and under the authority of the Synod of New York of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. Theoretically, the northern Thai church now had its own structure for ordaining pastors, organizing churches, and developing its own identity. In the Presbyterian system of church government, the presbytery was the only body to have direct authority over the churches in its given geographical area. Yet, there seemed to be a nagging doubt about the spiritual strength of the churches. The 1885 annual report noted that "...many of our church members have not grown in grace as we would desire... " (48)

Ever since his first trip to the region in 1872, McGilvary showed particular interest in expanding mission work into Chiang Rai. The mission's first opportunity to do so came in 1880 when Nan Suwan of Mae Dok Daeng received orders from the government to immigrate to Chiang Saen. Although Nan Suwan considered paying someone to go in his place, McGilvary convinced him he should go in order to spread Christianity there. Eventually, he moved his family to Chiang Saen and began

In 1886, the Rev. Chalmers Martin made a trip northward to Chiang Rai early in the year. Soon thereafter, Nan Ta also went to the Chiang Rai area and brought back a very hopeful report of conditions there and of interest in Christianity. Finally, McGilvary himself traveled to the region and initiated sustained work there by the mission. The result of this tour was that a large number of Christians received baptism at Mae Kon, near Chiang Rai, and more were baptized at Chiang Saen where Nan Suwan's evangelistic efforts gained an increasing number of converts. (50)

The communities at Chiang Saen and Mae Kon grew rapidly enough during 1887 that presbytery "sent" missionaries in early 1888 to organize churches there. They founded a church at Chiang Saen with 23 members in about April 1886, but the leadership situation at Mac Kon proved too unstable to establish a church. Two years later on 13 April 1890 the "Chiang Rai Church" was organized at Mae Kon. (51) In future years, some of the most stable and independent-minded churches in the North developed in the Chiang Rai region. The Chiang Saen Church in particular established itself as one of the region's strongest, most active congregations, a church with capable lay leadership.

Meanwhile, sometime during 1888 a delegation arrived from Chiang Dao, also to the north of Chiang Mai, asking that someone be sent to them. Nan Ta made a short visit, and early in 1889, Noi Sali went up to spend a month with the Chiang Dao inquirers. When he returned to Chiang Mai in February, he was seized by the Siamese Commissioner and thrown into jail on the charge of treason. A local official in Chiang Dao reported that Noi Sali taught the people they did not have to perform corvée labor once they converted. The mission produced a number of witnesses proving the charges were false, but the Commissioner held Noi Sali for another eight months, long after his innocence had been established. Mission attempts to intervene only made matters worse until it finally appealed through the U.S. Consul to the government for help. Momentarily, at least, this event reduced mission confidence in the Siamese government and caused some younger missionaries to become more pro-northern Siam. (52)

As early as 1870, McGilvary wanted to establish a mission school on the premise that a strong church required a strong school system. (53} Opened in 1879, the Girls' School suffered through a decade of frequent changes in

The first mission school founded outside of Chiang Mai started in Lamphun where in 1888 Nan Siti, a former Buddhist abbot, took charge of a small school that used traditional instructional methods. (56) Two year later Kate Fleeson and Dora Belle Taylor opened the Boy's School in Lampang, and in 1891 Fleeson started the Girls' School in that same station. (57) With the founding of these new schools in Chiang Mai, Lamphun, and Lampang, the mission established a new pattern for its work, one in which mission institutions began to compete with the churches for the attention and resources of the mission.

When the two decades beginning in 1870 opened, the Laos Mission was under attack with only two couples on the field and only two converts holding to the faith. Two decades later the mission counted sixteen missionaries, five congregations, and 722 members. It had three established schools, prospects for two more, and a training school for evangelists (see Chapter 5). It had also made impressive geographical gains. On the other hand, Christians still comprised only a minute part of the population. It would take the 1890s, the decade of expansion par excellence, to establish the church on a truly firm foundation.