It took me a couple of weeks to meditate on this personal perception of a people group.

In the opinion of Pickering, the Siamese are undoubtedly Malay; but a majority of the intelligent Europeans who have lived long among them regard the native population as mainly Mongolian. They are generally of medium stature, the face broad, the forehead low, the eyes black, the cheekbones prominent, the chin retreating, the mouth large, the lips thick, and the beard scanty. In common with most of the Asiatic races, they are apt to be indolent, improvident, greedy, intemperate, servile, cruel, vain, inquisitive, superstitious, and cowardly; but individual variations from the more repulsive types are happily not rare. In public they are scrupulously polite and decorous according to their own notions of good manners, respectful to the aged, affectionate to their kindred, and bountiful to their priests, of whom more than twenty thousand are supported by voluntary contributions in Bangkok alone. Marriage is contracted at sixteen for males, and fourteen for females, and polygamy is the common practice, without limit to the number of wives except such as may be imposed by the humble estate or poverty of the husband; the women are generally treated with consideration. from Anna's Book that Elyse and I are reading

This is Pickering's perception, but the fact that she felt obliged to give the reader this generalization is curious to me. She had the emotional crushing experiencing of having been taken advantage and used in her service, with no real protection over her. I cannot imagine the vulnerability that she experienced, but I am very sensitive to the European need to categorize people groups in terms of their standards, especially in those days. This is not a Gospel aimed observation, but it did become an evangelical purpose eventually. Can we evangelize minus our ethnic sensitivities? Maybe we can now, but the 1800's were another time and circumstance.

When I got to these observations in BB Warfield's writings, it turned me off to doctrine altogether for a time. How could someone of such high mental acumen in doctrinal terms have such a negative view of the service of another human race? How could he not have seen the dehumanization of his practice and perspective? Well, it didn't daunt my pursuit of truth, altogether; though it did make me despise a certain time period of readings. Now Anna became BB to me and I had to change my perception of her reason for writing and for going to Siam. I overcame my antipathy and read on to find the real woman that everyone else saw and reasoned to myself that I am just like that when I am angry at my circumstance. My anger then turned to myself for my prejudices and misperceptions of peoples because I don't know them individually yet. Praise God that He overlooks such prejudices in our hearts and answers our prayers on peoples behalf anyway.