XII Home Again, and “Home at Last”
The living pageant, “The Big Mountain and the Little Chisel,” had not ended, but some of the actors had to retire. Dr. House, who had been in the leading rôle for twenty-nine years, and Mrs. House, who had been his loyal understudy for twenty, handed their lines to other willing players and took their seats on the dais of time to watch the Divine plot unfold. Repeated efforts on the part of Mrs. House to recuperate her health only confirmed the physician’s surmise that the immediate cause of her suffering was the tropical climate. There was no alternative of wisdom but to return to her native clime. So it came about that Dr. and Mrs. House resigned.
Their leave-taking was almost like laying down life itself, for their hearts had become intimately entwined with the lives of the Siamese people. In March, 1876, the two sailed for “home again.” But to return to America was not to abandon their zeal for Siam; they made themselves ambassadors at large to the Church in the United States in behalf of the Kingdom of Christ in that land.