A Half Century Among The Siamese And The Lao: An Autobiography

by Daniel McGilvary, Arthur J. Brown (Contributor)

Daniel McGilvary (1828-1911) was an American Presbyterian missionary who played an important role in the expansion of Protestantism in Northern Siam. In 1912, his autobiography was published posthumously, titled "A Half Century Among the Siamese and the Lāo."

This autoboiography is one of the significant missionary volumes of our era. The author has properly been classed with Carey and Judson and Paton and Chalmers and Mackay. He here traces for us his career from the early days in North Carolina, and in Princeton Seminary, through the years of missionary service in Bangkok and Pechaburi, to the long decades of devoted labor in Northern Siam. It was a long life of eighty-three years, and it covered the entire period of missionary work among the Lao peoples.

There is no more fascinating story in fiction or in that truth which is stranger than fiction, than the story of his discovery of a village of strange speech near his station at Pechaburi, Siam, his learning the language of the villagers, his long journey with his friend, Dr. Jonathan Wilson, into what was then the unknown region of northern Siam. pushing his little boat up the great river and pausing not until he had gone six hundred miles northward and arrived at the city of Chiengmai. The years that followed were years of toil and privation, of loneliness and sometimes of danger; but the missionaries persevered with splendid faith and courage until the foundations of a prosperous Mission were laid. In all the marked development of the Lao Mission, Dr. McGilvary was a leader—the leader.

In this autobiography he describes the experiences of those pioneer days, and continues the narrative as far as his last long itinerating journey in 1898. The recital is modest, intelligent, informing, inspiring. It suggests how much we owe to our representatives in these distant fields and how great is our obligation to carry forward the work they have begun. This volume will be enjoyed not only by those who are interested in the missions of our church, but by all who are fascinated by books of adventure, or who are concerned with the evangelization of the world.

He led the way into regions beyond and was the pioneer explorer into the French Lao States, eastern Burma, and even up to the borders of China. Go where you will in northern Siam, or in many sections of the extra-Siamese Lao States, you will find men and women to whom Dr. McGilvary first brought the Good News. He well deserves the name so frequently given him even in his life-time 'The Apostle to the Lao.'

Throughout his life, his colleagues and the general public held McGilvary in great esteem, and businesses and government offices in Chiang Mai were officially closed in mourning on the day of his death.


Contents
I. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
II. MINISTERIAL TRAINING
III. BANGKOK
IV. PECHABURI—THE CALL OF THE NORTH
V. THE CHARTER OF THE LAO MISSION
VI. CHIENGMAI
VII. PIONEER WORK
VIII. FIRST-FRUITS
IX. MARTYRDOM
X.THE ROYAL COMMISSION
XI. DEATH OF KAWILOROT
XII. THE NEW REGIME
XIII. EXPLORATION
XIV. THE FIRST FURLOUGH
XV. MUANG KEN AND CHIENG DAO
XVI. SEEKERS AFTER GOD
XVII. THE RESIDENT COMMISSIONER
XVIII. WITCHCRAFT
XIX. THE EDICT OF RELIGIOUS TOLERATION
XX. SCHOOLS—THE NINE YEARS' WANDERER
XXI. SECOND FURLOUGH
XXII. A SURVEYING EXPEDITION
XXIII. EVANGELISTIC TRAINING
XXIV. STRUGGLE WITH THE POWERS OF DARKNESS
XXV. CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES PLANTED
XXVI. A FOOTHOLD IN LAMPUN
XXVII. A PRISONER OF JESUS CHRIST
XXVIII. CIRCUIT TOUR WITH MY DAUGHTER, 1890
XXIX.

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1912

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-written history of Daniel McGilvery and pioneering Christian work in what is now Northern Thailand and Laos.