CHAPTER V

Transcriber's Note:

Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without

note. Some illustrations have been slightly relocated for better flow.

In some of the Chinese or Mongolian names, the character 'u' with a

breve appears frequently. This appears in the text as [)u].

[Illustration]

JAMES GILMOUR OF MONGOLIA

HIS DIARIES LETTERS AND REPORTS

EDITED AND ARRANGED BY

RICHARD LOVETT, M.A.

AUTHOR OF 'NORWEGIAN PICTURES' ETC

WITH A PORTRAIT, TWO MAPS AND

FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS

THIRD AND CHEAPER EDITION

LONDON

THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY

56 Paternoster Row, 65 St Paul's Churchyard

1895

O Christ, in Thee my soul hath found,

And found in Thee alone,

The peace, the joy I sought so long,

The bliss till now unknown.

I sighed for rest and happiness,

I yearned for them, not Thee;

But while I passed my Saviour by,

His love laid hold on me.

Now none but Christ can satisfy,

None other name for me;

There's love, and life, and lasting joy,

Lord Jesus, found in Thee.

PREFACE

This book in its more expensive forms has been before the public for

nearly two years. It has been very widely read, and it has received

extraordinary attention from many sections of the press. The author has

received from all parts of the world most striking testimonies as to the

way in which this record of James Gilmour's heroic self-sacrifice for

the Lord Jesus and on behalf of his beloved Mongols for the Master's

sake has touched the hearts of Christian workers. It has deepened their

faith, strengthened their zeal, nerved them for whole-hearted

consecration to the same Master, and cheered many a solitary and lonely

heart.

Many requests have been received for an edition at a price which will

place the book within the reach of Sunday School teachers, of those

Christian workers who have but little to spend upon books, and of the

elder scholars in our schools. The Committee of the Religious Tract

Society have gladly met this request at the earliest possible moment.

In this new form their hope and prayer is that James Gilmour, being

dead, may yet speak to many hearts, arousing them to diligent, and

faithful, and self-denying service for Jesus Christ.

The book, in this its newest form, is identical in all respects with the

first and second editions, except that only one portrait is given and

the appendices are left out.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. EARLY YEARS AND EDUCATION 15

II. BEGINNING WORK 46

III. MONGOLIAN APPRENTICESHIP 55

IV. THE FIRST CAMPAIGN IN MONGOLIA 88

V. MARRIAGE 98

VI. 'IN JOURNEYINGS OFTEN, IN PERILS OF RIVERS' 105

VII. THE VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1882 134

VIII. SUNSHINE AND SHADOW 154

IX. A CHANGE OF FIELD 176

X. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS AS ILLUSTRATED BY

LETTERS TO RELATIVES AND FRIENDS 228

XI. CLOSING LABOURS 256

XII. THE LAST DAYS 298

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PORTRAIT OF JAMES GILMOUR FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN

AT TIENTSIN ON APRIL 1891 _Frontispiece_

A MONGOL ENCAMPMENT 109

A MONGOL CAMEL CART 139

A CHINESE MULE LITTER 156

JAMES GILMOUR EQUIPPED FOR HIS WALKING EXPEDITION

IN MONGOLIA IN FEBRUARY 1884 159

JAMES GILMOUR'S TENT 245

MAPS

1. MAP ILLUSTRATING JAMES GILMOUR'S JOURNEYS ON THE

GREAT PLAIN OF MONGOLIA 54

2. MAP ILLUSTRATING JAMES GILMOUR'S LABOURS IN EASTERN

MONGOLIA 179

For readers of _James Gilmour of Mongolia_ not familiar with _Among

the Mongols_, a new Edition of that Work has been prepared and

published, price Two Shillings and Sixpence.

JAMES GILMOUR OF MONGOLIA

CHAPTER I

EARLY YEARS AND EDUCATION

James Gilmour, of Mongolia, the son of James Gilmour and Elizabeth

Pettigrew his wife, was born at Cathkin on Monday, June 12, 1843. He was

the third in a family of six sons, all but one of whom grew up to

manhood. His father was in very comfortable circumstances, and

consequently James Gilmour never had the struggle with poverty through

which so many of his great countrymen have had to pass. Cathkin, an

estate of half a dozen farms in the parish of Carmunnock, is only five

miles from Glasgow, and was owned by Humphrey Ewing Maclae, a retired

India merchant, who resided in the substantial mansion-house on the

estate. There were also the houses of a few residents, and a smithy and

wright's workshops, for the convenience of the surrounding district.

James Gilmour's father was the occupant of the wright's shop, as his

father had been before him.

His brother John, one of three who have survived him, has furnished the

following interesting sketch of the family life in which James Gilmour

was trained, and to which he owed so much of the charm and power which

he manifested in later years:--

'Our grandfather, Matthew Gilmour, combined the trades of mason and

wright, working himself at both as occasion required; and our father,

James Gilmour, continued the combination in his time in a modified

degree, gradually discarding the mason trade and developing the

wright's. Grandmother (father's mother) was a woman of authority, skill,

and practical usefulness among the little community in which she

resided. In cases requiring medical treatment, she was always in

request; and in order to obtain the lymph pure for the vaccination of

children she would take it herself direct from the cow. She was also a

neat and skilful needlewoman.

'Matthew Gilmour and his wife were people of strict integrity and

Christian living. They walked regularly every Sunday the five miles to

the Congregational Church in Glasgow, though there were several places

of worship within two miles of their residence. I have often heard the

old residents of the steep and rough country road they used to take for

a short cut when nearing home tell how impressed they have been by the

sight of the worthy couple and their family wending their way along in

the dark winter Sabbath evenings by the light of a hand-lantern. Our

parents continued the connection with the same body of worshippers in

Glasgow as long as they resided in Cathkin, being members of Dr. Ralph

Wardlaw's church. It was under his earnest eloquence, and by his wise

pastoral care, we were trained.

'The distance of our home from the place of worship did not admit of our

attending as children any other than the regular Sabbath services; but

we were not neglected in this respect at home, so far as it lay in our

parents' ability to help us. We regularly gathered around our mother's

knee, reading the impressive little stories found in such illustrated

booklets as the _Teacher's Offering_, the _Child's Companion_, the

_Children's Missionary Record_ (Church of Scotland), the _Tract

Magazine_, and Watts' _Divine Songs for Children_. These readings were

always accompanied with touching serious comments on them by mother,

which tended very considerably to impress the lessons contained in them

on our young hearts. I remember how she used to add: "Wouldn't it be

fine if some of you, when you grow up, should be able to write such nice

little stories as these for children, and do some good in the world in

that way!" I have always had an idea that James' love of contributing

short articles from China and Mongolia to the children's missionary

magazines at home was due to these early impressions instilled into his

mind by his mother. Father, too, on Sabbath evenings, generally placed

the "big" Bible (Scott and Henry's) on the table, and read aloud the

comments therein upon some portion of Scripture for our edification and

entertainment. During the winter week-nights some part of the evening

was often spent in reading aloud popular books then current, such as

_Uncle Tom's Cabin_.

'Family worship, morning and evening, was also a most regular and sacred

observance in our house, and consisted of first, asking a blessing;

second, singing twelve lines of a psalm or paraphrase, or a hymn from

Wardlaw's Hymn-book; third, reading a chapter from the Old Testament in

the mornings, and from the New in the evenings; and fourth, prayer. The

chapters read were taken day by day in succession, and at the evening

worship we read two verses each all round. This proved rather a trying

ordeal for some of the apprentices, one or more of whom we usually had

boarding with us, or to a new servant-girl, as their education in many

cases had not been of too liberal a description. But they soon got more

proficient, and if it led them to nothing higher, it was a good

educational help. These devotional exercises were not common in the

district in the mornings, and were apt to be broken in upon by callers

at the wright's shop; but that was never entertained as an excuse for

curtailing them. I suppose people in the district got to know of the

custom, and avoided making their calls at a time when they would have to

wait some little while for attention. Our parents, however, never

allowed this practice or their religious inclinations to obtrude on

their neighbours; all was done most unassumingly and humbly, as a matter

of everyday course.

'Our maternal grandfather, John Pettigrew by name, was a farmer and

meal-miller on the estate of Cathkin, and was considered a man of

sterling worth and integrity. Having had occasion to send his minister,

the parson of Carmunnock parish, some bags of oatmeal from his mill, the

minister suspected from some cause or other that he had got short weight

or measure. The worthy miller was rather nettled at being thus impeached

by his spiritual overseer, and that same night proceeded to the manse

with the necessary articles required for determining the accuracy of the

minister's suspicions. When this was done, it was found there remained

something to the good, instead of a deficiency; this the miller swung

over his shoulder in a bag and took back with him to the mill, as a

lesson to the crestfallen divine to be more careful in future about

challenging the integrity of his humble parishioner's transactions.

'While James was quite a child the family removed to Glasgow, where our

father entered into partnership with his brother Alexander as timber

merchants. During this stay in Glasgow mother's health proved very

unsatisfactory, and latterly both she and father having been prostrated

and brought to death's door by a malignant fever, it was decided to

relinquish the partnership and return to their former place in the

country. James was five years old at that time. When he was between

seven and eight he was sent with his older brothers to the new

Subscription School in Bushyhill, Cambuslang, a distance of two miles.

Here he remained till he was about twelve, when he and I were sent to

Gorbals Youths' School in Greenside Street, Glasgow. We had thus five

miles to go morning and evening, but we had season-tickets for the

railway part of the distance, viz. between Rutherglen and Glasgow.

Thomas Neil was master of this school. We were in the private room,

rather a privileged place, compared with the rest of the school, seeing

we received the personal attentions of Mr. Neil, and were almost free

from corporal punishment, which was not by any means the case in the

public rooms of the school--Mr. Neil being, I was going to say, a

_terror to evildoers_, but he was in fact a terror to all kinds of

doers, from the excitability of his temper and general sternness.

'Here James usually kept the first or second place in the class, which

was a large one; and if he happened to be turned to the bottom (an event

which occurred pretty often to all the members of the class with Mr.

Neil), he would determinedly endeavour to stifle a tearful little "cry,"

thus demonstrating the state of his feelings at being so abased. But he

never remained long at the bottom; like a cork sunk in water, he would

rise at the first opportunity to his natural level at the top of the

class. It was because of his diligence and success in his classes while

at this school, I suppose, more than from any definite idea of what

career he might follow in the future, that after leaving he was allowed

to prosecute his studies at the Glasgow High School, where he gained

many prizes, and fully justified his parents' decision of allowing him

to go on with his studies instead of taking him away to a trade. At home

he prosecuted his studies very untiringly both during session and

vacation.

'After entering the classes of the Glasgow University he studied in an

attic room, the window of which overlooked an extensive and beautiful

stretch of the Vale of Clyde. I remember feeling compassion for him

sometimes as he sat at this window, knowing what an act of self-denial

it must have been to one so boisterous and full of fun as he was to see

us, after our work was over of an evening, having a jolly game at

rounders, or something of that sort, while he had to sit poring over his

books.

'James was not a serious, melancholy student; he was indeed the very

opposite of that when his little intervals of recreation occurred.

During the day he would be out about the workshop and saw-mill, giving

each in turn a poking and joking at times very tormenting to the

recipients. If we had any little infirmity or weakness, he was sure to

enlarge upon it and make us try to amend it, assuming the _rÙle_ and

aspect of a drill-sergeant for the time being. He used to have the

mid-finger of the right hand extended in such a way that he could nip

and slap you with it very painfully. He used this finger constantly to

pound and drill his comrades, all being done of course in the height of

glee, frolic, and good-humour. This finger, no doubt by the unlawful use

to which he put it, at one time developed a painful tumour, to the

delight of those who were in the habit of receiving punishment from it.

James pulled a long face, and acknowledged that it was a punishment sent

him for using the finger in so mischievous a manner.

'There was a pond or dam in connection with the sawmill. In this James

was wont to practise the art of swimming. I remember he devised a plan

of increasing his power of stroke in the water. He made four oval pieces

of wood rather larger than his hands and feet, tacking straps on one

side, so that his hands and feet would slip tightly into them. But my

recollection is that they were soon discarded as an unsuitable addition

to his natural resources. He was fond of hunting after geological

specimens, getting the local blacksmith to make him a pocket hammer to

take with him on his rambles for that purpose. He seldom cared for

company in these wanderings among the mountains, glens, and woods of his

native place and country. He would start early in the morning, and

accomplish feats of walking and climbing during the course of a day.

Indeed, none of his brothers ever thought of asking James to go with

them in their little holiday trips, knowing that anything not the

conception of his own fancy was but very rarely acceptable to him; and

he was never one who would pander to your gratification merely to please

you.

'James was fond of boating. Once he hired a small skiff near the

suspension-bridge at Glasgow Green, and proceeded with it up the river.

Having gone a good way up, the idea appears to have taken him to

endeavour to get the whole way to Hamilton, where, father having retired

from business in 1866, our parents were now residing. This proved to be

a very arduous task, as in a great many places on that part of the Clyde

there is not depth of water to carry a boat. He managed, however, to

accomplish the task by divesting himself of jacket, stockings, and

shoes, and pulling the boat over all such shallow and rocky places

(including the weir at Blantyre Mills, where the renowned African

missionary and explorer, Dr. Livingstone, worked in his boyhood), until

he reached the bridge on the river between Hamilton and Motherwell, a

distance of eleven miles or more from Glasgow in a straight line, and

much more following the numerous bends of the river. Here he made the

boat secure and proceeded home, a distance of a mile, very tired and

ravenously hungry. The great drawback to his satisfaction in this feat

was his fear of the displeasure the boat-owner might feel at his not

having returned the same night, and the rough usage to which he had

subjected the boat in hauling it over the rocky places. He was much

delighted, when he arrived with the boat down the river during the day,

to find that the man was rather pleased than otherwise at his plucky

exploit, telling him that he only remembered it being attempted once

before.

'During part of the time James attended college at Glasgow University,

the classes were at so early an hour that he could not take advantage of

the railway, and so had to walk in the whole way. This was an anxious

time for his mother, who was ever most particular in seeing to the

household duties herself, and always careful that her children should

have a substantial breakfast when they went from home. I remember some

of those winter mornings. Amidst the bustle of making and partaking of

an early breakfast so as to be on the road in time, mother would press

him to partake more liberally of something she had thoughtfully prepared

for him; he would ejaculate: "Can't take it--no time!" and if she still

insisted he would add in a solemn manner: "_Mother_, what if the door

should be shut when I get there?" which, being understood by her as a

scriptural quotation, was sufficient to quench her solicitations.

'To avoid the worry of getting up so early, it was decided after a time

that he should take advantage of an unlet three or four apartment house

in a tenement which belonged to father in Cumberland Street, Glasgow. So

a couple of chairs, table, bed, and some cooking-utensils were got

together, and James entered into possession, cooking his own breakfast,

and getting his other meals there or outside as his fancy or inclination

prompted. Here I think he enjoyed himself very much. He had plenty of

quiet time for study, and he could roam about the city and suburbs for

experience, recreation, and instruction, visiting mills and other large

manufacturing industries as he was inclined.

'After our parents had removed to Hamilton, James took lodgings in

George Street, a regular students' resort when the old college was in

the High Street. It is now removed to the magnificent pile of buildings

at Gilmorehill, in the western district of the city. The site of the old

one in the High Street which James attended is now occupied by the

North British and Glasgow and South-Western Railway Companies.'

James Gilmour left England to begin his Mongolian life-work in February

1870, and then commenced keeping a diary, from which we shall often

quote, and which he carefully continued amid, oftentimes, circumstances

of the greatest difficulty until his death. He gives the following

reasons for this practice at the time when he was living in a Mongol

tent learning the language, hundreds of miles away from his nearest

fellow-worker:--

'I think it a special duty to my friends, specially my mother, to

keep this diary, and to be particular in adding my state of mind in

addition to my mere outward circumstances. In my present isolated

position, which may be more isolated soon, any accident might

happen at any moment, after which I could not send home a letter,

and I think that by keeping my diary punctually and fully my

friends might have the melancholy satisfaction of following me to

the grave, as it were, through my writing.'

In the record of his first outward voyage he included a sketch of his

early life, which we briefly reproduce here, as the correlative and

complement of the picture outlined by his brother:--

'The earliest that I can remember of my life is the portion that

was spent in Glasgow, before I came with my parents out to the

country. Of this time I have only a vague recollection. Then

followed a number of years not very eventful beyond the general lot

of the years of childhood. One circumstance of these years often

comes up to my mind. One Sabbath all were at church except the

servant, Aggie Leitch, and myself. She took down an old copy of

Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, with rude plates, and by the help

of the pictures was explaining the whole book to me. I had not

heard any of it before, and was deeply interested. We had just got

as far as the terrible doings of Giant Despair and the horrors of

Doubting Castle, when all at once, without warning, there came a

terrible knock at our front door. I really thought the giant was

upon us. It was some wayfaring man asking the way or something, but

the terror I felt has made an indelible impression on me.

'When of the approved age I went to school, wondering whether I

should ever be able to learn and do as others did. I was very

nervous and much afraid, and wrought so hard and was so ably

superintended by my mother that I made rapid progress, and was put

from one class to another with delightful rapidity. I was

dreadfully jealous of any one who was a good scholar like myself,

and to have any one above me in class annoyed me to such a degree

that I could not play cheerfully with him.

'The date of my going to college was, I think, the November of the

year 1862, so that my first session at Glasgow University was

1862-63. The classes I took were junior Latin and junior Greek. In

Latin I got about the twelfth prize, and in Greek I think the

third. The summer I spent partly in study, partly in helping my

father in his trade of a wright and joiner.

'During 1863 and 1864 I lived in Glasgow, and worked very hard,

taking the first prize in middle Greek and a prize in senior Latin,

as well as a prize for private work in Greek, and another for the

same kind of work in Latin. This last I was specially proud of, as

in it I beat the two best fellows in the Latin class. Next session

(1864-65) I took a prize in senior Greek. I got nothing in the

logic, but in moral philosophy in 1865 I was one of those who took

an active part in the rebellion against Dr. Fleming, who, though he

was entitled to the full retiring pension, preferred to remain on

as professor, taking the fees and appointing a student to do the

work. We made a stand against this, and were able to bring him out

to his work; but it was too much for him, and he died in harness,

as he had wished.

'In English literature I made no appearance in the pieces noted by

the students, but came out second in the competitive examination,

which of course astonished a good deal some of the noisy men who

had answered so much in the class and yet knew so little. I was

really proud of this prize, as I was sure it was honestly won, and

as I also felt that from my position in class I failed to get

credit for anything like what I knew. This session I went in for

the classical and philosophy parts of the degree, and got them. I

enjoyed a happy week after it was known that I had passed; and the

next thing I had to look forward to was going to the Theological

Hall of the Congregational Church of Scotland, which met in

Edinburgh in the beginning of May. The session at Edinburgh I

enjoyed very much. I had not too much work, and used at odd times

to take long walks and go long excursions. I was often on the

heights, and about Leith and Portobello.'

The Rev. John Paterson of Airdrie, N.B., Gilmour's most intimate college

friend at Glasgow, thus records his recollections of what he was in

those days:--

'I first made James Gilmour's acquaintance in the winter session of

1864-5 at Glasgow University. He came to college with the

reputation of being a good linguist. This reputation was soon

confirmed by distinction in his classes, especially in Latin and

Greek. Though his advantages had been superior to most of us, and

his mental calibre was of a high order, he was always humble,

utterly devoid of pride or vanity. No doubt he was firm as a rock

on any question of conviction, but he was tender in the extreme,

and full of sympathy with the struggling. He was such a strong man

all round that he could afford to give every one justice, and such

a gentleman that he could not but be considerate. One day a country

student through sheer nervousness missed a class question in the

Junior Humanity, though the answer was on his tongue: the answering

of such a question would have brought any man to the front, and

with a sad heart he told his experience to Gilmour, whose look of

sympathy is remembered to this day. He always seemed anxious to be

useful, and he succeeded. During our second session, a brother of

mine married a cousin of his, and this union led to a closer

intimacy between us, and in future sessions we lodged together.

'Throughout his college career Gilmour was a very hard-working

student; his patience, perseverance, and powers of application were

marvellous; and yet, as a rule, he was bright and cheerful, able in

a twinkling to throw off the cares of work, and enter with zest

into the topics of the day. He had a keen appreciation of the

humorous side of things, and his merry laugh did one good.

Altogether he was a delightful companion, and was held in universal

esteem. One of Gilmour's leading thoughts was unquestionably the

unspeakable value of time, and this intensified with years. There

was not a shred of indolence in his nature; it may be truthfully

said that he never wilfully lost an hour. Even when the college

work was uncongenial, he never scamped it, but mastered the

subject. He could not brook the idea of skimming a subject merely

to pass an examination, and there were few men of his time with

such wide and accurate knowledge.

'Unlike many of his fellows, he did not relax his energies in

summer. During the recess he might have been seen wending his way

from the old home at Cathkin to the college library, and returning

laden with books. His superior scholarship secured for him

excellent certificates and many prizes, both for summer and winter

work, and it was noticeable that he shone most in written

examinations. On one occasion, in the Moral Philosophy class, which

then suffered from the failing health of the professor, the teacher

_pro tem._ appended, as a criticism of an essay of Gilmour's on

Utilitarianism, the words, "Wants thoroughness." This was a problem

to the diligent student, who tackled his critic at the end of the

hour, and apparently had the best of the argument; for he told me

afterwards that he had puzzled the judge to explain his own

verdict. There was a strong vein of combativeness in him; he liked

to try his strength, both mentally and physically, with others; and

it was no child's play to wrestle with him in either sense, though

he never harboured ill-feeling. He had the advantage of being in

easy circumstances, but was severely economical, wasting nothing.

He had quite a horror of intoxicating drinks. On one occasion,

perhaps for reasons of hospitality, some beer had found its way

into our room: he quietly lifted the window and poured the

dangerous liquid on the street, saying, "Better on God's earth than

in His image."

'As the close of his career in Glasgow drew near, some of us could

see that all through he had been preparing for some great work on

which the whole ambition of his life was set. He always shrank

from speaking about himself, and in those days was not in the habit

of obtruding sacred things on his fellow-students. His views on

personal dealing then were changing, and became very decided in

after years. Earnest, honest, faithful to his convictions, as a

student he endeavoured to influence others for good more by the

silent eloquence of a holy life than by definite exhortations, and

I feel sure his power over some of us was all the greater on that

account. When it became known that Gilmour intended to be a foreign

missionary, there was not a little surprise expressed, especially

among rival fellow-students--men who had competed with him to their

cost. The moral effect of such a distinguished scholar giving his

life for Christ among the heathen was very great indeed. To me his

resolve to go abroad, though it induced a painful separation,

proved an unspeakable blessing. The reserve which had so long

prevailed between us on sacred things began to give way, and much

of our correspondence during his residence at Cheshunt College was

of a religious turn, though still more theological than practical.

'The last evening we spent together before he left for China can

never be forgotten. We parted on Bothwell Bridge. We had walked

from the village without speaking a word, burdened with the sorrow

of separation. As we shook hands, he said with intense earnestness,

"Paterson, let us keep close to Christ." He knew Him and loved Him

much better than I did then; but about nine years ago, after

hearing good news from me, he wrote to say that for twelve years he

had prayed for me every day, and now praised God for the answer.'

In the diary from which we have already quoted Gilmour thus concludes

the sketch of his education:--

'Near the close of the session of 1867 I opened negotiations with

the London Missionary Society, the consequence of which was that I

was removed to Cheshunt College in September of that same year.

Here (1867-1868) a new experience awaited me--resident college

life. At Glasgow we dined out, presented ourselves at classes only,

and did with ourselves whatever we liked in the interval. At

Cheshunt it was different. All the students live in the buildings

of the college, which can accommodate forty. Of course I felt a

little strange at first, and even long after had serious doubts as

to the settlement of the question, Which is better, life in or out

of college? The lectures, as a rule, were all in the forenoon.

'The summer vacation I spent in studying for the Soper scholarship,

value twenty pounds, which was to be bestowed after examination.

'I commenced the 1868 and 1869 session at Cheshunt, very busily,

and in addition to the class work and the Soper work, read some

books which gave almost a new turn to my mind and my ideas of

pastoral or missionary life. These books were James's _Earnest

Ministry_, Baxter's _Reformed Pastor_, and some of Bunyan's works,

which, through God's blessing, affected me very much for good.

'The Soper examination should have come off before Christmas, but

it did not, so that I remained over Christmas at Cheshunt, grinding

away as hard as I could. I was longing eagerly for the time when

the examination would be over, that I might the more earnestly

devote myself to the work of preaching and evangelising. Well, the

examination came and passed off satisfactorily, and I got the

twenty pounds.

'Now was the decisive point. Now had I come to another period,

when there was an opportunity of going on a new tack; but I found

myself tempted to seek after another honour, the first prize in

Cheshunt College. In my first session I had got the second only,

and now I had an opportunity of trying for the first. It was a

temptation indeed, but God triumphed. I looked back on my life, and

saw how often I had been tempted on from one thing to another,

after I had resolved that I would leave my time more free and at my

disposal for God, but always was I tempted on. So now I made a

stand, threw ambition to the winds, and set to reading my Bible in

good earnest. I made it my chief study during the last three months

of my residence at Cheshunt, and I look back upon that period of my

stay there as the most profitable I had.

'In September, 1869, I entered the missionary seminary at Highgate,

and also studied Chinese in London with Professor Summers. I went

home again at Christmas, and on returning to London learned that I

could go to China as soon as I liked. I said I would go as soon as

the necessary arrangements could be made, and February 22, 1870,

was fixed upon as the date of my departure.'

In this brief and rapid manner James Gilmour sketched, with not a few

most characteristic touches, the first twenty-six years of his life. He

enables us to see the quick, merry, receptive lad, developing, after a

brilliant collegiate course and a careful training in theology and in

practical Christian life, into the strong, resolute missionary. No one

who knew him during this time failed to perceive the force of his

character and the charm of his personality. The writer first came under

his influence during his second session at Cheshunt. He was then in the

prime of his early manhood, in the full possession of physical and

intellectual vigour, and his soul was aflame with love to the Saviour

and to the perishing heathen.

He retained, moreover, the love of fun, the high spirits, the keen

enjoyment of a good joke, and the constant readiness for an argument

upon any subject under the sun, which had endeared him to his comrades

in Glasgow. Every Cheshunt man of that day readily recalls, and rejoices

as he does so, the memory of his good-natured practical joking, of his

racy and pointed speeches upon all momentous 'house questions,' of his

power as a reciter, and of his glowing personal piety. To know him even

slightly was to respect him; and to enter at all into sympathy with him

was to love him as long as life lasted.

There are many reminiscences of those Cheshunt days, from which we can

cull only a sufficient number to enable the reader to understand what

manner of man he then was. These are drawn from the letters of his

fellow-students, and from their recollections of his sayings and doings.

'How well,' writes one, 'I remember his coming to Cheshunt! I was

acting-senior at the opening of that session, and, according to custom

with the new men, went to his room to shake hands with him. He said,

"Who are you?" I told him. "What do you want?" I told him I had come

according to custom to welcome him, and held out my hand, whereupon he

put his hands behind him and said, "Time eno' to shake hands when we've

quarrelled. But where do you live?" "Immediately over your head." "Then

look here," said he, "don't make a row;" and so we parted. Dear old

fellow! his memory makes life richer.'

Another writes: 'He was a good elocutionist. He was also a keen debater,

and so fond of argument that he would not hesitate to take opposite

ground to his own cherished convictions and beliefs, simply for the sake

of provoking discussion. So earnestly and logically (for he was a good

dialectician) would he carry on the discussion that it was difficult to

believe that he did not really hold the opinions for which he so

pertinaciously contended. Sometimes this habit of mind reacted very

amusingly upon himself, as the following will show. The subject fixed

one Friday evening for debate in the discussion class was, "Have animals

souls?" Though fully accepting the common belief that they have not,

Gilmour, purely for the sake of argument, took the affirmative, and with

such enthusiasm pleaded his cause that he brought himself to believe, as

he told me afterwards, that animals have souls.'

'At no time during his residence at Cheshunt could there have been any

doubt as to Gilmour's piety or consecration to the great work of his

future life; but during the second year it must have been manifest to

all who knew him intimately that there was a deepening and broadening of

his spiritual life. As I look back over the interval of years I can see

that it was then he began to reach the high-water mark in Christian life

and devotion which was so steadily maintained throughout his career in

China and Mongolia. An apostolic passion for the salvation of his

fellow-men took hold upon him. He would go out in the evening, mostly

alone, and conduct short open-air services at Flamstead End, among the

cottagers near Cheshunt railway station; seize opportunities of speaking

to labourers working by the roadside or in the field through which he

might be passing. He became very solicitous for the conversion of

friends in Scotland, and would come to my study and ask me to kneel

and pray with him that God's grace might be manifested to them, and that

His blessing might rest upon letters which he had written and was

sending to them. The ordinary style of preaching towards which students

usually aspire lost its attractions for him, and his sermons assumed

more and more the character of earnest exhortations, and addresses to

the unconverted. When he knew what was to be his field of labour after

his college course was over, how solicitous he was to go out fully

prepared and fitted in spiritual equipment! The needs of the perishing

heathen were very real and weighed heavily upon his heart, and he was

very anxious to win volunteers among his college friends for this

all-important work. How he longed and prayed for China's perishing

millions only his most intimate friends know.'

The Rev. H. R. Reynolds, D.D., for the past thirty years the honoured

President of Cheshunt College, has recalled some of his early

recollections of James Gilmour.

'Though brusque and outspoken in manner, he was in many respects

reserved and shy, and very slow to show or accept confidence. We all

felt, however, that underneath a canny demeanour there was burning a

very intense enthusiasm, and that a character of marked features was

already formed, and would only develop along certain lines, settled, but

not as yet fully disclosed to others.

There was not a particle of make-believe in his composition. He shrank

from praise, and was obviously anxious not to appear more reverential or

wise or devoted than he knew himself to be. He even used, because it was

natural to him, a rugged style of expression when speaking of things or

persons or institutions which for the most part uplift our diction and

generally induce us to adorn or make careful selection of our

vocabulary. He rapped out expressions which might have suggested

carelessness or irreverence or suppressed doubt, but I soon found that

there was an intense fire of evangelistic zeal and an almost stormy

enthusiasm for the conversion of souls to Christ.

'Some special services were held at Cheshunt Street Chapel, in which

Gilmour took part, and the part was at least as demonstrative, perhaps

more so, except the music, as that of the modern Salvation Army ensign

or commissioner. He started from the chapel entrance, on the Sunday

evening, when considerable numbers were as usual parading the country

street, and bare-headed approached every passer-by with some piquant,

vigorous inquiry, or message or warning. In the main, his bold summons

was, "Do you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?" The entire population in

the thoroughfare was stirred, and uncomplimentary jeers mingled with

some awe-struck impressions that were then produced.

'During the year 1869 he had those interviews with the late Mrs. Swan,

of Edinburgh, which led to his choice by the London Missionary Society,

at her instance, to reopen the long-suspended mission in Mongolia. For a

while he remained in Peking preparing himself by familiarity with the

people, their ideas, their language, and religion, for those almost

historic bursts into the great desert and across the caravan routes to

the huge fairs, and the renowned temples, to the living lamas and famous

shrines of the nomadic Mongols, incessantly acting the part of

travelling Hakim, itinerant book vendor, and fiery preacher of the

Gospel of Christ.'

In the year 1869 the policy of the London Missionary Society in the

education of its students was very different from that which now

obtains. After a course at a theological college of two, three, or four

years, according to the literary attainments of the man at the time of

his acceptance by the Directors, he was sent to the institution at

Highgate designed to give training suitable for the special requirements

of the embryo missionaries. In theory this institution was admirable; in

practice Gilmour and others, much as they esteemed the principal, the

Rev. J. Wardlaw, found it--or thought they found it--very largely a

waste of time. The year 1869 saw the beginning of an investigation which

ended in closing the missionary college at Highgate, and in the steps

that led to the enquiry Gilmour took a leading part. One of his

contemporaries at Highgate has thus described his influence upon both

his fellow-students and the institution to which they belonged.

'I first met Gilmour at Farquhar House, Highgate, the London Missionary

Society's Institution, where in those days missionary students spent

their last six months before going to the field. Some spent the time in

studying the elements of the language of the land to which they were

going; others attended University College Hospital, for the purpose of

getting a little medical knowledge; while all tried to make themselves

acquainted with the history of the people among whom they were to

labour. Courses of special missionary lectures, which were highly valued

by the men, were delivered by the Rev. J., afterwards Dr., Wardlaw.

'Some of us were at Highgate a day or two before Gilmour came up from

Scotland; and as his fame, or rather reports about him, had reached us

from Cheshunt College, we were all very anxious to meet with him. When

he did arrive we were, I think, all more or less disappointed, and yet I

doubt if any of us could have told why, except that he was not the man

we had pictured from the reports we had heard. When he walked quietly

into the library I, for one, could hardly believe that the almost

boyish-looking, open-faced, bright-eyed young man was really Gilmour.

His dress made him appear even more youthful than he was, while there

was an aspect of good humour about his face and a glance of his eye

revealing any amount of fun and frolic. A great writer has said: "Nature

has written a letter of credit on some men's faces, which is honoured

almost wherever presented." James Gilmour's was a face on which Nature

had written no ordinary letter of credit; for there was a sense in which

one might very truly have said that his "face was his fortune." Honesty,

good nature, and true manliness were so stamped upon every feature and

line of it, that you had only to see him to feel that he was one of

God's noblest works, and to be drawn to the man as by a magnetic

influence.

'Gilmour was a puzzle to most of our fellow-students, and they could not

quite make him out. By some he was: regarded as very eccentric, which is

another way of saying that he preserved a very marked individuality, and

always had the courage of his convictions. They did not seem to

understand how so much playfulness and piety, fervour and frolicsomeness

could dwell in the same person. Long before we parted, however, in

January, 1870, I feel certain that all had come to have not only a

profound respect, but also a real heart-love for "dear old Gillie"!

'The night before Gilmour left Highgate for the Christmas vacation we

were all in his study, when someone, remarking on the risk he was

running in going home to Scotland by sea, instead of by train, said in a

jocular way: "Suppose the steamer is wrecked and you get drowned, to

whom do you leave your books, Gilmour?" "Yes," he said at once, "that is

well thought of. Come along, you fellows, and pick out the books you

would like to keep in memory of me, if I never return." Of course we

only laughed and said it was all a joke; but he said, "It is no joke

with me, I mean what I say;" and so he did. He was in dead earnest, and

nothing would satisfy him but that each should pick out the book or

books he would like to have if he never returned. He then turned to me

and said: "Now, I leave the rest to your care, and if I never return I

want all on this shelf sent to my father and mother, and you can do

anything you like with the rest." Had anyone else acted in that way, we

should have certainly suspected that he had gone "_queer_"; but it was

Gilmour, and we all understood the straight, matter-of-fact way in which

he went about everything he did.

'Through a misunderstanding, as we afterwards discovered, the students

at Highgate came into collision with the Directors of the Society over

the studies to be prosecuted. Additional classes were arranged, and

these some of us declined to attend. This act of rebellion, as it was

regarded at the Mission House, had to be put down with a firm hand, and

a special meeting of the Board of Directors was called to deal with us.

'The night before we were to meet the Board we met in Gilmour's study,

to settle what we were to say to the Directors when we met them. One

only of our number, when he saw that there was likely to be a rather

serious interchange of ideas between us and the Directors, caved in

completely, and would have nothing further to do with our resistance.

'When we met the Board Gilmour made his defence in his frank,

straightforward way, and, I am afraid, upset some of the Directors very

much by his plain speaking. They did not know the man, and regarded him

as one of the ringleaders in rebellion, and, of course, were not in the

humour to do him justice. But when we met the subcommittee appointed to

deal with us the misunderstanding came to an end, and they admitted that

we had been in the right in objecting to the extra classes thus

imposed.'

During these last months in England James Gilmour paid much earnest heed

to the culture of his soul. Just before he sailed for China, he set

forth his inner experience and his keen sense of the difficulties of the

course upon which he was embarking in the following letter to a Cheshunt

friend:--

'Companions I can scarcely hope to meet, and the feeling of being

_alone_ comes over me till I think of Christ and His blessed

promise, "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world."

No one who does not go away, leaving all and going alone, can feel

the force of this promise; and when I begin to feel my heart

threatening to go down, I betake myself to this companionship, and,

thank God, I have felt the blessedness of this promise rushing over

me repeatedly when I knelt down and spoke to Jesus as a present

companion, from whom I am sure to find sympathy. I have felt a

tingle of delight thrilling over me as I felt His presence, and

thought that wherever I may go He is still with me. I have once or

twice lately felt a melting sweetness in the name of Jesus as I

spoke to Him and told Him my trouble. Yes, and the trouble went

away, and I arose all right. Is it not blessed of Christ to care so

much for us poor feeble men, so sinful and so careless about

honouring Him? the moment we come to Him He is ready with His

consolations for us!

'I have been thinking lately over some of the inducements we have

to live for Christ, and to confess Him and preach Him before men,

not conferring with flesh and blood. Why should we be trammelled by

the opinions and customs of men? Why should we care what men say of

us? Salvation and damnation are _realities_, Christ is a reality,

_Eternity_ is a reality, and we shall soon be there in reality, and

time shall soon be finished; and from our stand in eternity we

shall look back on what we did in time, and what shall we think of

it? Shall we be able to understand why we were afraid to speak to

this man or that woman about salvation? Shall we be able to

understand how we were ashamed to do what we knew was a Christian

duty before one whom we knew to be a mocker at religion? Our

cowardice shall seem small to us then. Let us now measure our

actions by the standard of that scene, let us now look upon the

things of time in the light of eternity, and we shall see them

better as they are, and live more as we shall wish then we had

done. It is not too late. We can secure yet what remains of our

life. The present still is ours. Let us use it. It may be that we

can't be great, let us be good; if we can't shine as great lights,

let us make our light shine as God has made it to shine. Let us

live lives as in the presence of Christ, anxious for His approval,

and glad to take the condemnation of the world, and of Christ's

professed servants even, if we get the commendation of angels and

our Master. The "well done!" is to the faithful servant--to the

_faithful_, not the great. Let us watch and pray that we may be

faithful. It is a little hard to be this, and to care little for

man.

'Yesterday afternoon I preached here at home, and took the most

earnest sermon I had, "_Behold, I stand at the door and knock_."

Well, in doing so, I thought I was acting quite independently of

man; and even after I had preached it, thought I would not care for

man. But one man praised it, and I felt pleased, and, as might then

be expected, felt a little hurt when a friend called this morning

and told me that what I gave them yesterday was _no sermon at all_.

Now, if I had been regarding Christ alone, I would not have been

moved by either the one or the other of these criticisms; and I

wish that I could get above this sort of thing, and get beyond the

attempt at pleasing men at all. Why should we confer with men?'

James Gilmour was ordained as a missionary to Mongolia in Augustine

Chapel, Edinburgh, on February 10, 1870, and, in accordance with

Nonconformist custom, he made a statement about the development of his

religious life from which we take the following extract:--

'My conversion took place after I had begun to attend the Arts

course in the University of Glasgow. I had gone to college with no

definite aim as to preparing for a profession; an opportunity was

offered me of attending classes, and I embraced it gladly,

confident that whatever training or knowledge I might there acquire

would prove serviceable to me afterwards in some way or other.

'After I became satisfied that I had found the "way of life," I

decided to tell others of that way, and felt that I lay under

responsibility to do what I could to extend Christ's kingdom. Among

other plans of usefulness that suggested themselves to me was that

of entering the ministry. But, in my opinion, there were two things

that everyone who sought the office of the ministry should have,

viz., an experimental knowledge of the truth which it is the work

of the minister to preach, and a good education to help him to do

it; the former I believed I had, the latter I hoped to obtain. So I

quietly pursued the college course till I entered on the last

session, when, after prayerful consideration and mature

deliberation, I thought it my duty to offer myself as a candidate

for the ministry.

'Having decided as to the capacity in which I should labour in

Christ's kingdom, the next thing which occupied my serious

attention was the _locality_ where I should labour. Occasionally

before I had thought of the relative claims of the home and foreign

fields, but during the summer, session in Edinburgh I thought the

matter out, and decided for the mission field; even on the low

ground of common sense I seemed to be called to be a missionary. Is

the kingdom a harvest field? Then I thought it reasonable that I

should seek to work where the work was most abundant and the

workers fewest. Labourers say they are overtaxed at home; what then

must be the case abroad, where there are wide stretching plains

already white to harvest, with scarcely here and there a solitary

reaper? To me the soul of an Indian seemed as precious as the soul

of an Englishman, and the Gospel as much for the Chinese as for the

European; and as the band of missionaries was few compared with the

company of home ministers, it seemed to me clearly to be my duty to

go abroad.

'But I go out as a missionary not that I may follow the dictates of

common sense, but that I may obey that command of Christ, "_Go into

all the world and preach_." He who said "_preach_," said also, "Go

ye into and _preach_," and what Christ hath joined together let not

man put asunder.

'This command seems to me to be strictly a missionary injunction,

and, as far as I can see, those to whom it was first delivered

regarded it in that light, so that, apart altogether from choice

and other lower reasons, my going forth is a matter of obedience to

a plain command; and in place of seeking to assign a reason for

going abroad, I would prefer to say that I have failed to discover

any reason why I should stay at home.'

On February 22, 1870, James Gilmour embarked at Liverpool upon the

steamship Diomed, and thus fairly started on the work of his life. Among

his extant correspondence is a long letter which describes the voyage to

China, and the way in which he utilised the opportunities it afforded

for trying to do his Master's will.

'We sailed from Liverpool, and my father saw me off. The passengers

were few--nine or ten. We had a cabin each. There was a Wesleyan

medical missionary named Hardey going out to Hankow. We soon drew

together. The doctor of the ship was a young fellow from Greenock,

and had been at Glasgow College when I was there last. Among the

1,200 we had not stumbled upon each other. The married man was

something or other in the Consular service. A young lady passenger

was the daughter of a judge in China. A young man was going out to

try his fortune in China: his qualifications were some knowledge of

tea and a love of drink. Another decent young fellow was going out

to China as a tea-taster. Another young fellow was going out to

Australia _vi‚_ Singapore. Thus, you see, I was the only parson on

board; and as the ship's company was High Church, and I a

Dissenter, it may be seen that we did not fit each other exactly.

Some of the passengers were so High Church that one of them told me

he thought we Dissenters were sunk more deeply in error than the

Papists.

'The captain was a sensible kind of rough seaman, and I at once

volunteered my services as chaplain, and was accepted, though with

some caution. He evidently thought me too young to be trusted with

a sermon; the Church of England prayers I might read, and he put

into my hands a book with a sermon for any Sunday and holy-day in

the year. I took the book and said I would look through it. The Bay

of Biscay was calm when we crossed it, but on Sunday morning we

were tumbling about off the Rock of Lisbon. As I could hardly keep

my legs, I did not think we should have had service; but we crowded

into the smoking-saloon (we were afraid to venture below, for

sickness), and I read prayers. Next Sunday I read a sermon from the

book. All the Sundays after that I gave them my own, and, as I was

under the impression that they had not heard much plain preaching,

did my best to let them hear the gospel pure and simple. I half

suspected they did not quite like it. It was hinted to me that they

complained of my preaching. The next Sunday came, and, under the

impression it might be the last time I would have the opportunity,

I made the most earnest and direct appeal to them I possibly could.

I was not a little thankful and astonished when, soon after, in

place of being asked to shut up, I was thanked for it, and assured

it was the best I had given them, and told that it was a waste of,

&c., &c., for me to go out as a missionary--I should have stopped

at home. After that I had no trouble with the passengers, and we

got on well together.

'As for the men, from captain to cabin-boy there were about sixty.

Among these was one earnest Christian man, a German and a Baptist.

He was a quarter-master. He was a little peculiar in appearance,

and spoke English not quite smoothly. On one occasion, when some of

the passengers were laughing at something he had done and said, the

captain happened to pass, and, seeing what was up, remarked that

the man was a first-rate fellow--he never caught him idle. If you

except this man, the captain, and the boy, the whole ship's

company swore like troopers. So universal was the vice that the

men, I almost think, were hardly aware that they did swear. I was

puzzled. Sometimes when I went out in the morning I would hear a

volley of oaths coming from the mouth of a man who had been talking

quite seriously with me over-night.

Few of the men came to the service, and as they would not come to

us we went to them. Hardey and I, usually in the evenings,

conducted short little services in the forecastle as often as we

thought desirable. We were always well received and listened to

respectfully. I think I may say safely that all on board had

repeated opportunities of hearing the gospel as plainly as I could

put it, and a good many had something more than mere opportunities.

After it was dark I used to go out and get the men one by one, as

they sat in corners during their watch in the night. All they had

to do was to be within call when wanted, and many a good long talk

I have had with a good many of them. Of course, my object in

accosting them was religious conversation, and this I usually

succeeded in having; but on many occasions, that we might be quite

on a footing of equality, I had in return to listen to their yarns.

The man on the look-out was a frequent victim. I was always sure to

find a man there, generally alone, and never asleep. The man, also,

was changed at regular intervals, so that I knew exactly when I

would find a fresh man. When I talked to the look-out man, I used

to keep a sharp lookout myself, lest by distracting his attention I

should get him into trouble. Many a good hour have I stood at the

prow as we passed through the warm Indian Ocean, till my clothes

were wet with the dew of night; and then I would find my way down

to my cabin about midnight, with my head so full of the

ghost-stories I had just heard that I was really afraid I might

meet a real ghost coming out of my cabin.'

CHAPTER II

BEGINNING WORK

In 1817 two missionaries, the Rev. E. Stallybrass and the Rev. W. Swan,

left England to begin Christian work among the Buriats, a Mongolian

tribe living under Russian authority. At Selenginsk and at Onagen Dome

they laboured for many years; but in 1841 the Russian Emperor ordered

them to leave the country. From the command of the autocrat there was no

appeal, and the mission came to an end. But in the good providence of

God the two missionaries had translated the whole Bible into Buriat; the

Old Testament being printed in Siberia in 1840, the New Testament in

London in 1846. Notwithstanding the suppression of the mission, the Word

of God in the Mongol tongue continued to circulate among the people.

It was to the reopening and development of this missionary work among

the Mongol tribes that James Gilmour consecrated his life. He was

appointed, in the first instance, to the London Mission at Peking, and

that centre formed his first base of operations. He continued also a

member of that mission until the close of his life. He reached the

Chinese capital on May 18, 1870. At once he settled down to hard and

continuous work at the Chinese language, endeavouring also from the

first to discover the best means of restarting the Mongol Mission. The

very full diary which he kept lies before us as we write, and enables us

to understand the varying progress and hindrance, encouragement and

despondency of this time.

'_June 11, 1870._--Mr. Gulick advises me to pay little attention to

the Chinese and go in hot and strong for the Mongolian. I am not

quite sure that he is not right, after all. However, I mean to

stick into the Chinese yet for a time to come with my teacher and

to mix among the people as much as I can. I went out to-night and

with the gate-keeper and two of his companions had a lot of talk,

in which I learned a good lot. I hope to benefit largely by this

pleasant mode of study. Perhaps by this means I may be able to do

them good. Lord grant it!'

'_June 12, 1870._--I am to-day twenty-seven years of age, and what

have I done? Let the time that is past suffice to have wrought the

will of the flesh. The prospect I have before me now is the most

inspiriting one any man can have. Health, strength, as much

conscious ability as makes one hope to be able to get the language

of the people to whom I am sent, a new field of work among men who

are decidedly religious and simple-minded, left pretty much to my

own ideas as to what is best to be done in the attempted

evangelization of Mongolia, friends left in Britain behind me

praying for me, comfort and peace here in the prosecution of my

present studies, the idea that what I do is for eternity, and that

this life is but the short prelude to an eternal state, the thought

that after death there shall break on my view a thousand truths

that now I long in vain to know--these thoughts and many others

make my present life happy, and in a manner careless as to what

should come. In time may I be able to do my part as I ought, and

may God have great mercy upon me!'

On June 22, 1870, the news of the Tientsin massacre reached Peking. A

Roman Catholic convent had been destroyed and thirteen French people

killed. Very great uncertainty prevailed as to whether this indicated a

further purpose of attacking all missions and all foreigners, and for a

while things looked very dark. It was a time in which the nerve and

courage and faith of men were severely tried, and splendidly did Gilmour

endure the test. While unable to escape wholly from the fears common to

all, his reply to the counsels of worldly prudence and selfish dread was

advance in his work. When others were wondering whether they might not

have to retreat, he, alone, in almost total ignorance of the language,

entirely unfamiliar with the country, went up to the great Mongolian

plain, and entered upon the service so close to his heart--personal

intercourse with and effort for the Mongols.

How trying a season this was his diary reveals. Under date of June 23,

1870, the day after the first tidings of the outbreak had been received,

he writes:--

'The Roman Catholic missionaries have suffered severely, and the

Protestant missionaries are not in a very safe condition. We are

living on the slope of a volcano that may put forth its slumbering

rage at any moment. For example, people ask why there is no rain,

and blame the foreigners for it; and should a famine ensue, we may

fare hard for it. Now is the time for trying what stuff a man's

religion is made of. We may be all dead men directly; are we afraid

to die? Our death might further the cause of Christ more than our

life could do. We must die some time or other; now that we have a

near view of its possibility, how can we look forward to it? God!

do Thou make my faith firm and bright, so that death may seem

small and not to be feared. Help me to trust Thee and Christ

implicitly, so that with calm mind I may work while Thou dost let

me live, and when Thou dost call me home, let me come gladly.'

The further entries in his Diary at this time depict his inner

experience from day to day:--

'_July 10._--Rose 6.20. Dull morning, rained a little. Felt

uncomfortable at the idea of being killed; felt troubled at the

idea of leaving Peking. How am I to pack and carry my goods? Felt

troubled at remaining in the midst of a troubled city, with a

government weak and stupid. How is my mission to get on beginning

thus? O God, let me cast all my care upon Thee, and commit my soul

also to Thy safe keeping. Keep me, O God, in perfect peace! Rain

made a thin meeting this morning, but all was quiet. In afternoon

went with Mr. Edkins to the west; things uncommonly quiet and

peaceful.

'_July 12._--While others are writing to papers and trying to stir

up the feelings of the people, so that they may take action in the

matter, perhaps I may be able to do some good moving Heaven. My

creed leads me to think that prayer is efficacious, and surely a

day's asking God to overrule all these events for good is not lost.

Still, there is a great feeling that when a man is praying he is

doing nothing, and this feeling, I am sure, makes us give undue

importance to work, sometimes even to the hurrying over or even to

the neglect of prayer.

'_July 22._--A good deal troubled about the present state of

matters. I don't exactly know how to estimate rumours and reports,

and this may cause me more uneasiness than there is any need for.

Still, I don't know. At times I feel a great revulsion from being

killed, at other times I feel as if I could be killed quietly, and

not dislike the thing much. Sometimes the tone of those about us is

hopeful, and that causes hope also. Sometimes the prospect of a

speedy removal, a half flight, comes upon me with great force, and

to see all its annoyance, not to speak of the danger, is not

pleasant at all. Oh for the simple, childlike faith that can trust

all things to God and leave all care upon Him! Ought we not to have

it? Is God not the same God now that He was when He delivered His

people from Egypt, and His saints from the hands of their enemies,

from the mouth of the lions, and the fiery furnace? Cannot God keep

us yet--will He not do it? But then comes the thought, perhaps God

does not wish us to live, but to die. Often has He allowed His

saints to be slain. What then? Well, as the men in the furnace said

of God, "Will He care to defend us? if not, be it known unto you we

will not yield." I might have died in childhood, in youth, before

conversion, and if then, alas! alas! I can remember the time when

the pains of hell got such a terrible hold upon me that I would

have gladly changed places in the world with anyone who had the

hope of salvation. Death, life, prospects, honour, shame, seemed

nothing compared with this hope of salvation, which I was then

without. "Could I ever be saved?" was the question; "would I ever

have the hope that I knew others had?" Had I died in darkness--God

be thanked, the light has shined forth, and I have the hope of

eternal life. May God make me more Christlike, and give me stronger

hope! Well, then, this hope I have; from this fearful pit I have

been delivered; in the light I now walk. God I call my Father,

Christ my Saviour, heaven my home, earth and the life here the

entrance to real life. If there is anything in our faith or in our

belief, then heaven is as much better than earth as it is higher

than earth, and our souls life is insured from all harm. If a man

is insured against all possible harm, why should he be afraid? Not

one hair of our head shall perish! O Lord, help me to live this

faith and to be in this frame of mind. In this city are many

foreigners, who came here to learn the language, &c., and many of

them have no great hope of heaven. They seem calm enough, and are

no doubt calm enough; shall the courage of the world, shall the

courage of scepticism, shall the courage of carelessness be greater

and produce better fruit than the courage of the Christian? O Lord,

preserve me from the sin of dishonouring Thy name through fear and

cowardice! Let us be bold in the Lord!'

By the end of July 1870, Gilmour had reached a fixed resolution to go to

Mongolia as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made. A severe

test had been applied to him, and the way in which he met it gives the

key to the whole of his after life. He used the trial as a help onwards

in the path of duty, and the chain of events which would have led many

men to postpone indefinitely the beginning of a new and hard work only

drove him the more eagerly into new fields. The reasons that influenced

him are set forth in his official report written many months later.

'After the massacre at Tientsin, very grave fears prevailed at

Peking; no one could tell how far the ramifications of the plot

might extend, and it was impossible to sift the matter. The people

openly talked of an extermination, and claimed to have the tacit

favour of the Government in this; nay more, the Government itself

issued ambiguous, if not insinuating, proclamations, which fomented

the excitement of the populace to such an extent that the days were

fixed for the "Clearing of Peking." The mob was thoroughly quieted

on the first of the days fixed by a twenty hours' pour of

tremendous rain, which converted Peking into a muddy, boatless

Venice, and kept the people safely at home in their helpless felt

shoes, as securely as if their feet had been put into the stocks.

This was Friday. Tuesday was the reserve day; Saturday and Sabbath

one felt the tide of excitement rising, and on Monday morning the

Peking Gazette came out with an Imperial edict that at once allayed

the excitement, and assured us that there was no danger for the

present.

'We had then to draw breath and look about us calmly, and the

general conclusion that the "Old Pekingers" came to was that the

French would be compelled to resort to force of arms to gain

redress. The attitude of the Chinese people and Government made

them think so, and so they determined to wait on quietly in Peking

till things should get thick, and then it would be time to go

south. I think I may safely say that everyone drew out an inventory

of his things, and not a few had their most necessary things packed

"on the sly," and were ready to start on short notice.

'Up to this point I stood quietly aside; but now was my time to

reason, and on the data they supplied I reasoned thus: "If I go

south, no Mongol can be prevailed on to go with me, and so I am

shut out from my work, and that for an indefinite time. If I can

get away north, then I can go on with the language, and perhaps

come down after the smoke clears away, knowing Mongolian, and

having lost no time." I felt a great aversion to travelling so far

alone, and with such imperfect knowledge of the language, but as I

thought it over from day to day I was more and more convinced that

to run the risk of having to go south would be to prove unfaithful

to duty, and so I conferred no longer with likings or dislikings,

resolved to go should an opportunity offer, and in the meantime

worked away at Chinese.

'By-and-by a Russian merchant turned up; he was going to Kiachta,

so I started with him. I could not go sooner, as it was not safe to

travel in the country before the Imperial edict was issued; to wait

longer was to run the risk of not going at all.'

[Illustration: MAP ILLUSTRATING JAMES GILMOUR'S JOURNEYS ON THE GREAT

PLAIN OF MONGOLIA]

CHAPTER III

MONGOLIAN APPRENTICESHIP

The name Mongolia denotes a vast and almost unknown territory situated

between China Proper and Siberia, constituting the largest dependency of

the Chinese Empire. It stretches from the Sea of Japan on the east to

Turkestan on the west, a distance of nearly 3,000 miles; and from the

southern boundary of Asiatic Russia to the Great Wall of China, a

distance of about 900 miles. It consists of high tablelands, lifted up

considerably above the level of Northern China, and is approached only

through rugged mountain passes. The central portion of this enormous

area is called the Desert of Gobi.

A kind of highway for the considerable commercial traffic between China

and Russia runs through the eastern central part of Mongolia, leaving

China at the frontier town of Kalgan, and touching Russia at the

frontier town of Kiachta. Along this route during all but the winter

months, caravans of camel-carts and ox-carts attended by companies of

Mongols and Chinese are constantly passing. The staple export from China

is tea; the chief imports are salt, soda, hides, and timber.

The west and the centre of Mongolia is occupied by nomad Mongols. They

have clusters of huts and tents in fixed locations which form their

winter dwellings. But in summer they journey over the great plains in

search of the best pasturage for their flocks and herds. They are

consequently exceedingly difficult to reach by any other method than

that of sharing their roving tent life. In the southeastern district of

Mongolia there are large numbers of agricultural Mongols who speak both

Chinese and Mongolian. The towns in this part are almost wholly

inhabited by Chinese.

The winter in Mongolia is both long and severe; in the summer the heat

is often very oppressive, and the great Plain is subject to severe

storms of dust, rain and wind.

Buddhism is all-powerful, and the larger half of the male population are

lamas or Buddhist priests. 'Meet a Mongol on the road, and the

probability is that he is saying his prayers and counting his beads as

he rides along. Ask him where he is going, and on what errand, as the

custom is, and likely he will tell you he is going to some shrine to

worship. Follow him to the temple, and there you will find him one of a

company with dust-marked forehead, moving lips, and the never absent

beads, going the rounds of the sacred place, prostrating himself at

every shrine, bowing before every idol, and striking pious attitudes at

every new object of reverence that meets his eye. Go to Mongolia itself,

and probably one of the first great sights that meet your eye will be a

temple of imposing grandeur, resplendent from afar in colours and gold.'

'The Mongol's religion marks out for him certain seemingly indifferent

actions as good or bad, meritorious or sinful. There is scarcely one

single step in life, however insignificant, which he can take without

first consulting his religion through his priest. Not only does his

religion insist on moulding his soul, and colouring his whole spiritual

existence, but it determines for him the colour and cut of his coat. It

would be difficult to find another instance in which any religion has

grasped a country so universally and completely as Buddhism has

Mongolia.'[1]

[1] _Among the Mongols_, p. 211.

It was to the herculean task of attempting single-handed to evangelise a

region and a people like this that James Gilmour addressed himself. His

early journeys are fully set forth in _Among the Mongols_, and we do not

propose to repeat them here. Our object rather is to depict, so far as

possible, the inner life of James Gilmour, and the real nature of the

work he accomplished. He left Peking on August 5, and reached Kalgan

four days later. On August 27 he started for his first trip across the

great plain of Mongolia to Kiachta. A Russian postmaster was to be his

companion, but, to avoid travelling on Sunday, Gilmour started a day

ahead, and then waited for the Russian to come up. Here is his first

view of scenes he was so often in later life to visit.

'_Sabbath, August 28._--Awoke about 5 A.M. just as it was drawing

towards light, and saw that we were right out into the Plain.

'I am writing up my diary, with a lot of people looking into my

cart. I have just given them a Mongol Catechism, and I hope it may

do them good. God, do Thou bless it to them! Would I could speak to

them, but I cannot. I am glad to be saved the trouble of travelling

to-day. My mind feels at rest for the present. I am looking about

me, and having my first look at the life I am likely to lead.

There are several more Mongol dwellings within sight, plenty of

camels, horses, and oxen. The Mongols have a tent of their own, and

the "commandant's" tent has also been put up. A Mongol has just

come up and changed his dress, his cloak serving him as a tent

meantime. I am hesitating whether to try to read in my cart or go

off a little way with my plaid and umbrella.

'Had not a very intellectual or spiritual day after all. Went in

the afternoon away to the east. Had a good view and a time of

devotion at a cairn from which an eagle rose as I approached.

Returned to the camp and bought milk and some cheese. Intended to

make porridge, but the fire was not good on account of the blowing,

so I drank off my milk, ate some bread, and went to sleep.'

The journey across the desert, including a visit to Urga, occupied a

month. It was full of intense interest for the traveller, and many of

the most abiding impressions of his life and work were then received.

His diary reveals the deep yearnings of his heart for the salvation of

the Mongols. Under the date September 11, 1870, he writes:--

'Astir by daybreak. Camels watering; made porridge and tea. This is

the Lord's day; help me, O Lord, to be in the spirit, and to be

glad and rejoice in the day which Thou hast made! Several huts in

sight. When shall I be able to speak to the people? O Lord, suggest

by the Spirit how I should come among them, and guide me in gaining

the language, and in preparing myself to teach the life and love of

Christ Jesus! Oh, let me live for Christ, and feel day by day the

blessedness of a will given up to God, and the happiness of a life

which has its every circumstance working for my good!'

His constant rule was to rest from all journeying, so far as

possible, on the Sabbath. After another week's experience, on

September 18 he thus records his impressions:--

'Encamped just over the plain we saw at sunset last night. We are

some distance from the real exit, but not far. This is the Lord's

day; God help me to be in the spirit notwithstanding all

distractions. Oh that God would give me more of His Spirit, more of

His felt Presence, more of the spirit and power of prayer, that I

may bring down blessings on this poor people of Mongolia! As I look

at them and their huts I ask again and again how am I to go among

them; in comfort and in a waggon, with all my things about me; or

in poverty, reducing myself to their level? If I go among them

rich, they will be continually begging, and perhaps regard me more

as a source of gifts than anything else. If I go with nothing but

the Gospel, there will be nothing to distract their attention from

the unspeakable gift.

'8.15 A.M.-3.15 P.M. Good long walk. Met camels and came upon a

cart encampment, estimated at one hundred and seventy. Know where I

am on the map. There is a camel encampment where we are. Two huts

from which comes fuel. Read to-day in II Chronicles xvi. God never

failed those who trusted in Him and appealed to Him. God was

displeased with the King of Judah because, after the deliverance

from the Lubims, Ethiopians, &c., he trusted to the arm of flesh to

deliver him from the Syrians. Do we not in our day rest too much on

the arm of flesh? Cannot the same wonders be done now as of old? Do

not the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth,

still to show Himself strong on behalf of those who put their trust

in Him? Oh that God would give me more practical faith in Him!

Where is now the Lord God of Elijah? He is waiting for Elijah to

call on Him. God give me some of Elijah's spirit, and let my power

be of God, and my hope from Him for the conversion of this people.

'It is nothing to the Lord to save by many or by them that have no

power. Help me, O God, for I rest on Thee, and in Thy name I go

against this multitude!'

Kiachta, on the southern frontier of Siberia, was reached September 28,

1870, and there Gilmour was at once plunged into a series of troubles.

The Russian and Chinese authorities would not recognise his passport,

and he had to wait months before another could be obtained from Peking.

He found absolutely no sympathy in his work. He knew next to nothing of

the Mongol language. Yet with robust faith, with whole-hearted courage,

with a resolution that nothing could daunt, he set to work. A Scotch

trader, named Grant, was kind to him, and found accommodation for him at

his house. At first he tried the orthodox plan of getting a Mongol

teacher to visit and instruct him. Before he secured one he used to

visit such Mongols as he found in the neighbourhood, trying to acquire a

vocabulary from them, asking the names of the articles they were using,

their actions, and all such other matters as he could make them

understand. But his loneliness, his ignorance of the language, the

inaction to which he was condemned, partly by his difficulty in getting

a suitable teacher, and partly by the uncertainty as to whether the

authorities would allow him to remain, told upon his eager spirit as

week after week passed by, and he became subject to fits of severe

depression. Here is a picture of one of these early days. He had been

trying to talk with a Buriat carpenter, in a place called Kudara, not

far from Kiachta:--

'After getting my quota of words I walked through the town. The

main object in it is the church, a large whitewashed structure

built by Mr. Grant's father-in-law when he was a rich man. He was

made poor, comparatively speaking, in one night by a great fire

which burnt up all before it. In addition to the church are some

streets of Cossack houses, desolate enough looking, the streets

desolate enough at best, but rendered much more so this morning by

the snow melting in the sun, which is still high, and manages to

thaw away all the snow that falls in places where it shines, though

it was frost all day in the shade. Passing the town I made for the

river, which rolled on quiet and cold. Passed through large

orchards of apple(?) trees; doubled about, went to the extreme

west, got on a hill, and came round home again in time for dinner

at 4 P.M. I felt very lonely, and not having a teacher I am thrown

idle, as it were, a great part of the day after I get my words. It

is true I am taking notice of all I see, but it always occurs to me

that this is not furthering the Mongolian Mission in any direct

way. I often think of what Dr. Alexander said in his charge at my

ordination: "_You do not go to discover new countries._" Would I

had a teacher, that the language might go on full swing! To-day I

felt a good deal like Elijah in the wilderness, when the reaction

came on after his slaughter of the priests of Baal. He prayed that

he might die. I wonder if I am telling the truth when I say that I

felt drawn towards suicide. I take this opportunity of declaring

strongly that on all occasions two missionaries should go together.

I was not of this opinion a few weeks ago, but I had no idea how

weak an individual I am. My eyes have filled with tears frequently

these last few days in spite of myself, and I do not wonder in the

least that Grant's brother shot himself. _Oh! the intense

loneliness of Christ's life_, not a single one understood Him! He

bore it. O Jesus, let me follow in Thy steps, and have in me the

same Spirit that Thou hadst!

'Read papers in the evening (Oct 5). So Jones of Singrauli is dead!

I heard him in Exeter Hall, May, a year or two ago, and heard a

good deal of him through Dr. Evans, of Chestnut College. I am

persuaded he was a missionary among a thousand. When he returned to

his station he found that during his absence matters had got out of

order a good deal, and he set about putting them right. Now he is

dead! How prodigal God seems of His workers--Hartley, Jones, both A

1, both gone. God's ways are not ours. We would have preserved

these two at all risk and expense, but God _takes_ them away, and

it seems to us as if He were hurting His own cause. God knows best,

but to _us_ it is a great mystery.'

Two days later he received a letter telling him of the death of a

brilliant young Glasgow student, and he enters in his diary comments

which received only too complete an illustration in his own subsequent

career:--

'Another splendid student going from college to the grave. This is

a thing of common occurrence with reference to Glasgow College,

and, if I am not mistaken, I have seen it somewhere publicly

commented on. Men, poor it may be, strive through college with a

mind and determination beyond their circumstances and bodily

strength, fight a great battle with poverty and more clever

students, resolute to take the first place if possible, and just as

the college is finished with them, and sending them forth to the

field of life decorated with all the honours it can bestow, the

fond Alma Mater has to keep on mourning and drop her tear over an

early grave.

'Are the young men to blame? Who can be restrained by the

cold-blooded calculation of preserving health? "There is my

opponent, I'll thrash him if I can; better to toil out my

life-blood drop by drop than let it mount to my cheek as a mantle

of shame when I find myself defeated when I might have been

victorious." Then they conscientiously work themselves to death. If

they did not work as hard as they do, and refrain from recreation

as they do, they would have in their breasts the uneasy feeling

that they have not done as much as they might have done; and what

noble nature can be content to live under that accusation written

against them by the supreme court in their own breasts?

'Several times I have resolved to refrain for health's sake, but in

a short time found such an uneasy feeling about not doing as much

as I might, that I had to give it up and go at it. I _never_ feel

that I have done as much as I might, and when I am doing most I

feel best.'

Very dissatisfied with his progress, and stung one day by a remark of

Grant's to the effect that he did not seem to speak Mongolian readily,

Gilmour changed his plans. He resolved to go out upon the Plain, and

persuade some Mongol to allow him to share his tent. On December 13,

1870, he left Kiachta and journeyed out into Mongolia to the first

cluster of tents, named Olau Bourgass. There he found a friendly Mongol.

'Grant's contractor. Found him at his prayers. He motioned me to sit

down, and when his devotions were finished he gave me a warm welcome. He

lives alone in his tent, having nothing to care for but the horses for

the courier service, and a couple of lamas[2] to attend to his wants,

one of whom goes with the letters when they come. We talked, and I

learned a great deal, when at last I broke my mind to him, and was glad

to find that he received it favourably. I settled to remain there during

the night. Nothing very remarkable happened except that we were invaded

by a great blustering lama, intoxicated. He came ramping into the tent

as if he would have knocked everything down. After a time he went away

and lodged in the next hut. I went to bed about ten and slept well,

though my feet were cold towards morning.'

[2] A lama is a priest of the lama section of Buddists. More than half

the population of Mongolia are lamas.

The next three months were passed mainly in this tent. Gilmour used,

whenever possible, to return to Kiachta to spend the Sunday at Grant's

house; but by enduring the hardships and suffering all the

inconveniences of ordinary Mongol life he rapidly acquired the

colloquial, and he also made an indelible impression upon the minds and

hearts of the natives, who ever afterwards spoke of him as 'Our

Gilmour.' He saw Mongol life as it was, free from all the illusion and

romance sometimes thrown around it. He became intimately acquainted with

the various Mongol types, and he began to enter into the native habits

of thought. His diary contains many a scene like the following:--

'I gave the lama a book on Saturday, and when I came back on

Tuesday I found he had read it through twice. He set upon me with

questions, getting me to admit premises, and then reasoned from

them. Christ being at the right hand of God was a great point with

him. If God has no form, how can anyone be at His right hand? Then,

again, if God is everywhere, Christ is everywhere right and left of

God, and how can that be?

'The omnipresence was a staggerer. Was God in that pot, in the

tent, in his boot? Did he tread upon God? Then was God inside the

kettle? Did the hot tea not scald Him? Again, if God was inside the

kettle, the kettle was living! And so he held it up to the laughing

circle as a new species of animal. I asked him if a fly were inside

the kettle, would the kettle be alive? "No," he said; "but a fly

does not fill the space as God must do." "Well, then," said I, "is

my coat alive because I fill it?" This settled the question.'

In March 1871 he visited Selenginsk and Onagen Dome, the scene of the

labours of Stallybrass and Swan from 1817 to 1841, and then he took a

run into Siberia, crossing Lake Baikal and visiting Irkutsk. At the

latter place he reviews the past few months:--

'Another week has passed over my head with many hopes and fears.

This day, a week ago, I was nearing Ana in doubt as to many things;

now I am in Irkutsk, having my path marked with mercies. In many

points of my journey I expected difficulties which might have

stopped me short in my path, but all these have disappeared, and I

am here, having succeeded beyond expectations. One thing is not

right: my readiness to forget the ways in which God has helped me.

Sometimes for weeks and months I look forward to some crisis which

is coming; it comes off well, and in two days I am as if I had

forgotten that to which I had looked forward with so much

apprehension. In this manner I am not only guilty of ingratitude,

but lose much joy and strength of faith and hope. What should make

me more happy than the thought of the helps and deliverances that

God has vouchsafed me; and in troubles present and to come, what

can give me more faith and courage than to remember that out of

such troubles I was delivered before?

'One thing I sometimes think of. I left Britain with no intention

of travelling; I expected to settle down quietly and confine myself

to a circle I could impress. This plan has been completely changed

and overruled. Two months have I been in Peking; two weeks have I

been in Kalgan; a month have I been in the desert; a month have I

been in Kudara, a small Russian frontier military post; a month and

a half have I been in Kiachta; two months have I been in Mongolia;

and now two weeks have I been travelling in Russia. A year and a

month have elapsed since I left home, and during that time I have

been walking to and fro on the face of the earth, and going up and

down in it. In this way I have not found my life at all dull, but

very stirring. Indeed, many people would have left home to travel

as I have done. I sought it not; it came, and I took it. So as yet

I have no hardships to complain of. To see the places and things I

have seen--Liverpool, Wales, Rock of Lisbon, Gibraltar, Malta,

Egypt, Port Said, Canal, Suez, Red Sea, Cape Gardafui, Indian

Ocean, Penang, Straits of Malacca, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai,

Tientsin, Peking, Kalgan, Desert, Urga, Kiachta, Russia, Baikal,

Irkutsk--only even to see these, men will make long journeys. I

have seen them all without seeking them, with the exception of

Baikal and Irkutsk. These are all by the way, and I dwell upon them

as proofs that God, in sending His servants from home and kindred,

often gives them pleasure and worldly enjoyment on the way, which

He does not promise, and which they have no right to expect.'

After another but briefer sojourn at Olau Bourgass he set out on his

return journey, visited Urga, then crossed the great plain on horseback

in the course of fourteen days, and reached Kalgan on June 11. After a

rest there he made two excursions into Mongolia, visiting Lama Miao,

one of the great Mongol religious centres, in the first; and occupying

some weeks with a further spell of Mongol tent life during the second.

His diary, under date of September 22, 1871, while he was resting at

Kalgan, thus sums up his experiences:--

'I desire to-day to look back on the way by which the Lord has led

me for the last year. In September 1870 I was looking out eagerly,

anxiously for someone who was going to Russia, that I might go with

him. I could find no one. I made it a subject of prayer, and at

last, when I was on my knees, in came McCoy to tell me of a Russian

who was going up without delay. I saw the Russian, and arranged to

go, and started. "While they are speaking I will answer them."

'On the journey between Peking and Kalgan I was alone, I may say,

and could speak little Chinese, yet I got on very well; and though

my money was in a box on the back of a donkey, yet it came in all

safe, none lost. In Kalgan I had difficulty at first about finding

camels, but at length the Russian postmaster turned out to be going

home. The time when was uncertain, quite; his departure depended on

the coming of his successor. I prayed about this, and one day was

informed that the successor had arrived much sooner than was

expected, and that we were to start in a day or two. We did start,

and after a prosperous journey arrived safely at Kiachta.

'There I found Grant and Hegemann, two Englishmen. I went to live

in Grant's country house at Kudara. A difficulty arose about a

teacher. I prayed about this, and strolling along came upon a tent

in which was a man who was out of employment, and he being

educated, I engaged him to be my teacher. In Kiachta, after some

delay, I got a teacher, but not to my satisfaction. After I had

been with him a time Grant remarked one day that I did not seem to

be making much progress in the language. This stung me to the

quick, and made me go down into Mongolia. Here I was directed to

the tent of Grant's contractor, and with him I made arrangements to

live. I thank God for not permitting me to get a good teacher in

Kiachta. Had I got a good teacher there, I would simply have

remained there, and I am sure would not have learned half as much

of the language as I did in the tent at Mongolia, would have got

none of the insight I gained into the style of Mongolian life, and

would not have got the introduction I had there to numerous

Mongols. At the time I was immensely chagrined that I could not get

a proper teacher, but now, after the lapse of only a few months, I

can see good reason for thanking God for leading me by that way.

This should teach me to trust God more than I do when things seem

to thwart my purpose.

'Again, I was under a great disappointment about the delay that

occurred in the sending of my passport from Peking. In consequence

of its not coming I was unable to go to Urga with Lobsung and

Sherrub in February. I felt it much at the time, but some months

after (in June) I learned that these men with whom I wanted to go

suffered excessively on the road; so much so that, had I gone with

them, I might have got my feet frozen and died with the cold. Here

again I have to praise God for not giving me my own way.

"Thy way, not mine, O Lord;

However dark it be."

'Then, again, I had long desired to visit the scene of the former

Siberian Mission, and through the mercy of Providence I was

permitted to do this. My journey back through the desert also was

marked by mercies. Truly I may stand and say,

"When all Thy mercies, O my God,

My rising soul surveys,

Transported with the view, I'm lost

In wonder, love, and praise."'

After his wanderings even Kalgan was a haven of rest, and he had secured

there a base of operations. 'Now,' he writes, 'that I have got my study

window pasted up, and a nice little stove set going, it seems so

comfortable that it would be snug to stay where I am. But comfort is not

the missionary's rule. My object in going into Mongolia at this time is

to have an opportunity of reviewing and extending my knowledge of the

colloquial, which has become a little rusty consequent upon its disuse

to a great extent while here, trying to get up the written.'

All who are even superficially acquainted with Chinese matters know how

difficult it is to acquire the colloquial, and still more the written

language. Mongolian is not nearly so difficult, but it presents a task

needing vigour of intellect and strength of will. Both of these Gilmour

possessed in a measure far above the average.

'In the written,' he states on October 7, 1871, 'I am still far from at

home. Most of the Bible I can read slowly and at sight. Many words I can

write. I think I could write a bad letter myself alone. The other day I

did so. My teacher said it was well written, and said also he rejoiced

in the progress of his scholar; but I put this down to mere politeness.'

During this visit he stayed in the tent of a Mongol named Mahabul, who

lived there with his wife and an only son, a lama. They were all much

addicted to the use of whisky.

'_October 14, '71._--To-day rose before the sun, read words, wrote

at the account of my journey from Urga, went to the mountain for

devotion, revisited the silver worker, who is making the bride's

ornaments, dined, visited the Norying's lama son, who fell from a

horse and broke his leg, had tea, and went to visit tents a mile or

two to the south. There found, as master of the tent, a blackman (a

layman) I had seen before, and as visitor a lama I had left in

Mahabul's tent when I went out. From one thing to another we got to

speak of God and His book. At last they asked me to read them a

portion. I read in English a few verses, and then gave them the

parable of the Prodigal Son in Mongol colloquial. I also gave them

a specimen of a sermon, and explained shortly the nature of God,

when they all seemed pleased. The lama finished up the thing by

saying, "Your outward appearance differs from us, but inwardly you

agree with us." Coming home I felt amply repaid for all the

uncomfort and solitude, and leading a Mongol life, by the

comparative ease with which I can converse with them, and the

manner in which they wonder at my proficiency in the colloquial.'

In his official report he rapidly summarises the achievements of the

last nine months:--

'By the middle of February I had a limited knowledge of the

colloquial, picked up from listening to and joining in the

conversation going on among the inmates of the tent at Olau

Bourgass, and those with the numerous visitors who took occasion to

call on my lama, who was rather a famous man. At the end of

February the lama returned south to Urga, and I went back into

Russia, and got a Buriat teacher. This individual, however, turned

out so incredibly lazy, and I felt so dull alone in my large

comfortable rooms, after the friendly bustle and crowd of the

little tent, with its cheery fire, that I could not stand it. So I

got my teacher and myself into a tarantass, and went off to visit

the scenes of the former mission in Siberia. My teacher proved very

useful. He spoke Russian very well, I spoke Mongolian to him, and

thus we travelled, the doubtful wonder of all Russians, who could

not understand how a man not born a Buriat could get acquainted

with that language, and yet know no Russian. After visiting the

converts, partly for the sake of diverting the curious eyes of the

Russians from the great aim of my journey and partly in the

traveller's spirit, I turned westward and crossed the Baikal on the

ice, and remained a few days in the capital of Siberia, Irkutsk. On

returning to Kiachta I found another teacher, and went out for

another month into Mongolia and tent life. All the while that I was

in Mongolia I used to return to Kiachta once a week, usually on

Saturday, and abide in the land of habitations till Monday.

'Early in May I started for the south. I had intended to remain

over the summer in Urga, but unexpected difficulties turned up, and

led me to decide on going down to Kalgan at once. From Urga to

Kalgan (600 miles) was done on horseback, accompanied by a single

Mongol; and as we carried no luggage, we had to depend on the

hospitality of the Mongols for lodging and cooking, or, as they

call the latter, "pot and ladle."

'In this way I saw a very great deal of tent life during the twelve

or thirteen days the ride lasted. I got into Kalgan just two days

before the rainy season came on (June 15), and having, after

difficulty, secured a teacher, passed the summer in Kalgan studying

the book language and practising writing. In October I went up

again to the grassland and spent some weeks revising my knowledge

of the colloquial and observing the difference between the northern

and southern manner of speaking. I finally left Mongolia in a

furious storm on the morning of November 1, and re-entered Peking

November 9.'

Gilmour on his return was naturally an object of great interest to all

the missionary and to some of the official community. He soon settled

down to the study of Chinese, and to such mission work as he could

usefully engage in during the winter at Peking. A letter to the writer,

under date of January 21, 1872, enables us to realise somewhat the life

of this period:--

'My dear Lovett,--Though I acknowledged receipt of your last

welcome epistle, I am aware I owe you a return, and here it is ...

I have thought that perhaps an account of how a Sabbath goes in

Peking might not be uninteresting, and I'll just confine myself to

to-day. Well, this morning, on getting up, I found my stove was

out. This is a very unusual thing, but it just happens once, say,

in three weeks. The thermometer was about 5∞. The first thing after

getting dressed was not to call my servant, as you might suppose,

but to go in quest of letters. A mail had come in the night before,

but I had returned home too late last night to see it. So I went

over to Dr. Dudgeon's house before he was up, prowled about till I

found the mail, but there was nothing for me. I returned to my cold

room, and was there till the breakfast-bell rang. I board with

Edkins, and to go there is a pleasant break in the monotony.

'On coming back to my quarters I found the room full of smoke,

doors and windows open, my boy on his knees fussing about the

stove, and saying, _Moo too poo shing_--"the wood won't do." I saw

at once that that would not do for me, so I buttoned up my coat and

went out on to the great street for a walk. The street on which we

live, the Ha Ta Mun (great street), runs north and south, and a

cold wind was blowing down the road, carrying clouds of dust with

it. Through the dust, however, were visible the paraphernalia of

two funerals, one going north, the other going south. They met just

opposite our place. That going south was much the grander of the

two, and had a long procession of people carrying emblematical

devices, honorific umbrellas, drums, gongs, and musical

instruments. Ever and anon a man took quantities of paper discs

with square holes cut in the centre and scattered them to the north

wind. The papers are supposed to represent cash, and were scrambled

for eagerly by the urchins, though they could be valuable only as

waste paper. In the procession also was carried the chair in which

the deceased used to ride, his mule cart also figured conspicuous,

and then came the mourners.

'As you know, mourning garb in China is _white_, and I noticed that

some of the mourners had adopted a neat device. All Chinamen who

can afford to be warm in winter wear robes lined inside with fur. A

rich robe is lined with fine material, but the common thing is

white lambskin. Well, these fellows simply become turn-coats for

the time, and put on their fur robes inside out, and thus were in

the fashion. The coffin itself was laid in a magnificent bier

towering high, surmounted by a gilt top piece, hung with silks, and

borne by forty-eight bearers.

'Of course everything has to make way for the funeral. The Peking

streets are very wide, and at the same time very narrow. In the

centre and high up is a cart road with an up and a down line, along

the sides of this are ditches and holes, beyond these ditches and

holes is another way more or less passable, and beyond that again

the shops. The funeral procession took the crown of the road, crept

along at its snail's pace, while the traffic took to the side

roads.

'After a good long walk among stalls and wheelbarrows I got back to

my abode, found a good fire, and that it was high time to go to the

Chinese service. I don't understand all I hear, but I understand

some, and make a point of hearing one and sometimes two Chinese

sermons on the Sabbath. An old Chinaman was preaching, and I could

see from the manner of the congregation that he was securing the

fixed attention of his hearers. Before the sermon was ended there

was a bustle at the door, and in came three Mongols with my Chinese

card. They were asked to wait till the service was concluded, then

I took them to my quarters and had some conversation with them. One

of them had come for the doctor, and wished to get cured of so

prosaic a disease as the itch.

'Before I was finished with them, my servant came to say that

another Mongol had called for me and was waiting for me in

Edkins's. When I went over I found an old Mongol, a blackman,

fifty-eight years of age. This layman was named Am‰sa, and has been

in the habit of paying Mr. Edkins visits every winter when he comes

down to Peking. Last year he did not come, and we were concluding

that he had died. Of course we were glad to see him. I got him into

my room and we had quite an afternoon of it. The old man knew a

good deal about Christianity, and I gave him what additional

instruction I could. Of all the Mongols I have seen he is, perhaps,

the most ready to receive instruction.

'It was quite late in the afternoon before he left, and I had just

time to take a walk at sunset and be back in time for dinner.

Immediately after that the people began to assemble for evening

service. This is held every Sabbath evening in Mr. Edkins's

parlour. Upwards of twenty usually compose the congregation. The

missionaries take the service in turn. After service the mass of

the congregation separated, but one man came with me to my room,

and there we sat talking till midnight, when my visitor rose to

depart.

'There, you see, I have given you the history of one Sabbath in

Peking. It is a pretty fair sample of what goes on here very

frequently. However, when I find myself free on the afternoon I

accompany Mr. Edkins to some one of the two chapels, which are in

distant parts of the city. I do not go so much to hear him preach

as to have his conversation on the way there and back, and, as you

may suppose, we sometimes stumble upon an argument, and this makes

it quite lively.'

The self-denying and arduous labours of his first sojourn in Mongolia

had given to James Gilmour a knowledge of the language and an

acquaintance with the nomadic Mongols of the Plain far in excess of that

possessed by any other European. But even then, as also at a later date,

the question was raised whether more fruitful work might not be done

among the agricultural Mongols inhabiting the country to the north-east

of Peking. Hence, on April 16, 1872, he started on his first journey

through the district in which in later years the closing labours of his

life were to be accomplished. He spent thirty-seven days in this

preliminary tour, and travelled about 1,000 miles.

Gilmour's first estimate of this region as a field of missionary

enterprise, expressed on April 25, 1872, remained true to the end, even

though in later years the exceptional difficulties of work among the

nomads induced him at last, as we shall see, to settle among the

agricultural Mongols:--

'Though I saw a good many Mongol houses, yet I must say, I do not

feel much drawn to them in preference to the nomad Mongols. The

only possible recommendation I can think of is that, coming among

them, I might go and put up for some days at a time in a Chinese

inn. This would save me from great trouble in getting

introductions, and it might be less expensive. The great objection

I have to them is that, though a mission were established among

them, it would be more a mission in China than anywhere else. The

Mongols in these agricultural villages speak Chinese to a man, and

I cannot help feeling that, since there are so many missionaries in

Peking speaking the Chinese language, these Mongols fall to them,

and not to me.'

Soon after his return from this trip into Eastern Mongolia, Mr. Gilmour

sent home an elaborate report upon the conditions and prospects of the

Mongol Mission. He deals with the whole question of the work, showing

why, in his opinion, the _agricultural_ Mongols should be evangelised by

Chinese missionaries. Mr. Edkins and others thought that Gilmour should

undertake that labour, but after having seen more than any missionary of

both regions and classes of Mongols, on the ground that he was the man

'who had to go and begin,' he decided for the Plain.

Even at this early date Mr. Gilmour urged repeatedly and strenuously

upon the Directors the pressing need he felt for a colleague. And thus

early began the long series of seeming fatalities that prevented him

from ever receiving this joy and strength. Partly from the needs of the

Peking Mission, and partly from respect to a notion which the American

Board of Foreign Missions had that their occupancy of Kalgan, on the

extreme southern limit, constituted _all_ Mongolia into one of their

fields of work, the Rev. S. E. Meech, Mr. Gilmour's old college friend,

who had been designated as his first colleague, was stationed at Peking.

With reference to this, in closing the report above referred to, Gilmour

wrote:--

'Mr. Meech's perversion from Mongolia to China is much to be

deplored. I think it would be wrong in me not to inform you of the

true state of matters, and to remind you that it is little short of

nonsense to speak of reopening the Mongolian Mission so long as

there is only one man in the field. I am fully aware of the

difficulty of finding suitable men, and most fully sympathise with

you, but don't let us delude ourselves with the idea of Mongol

Mission work progressing till another man or two come and put their

shoulder to the wheel. All that I can do I am quite willing to do,

but my own progress is most seriously hampered because I am alone.'

His whole subsequent life is evidence of the splendid way in which

Gilmour justified these words, yet perhaps no legitimate blame can be

laid at the door of the Directors of the London Missionary Society. Both

the friends and the critics of missions are sometimes more ready to

tabulate converts than to ponder and estimate aright the difficulties

and drawbacks of the work. But in any estimate of the comparative

success and failure of the Mongol Mission it should be borne in mind

that Gilmour never really had a colleague. He never even had a companion

for his work on the Plain, except his heroic and devoted wife. And in

later years circumstances over which the Directors could exercise little

or no control successively deprived him of the fellowship, after a very

brief experience, of Dr. Roberts and Dr. Smith.

In the summer of this year, in the company of Mr. Edkins, he visited the

sacred city of Woo T'ai Shan, a famous place of Mongol pilgrimage.

An amusing illustration of his well-known love of argument occurred on

this trip. In Mr. Edkins he found a foeman in all respects worthy of

his dialectic steel. Chinese mules will only travel in single file, even

where the roads are wide enough to allow of their travelling abreast,

and as Gilmour's went in front of that ridden by Mr. Edkins, he used to

ride with his face to the tail of his beast, and thus the more readily

and continuously conduct the argument then engaging their attention.

In November he tried the experiment of living at the Yellow Temple in

Peking during the winter, in order that he might meet and converse with

the numerous Mongols who visit the capital every year. Here he not only

made new friends, but he also frequently renewed acquaintance with those

he had met on the Plain. These visited him in his compound, and were

occasionally a weariness and vexation to him, inasmuch as they very

frequently severely tried his patience, without affording him the

comfort of knowing that the good tidings of the 'Jesus book' were

finding an entrance into their dark minds and hard hearts.

In a letter to an intimate college friend, the Rev. T. T. Matthews of

Madagascar, which he wrote, November 21, 1872, he vividly describes this

part of his work, giving some of his typical experiences:--

'I am writing in the Yellow Temple, about a mile and a half from

Peking, and three or four miles from our mission premises. I have

rented a room, brought my Chinaman servant, and live as a Chinaman,

all but the clothes and the paganism. The reason of all this is

that near here, and in this temple, numerous Mongols put up when

they come from Mongolia to Peking. Our premises being three or four

miles away, and in a busy part of the town, the Mongols can't

easily find our place; so if they can't come to me I just go to

them. I came here yesterday, and can't tell yet how I may get on.

Mongols are shy in Peking, and even out here a little difficult of

access; but I must do what I can, and have patience.

'Just now a company of eight or ten have arrived and put up, three

or four of them in the same court with me, the others in a place

close by. These are likely enough to come to see me; of course I'll

go and see them. You in Madagascar, I suppose, can't realise what

it is to be a missionary to a people whom you can't approach

without difficulty. Here the difficulty does not end; those I can

catch don't care one straw for Christianity. They have a system

which quite satisfies them, and what more do they want? Such is

their feeling, so you see I have got quite plenty to do; a hard

enough task, even the human part of it. But don't mistake, I am not

bewailing my lot, for that I have neither time nor inclination; I

am only telling you about my state.

'I don't believe much in people talking about what they mean to do

in the future, but perhaps you will permit me to say that I would

like to start for Mongolia again in February or March. I have got a

sheepskin coat, so need not fear the cold. I perhaps may take with

me a stock of made-up medicines for specific diseases which are

common, and this may make an introduction in some cases at least.

Dr. Dudgeon has on our premises in Peking a hospital well attended

by Chinamen, and I go there sometimes and see how he doses them.

'Now let me tell you a little about the inner life of Mongols.

People travelling through Mongolia wake up in the morning as their

camel-cart passes some rural encampment; they rub their eyes and

say, "How pleasant it would be to live in Mongolia like these

Mongols, free from care and the anxiety of busy life. They have

only their sheep, &c., to look after." This reflection is

accompanied with a sigh when they reflect on their own hard lot.

Now the fact of the matter is, these travellers know nothing about

it. They may print as much as they like about the pastoral felicity

of the simplicity of Mongol life; it is all humbug. Last night, two

Mongols whom I know well, a petty chief named "Myriad Joy" and his

scribe named "Mahabul" (I can't translate this last), came into my

room, and we had a tea-spree there and then. The two have been for

fifteen days in Peking on Government duty, and last night their

business was finished, and they were to mount their camels and head

north this morning. The chief gets from Peking about 30_l._ a year,

the scribe about 4_l._; and when they come thus on duty their

allowances, though small, enable them to make a little over and

above their salaries. The chief can stand no small amount of

Chinese whisky. I suspect he is deep in debt, and am sure that he

could pay his debt two or three times over if he only had the money

it took to paint his nose. The scribe was one of my teachers in

Mongolia. I lived in his house some time, and know only too well

about his affairs. He is hopelessly in debt. He had a large family

once, but now they are all dead except one married daughter and one

lama son about seventeen years of age, and good for nothing. His

"old woman," as the Mongol idiom has it, is still alive, and fond

of whisky, like her husband. If they had only been teetotalers they

might have now been comfortable; such, at least, is my impression.

I shall say nothing about what I saw in his tent, and confine

myself to last night and this morning.

'Drinking my tea last night, Mahabul (the scribe) says to me: "My

chief here won't lend me nine shillings to buy a sheepskin coat for

my old woman, therefore she must be frozen to death in the winter;

my chief won't lend _me_ anything, other people he lends." The

chief said nothing for a while; but the scribe went on harping on

this string, till at last the chief launched out right and left on

his scribe, shouting loud enough for all the compound to hear. The

scribe took it coolly, and stopped him, saying: "Enough, enough; it

is past, it is past; my old woman can die, all die; no matter."

This did not soothe the irate chief at all, and a minute or two

later a furious quarrel broke out between them about something

else. The storm raged a long time, and in my room too, while they

were my guests! After some time the scribe left the room to attend

to the camels, when the chief confided to me his opinion of his

scribe. Later the chief left the room, and the scribe confided to

me his opinion of his chief; and I must say that the two seemed

well matched, with very little to choose between. The freedom with

which they spoke of each other was partly to be accounted for by

the fact that both were more or less drunk.

'The chief squared up his accounts with the people about here, and

showed me in the scribe's absence a small parcel of silver which he

had reserved for use on the road. He showed it me under strict

injunctions not to tell the scribe. The scribe had more difficulty

in squaring up _his_ account. The last item that stuck in his

throat was a little bill his son had left. This son had started a

day or two before, and of course the father was responsible for the

debt. How he was to pay it he did not know, as he had not a single

cash about him. The Chinaman of the place threatened to detain him,

and the scribe laughed a bitter laugh at the idea. After a great

row they went off to sleep.

'This morning early the scribe was at me before I was dressed. It

was the small debt again. The Chinaman knew better than to seize

the man; that would not have paid; he seized his coat, and actually

was detaining that as ransom for a sum equal to fourpence English!

He made a direct appeal to me to pay it, and of course I did it;

though I was a little disgusted with the man's meanness, as I had

given him a present of money amounting to about 1_l._ a few days

before. This son of his is a great eyesore to me. He is a young

lama, about as wicked a boy as I know. His brothers died of

consumption, and this fact enables him to do anything he likes with

his parents. If they refuse anything, he has only to feign

sickness, and they are in a huge state over him. He is a thoroughly

bad lad. Will not work, will not study, will do nothing but make

trouble and expense for his parents. Just fancy! His father and

mother are poor as church mice; and when his father was coming to

Peking the boy must beg to come too, and the father like a fool

must take him, and be at great expense for travelling, &c. One

thing made me furious. Out of the money I gave him he spent about

4_s._ or more buying his good-for-nothing son an elegant

snuff-bottle. In short, the man's folly makes it utterly useless to

help him. I once before relieved him from threatened detention for

debt for the amount of twopence-halfpenny, just after I had made

him a present, and I expect perhaps to have to do so again. What

astonishes me is that the Mongols _can_ get into debt so far. I

don't believe my Mongol can pass a single man he knows without

being in danger of being dunned for some hopeless debt or other.

And yet his debt does not seem to distress him. He is most

distressed because people will not lend him more money.

'The last of the chiefs was rather rich. He is (he says) to have a

profitable piece of Government work in hand in spring, and on the

strength of that wanted me to lend him now a shoe of silver, about

15_l._, to be repaid to me in spring. Of course I did not. He then,

though my guest, kept on saying, "Heart small, heart small," which

pretty much amounts to saying, "Coward, coward." He finally took

revenge by offering to lend _me_ a shoe of silver in spring, but

of course I declined. A pretty pair they are! If what they say be

true, in spring they may make a good thing of it; but this has

happened to the scribe before, and in two months after he was as

poor as ever. In short, they are foolish and thriftless.

'While I have been writing this letter I have overheard my Chinese

servant saying, in reply to a question from a Chinaman, "There is

such a thing as a preaching letter: you can preach by a letter." So

I am going now to preach. Don't get weary; stick to it. Don't be

lazy, but don't be in a hurry. Slow but sure; stick to it. We have

no great effort to make, but rather to stick to it patiently. "_No

good work is lost_," Sir William Thomson used to say in his

philosophy class, and it is eminently true in our case. (I wish

these Chinamen would hold their tongue.) All our good work will be

found, there is no doubt about that. All I am afraid of is that our

good work will amount to little when it is found. (These Chinamen

are a bore.) I sometimes think that if all we say be true, as it

is, that men at last shall stand before God--and we shall see them

after they know that all we say is true--and they will pitch into

us for not pitching into them more savagely; for not, in fact,

taking them by the "cuff" of the neck and dragging them into the

kingdom of God. I speak now of our countrymen and foreigners. As

regards heathen, they too shall stand revealed; and their mud gods

also, and rotten superstitions, shall stand revealed: how then

shall we feel when they shall look at us and blame us for not

waking them up more vigorously? An infidel has said that if he

could believe that men's future state depended at all upon what was

done in this life, he would let nothing hinder him from being up

and at men. He would be content to be counted a madman--anything,

if only he could do anything to make men's state better in the

world to come. (I wish these Chinamen would shut up; I came here to

meet Mongols, and I am like to be flooded out by Chinamen whose

language I only half understand.)

'Now, _we believe_: how much do we do? Are there not some men whom

we might stir up who now escape? Could we do more? Are not souls

valuable enough for us to face anything if only we can save some?

Let us look to the end, or rather let us look at the present. In

the room in which I now write (the Chinamen have gone) is Jesus,

where you read this is Jesus: He stands and looks to us. He has

given up the clean heaven, and walked here and lived among dirt and

poverty, in solitude, misunderstood, without one intelligent

friend; He has borne the scorn of men, He has been put to the

horrible and shameful death of the cross, _all to save us_ and

others. We trust Him, He saves us; and all He asks is that we

should tell men about what He has done; and is there one man we

meet to whom we shall not speak? shall Christ look to us in vain to

declare simply what He has done? Perish the thought! Whatever may

be between us and speaking to men, let us go through it. If it be a

foreign language, remember Christ lived thirty years in

preparation. If it be hardship, cold, poor food, scorn, slight,

deaf ears--never mind, go ahead. Christ looks to us to go ahead, or

_come_ ahead, for He has gone through it all. Trouble, hardship,

trial, suffering,--all will soon pass and be done. And is there a

trouble or hardship we have yet surmounted for Christ's sake that

does not seem sweet to look back on? Then, come what likes, let us

face it; or, if we be overwhelmed, let us be overwhelmed with

undaunted faces looking in the right direction. By the mercy of God

may we be saved; and if saved how splendid it will be--no trouble,

no trial, no indigestible beef and brick-tea: everything _better

than_ we could wish it, and complete joy.

'All this is not imagination or rhetoric, but _really before_ us;

so, by the strength which Christ gives, let us go on to it. Pray

for me. I pray for you; and if we don't meet on earth, you know

the trysting-place, "_the right-hand side_."'

It can readily be seen that, under conditions of the kind sketched in

this letter, time was not likely to hang heavily on his hands.

Interviews like the following were held from time to time, and were not

only encouraging and hopeful but reacted strongly upon his own heart and

brain:--

'This afternoon (Sabbath, November 24), I met Toobshing Baier in

the dispensary of the London Mission Hospital. At first I could not

remember the man. The face I knew. After a time his name came out

without, I flatter myself, his perceiving that I was fishing for

it. He was most anxious to see the doctor's medical instruments and

appliances. After he had seen quite a number of these, he came to

my room, and we sat down for a talk which lasted nearly from 5 to 7

o'clock. He began by reading a part of the rough draft of the new

translation of St. Matthew in Mongolian, which happened to be lying

on my table. He suggested that in place of "prophet," a word which

has been transferred bodily, we should use _juoug beelikty_. He

also remarked that our translation of "the foal of an ass" was not

the thing, and gave the word he thought was right. He was

accompanied by a young lama, who agreed with him in this

suggestion. The lama seemed well up, read Mongolian as easily as

Toobshing himself, and when Toobshing gave the Thibetan word for

_juoug beelikty_, the lama looked over his shoulder, spied a book

on a shelf, took it, found the place at once, and showed me the

Thibetan and Mongolian side by side.

'Shortly after this Toobshing set himself up and proposed questions

and cases such as:

'"Is hell eternal?

'"Are all the heathen who have not heard the Gospel damned?

'"If a man lives without sin, is he damned?

'"If a man disregards Christ, but worships a supreme God in an

indefinite way, is he saved or not?

'"How can Christ save a man?

'"If a man prays to Christ to save him morn and even, but goes on

sinning meantime, how about him?

'"If a man prays for a thing, does he get it?

'"Do your unbelieving countrymen in England all go to hell?

'"Are there prophets now?

'"Is a new-born child a sinner?

'"Is one man then punished for another's fault?

'"Has anybody died, gone to heaven or hell, and come back to

report? [A Mongol has!]

'"Did Buddha live?" and so forth.

'[Answer, He lived, but did not do what is now said of him.]

'"If so, how do you know that the account of Christ is not made up

in the same way? Could not the disciples conspire to make the

Gospels?

'To these and all other questions I endeavoured to give proper

answers; and this, our most delightful and profitable talk, lasted

till there was just time for me to snatch a hasty meal before the

usual service at 7.30 P.M.'

Discussions of this nature were calculated to deepen thought and to

promote heart-searching on the part of the Christian worker. They also

illustrate some of the special difficulties which missionaries in China

and India have to meet. With an elaborate religious ritual and

literature, both Buddhist and Hindu can often, and do often, object

against Christianity many of those, sometimes obvious, sometimes

subtle, difficulties which the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone can remove,

and which it removes by sanctifying and dominating the heart.

In February 1873 Gilmour visited Tientsin for the first time since he

passed through it on his arrival in China. Here he took part in several

readings, temperance meetings, and religious services. At one of the

readings:--

'One joke happened. I was asked to give a recitation at a penny

reading for sailors. The piece was "The Execution of Montrose." I

got up in tragic style, said,

"Come hither, Evan Cameron,"

with the appropriate beckoning action, when a sailor in the middle

of the audience responded to the call, pressed his way out of the

passage, and was making for the platform. I could not stand this,

so I uttered a yell, and rushed off to hide myself, and it was some

time before the audience and speaker could compose themselves for a

fresh start Next day we were told that the unfortunate sailor was

beckoned to come hither from all parts of the ship.'

CHAPTER IV

THE FIRST CAMPAIGN IN MONGOLIA

In 1873 Gilmour resumed his visits to the Plain and on March 15 he was

at Kalgan, writing, 'No appearance of getting away to the north. I

promenade daily the streets and accost Mongols, but with no success as

to getting camels, or even a horse to hire as far as Mahabul's. A day or

two later Mahabul arrived in Kalgan on his way to Peking, and by his aid

Gilmour secured two camels, and on March 24 he started north, reaching

Mahabul's tent on the 28th. He at once endeavoured to secure the

services of a Mongol named Lojing, and the usual series of delays and

vexations occurred.

'To-day (March 29) I got impatient and went for a walk. Came back,

and Lojing came and said he would go. Felt relieved; he wants me to

come back this way, and I consent, though I would rather not. He

came back in the afternoon, saying that he could not get off his

engagement to read prayers with some other lama for Gichik's

soul,[3] so that we cannot start before Thursday at noon. Mahabul's

wife gave him some whisky, and he went to the officers and got

drunk. He waited for a camel which was offered for sale. The camel

came when I was out. He was drunk, did not watch it, so it drifted

away before the storm. A boy on horseback was sent after it. When

it came it was a perfect object, yet they asked twenty taels for

it. He is to go after a camel to-morrow. He was so drunk that,

remembering Gichik's fate, I am uneasy to think of his riding my

tall camel. O Lord, give me patience!'

[3] The son of the chief referred to on page 80, who had recently been

killed by a fall from his horse.

This and the three subsequent journeys over the Plain, made in the

course of 1873, were full of incident illustrative of the difficulties

of the work, the peculiarities of the people, and the restless energy

and indomitable perseverance of the missionary. But the limitations of

space forbid us to linger; we extract a few notes from the diary. It was

on the second of these journeys, while at Lama Miao, that he witnessed

the 'Mirth of Hell,' as he calls it, described in _Among the Mongols_,

Chapter XI.

'_April 19, 1873._--To-day had more provocation from my Mongol, and

my earnest prayer is that I may be able to stand it all, and not

get soured in temper and feeling against the Mongols. I must have

patience. Some knowledge of camel's flesh also would help me not a

little. As it stands, I feel an incompetent "duffer."'

'_May 6._--Travelled parallel to the road in a stupid manner over

hill and dale, because Lojing chose to consider it a nearer way.

The way was no nearer at all and much more steep. At last got to a

lot of tents down in a hollow, called the "Great Water" (_Ihha

Osso_). Had quite a lot of people. One lama the most provoking

child (25 years old) I think I ever met. He was a perfect nuisance;

even the tone of his voice I could not abide. This individual came

to my tent even after I was down in bed. I was glad he was done for

once. Next morning he was in my tent before I was up, remarking,

"What a great sleeper you are!' Last night he had remarked, "How

early you go to bed!" I am afraid he is the most empty, poor fellow

I have known.'

'_May 13._--To-day also occurred another of my lama's conspicuous

stupidities; after asking the road to a set of tents where dwelt

friends of his own, he suddenly left the road and began the ascent

of a steep hill. I asked where he was going. He said to the tents.

I followed some distance, and then from the convergence of paths

judged that there was no pass where he was going, and accordingly

shouted to him to stop. Stop he did, and also looked thunder. I

asked him, "Have you travelled this way before?" "No," said he.

"Come this way, and follow the road." "You go that road," said he,

"I go this road." "Nothing of the kind," said I. "You come here,

and we'll get to tents." He came; but then and there began one of

his intolerable tirades against me, saying how disobedient I was,

and that _this was his own native place_, he knew. What a bad man I

was! He had hardly finished his fury when lo, behold, close before

us, right in our path, the very tents we were looking for! He is,

to use a Mongol idiom, "Stupider than stupid."'

'_Sept. 12._--We are now in a diphtheria district. I go into it,

and hope to remain some time, trusting myself to the hands of God.

I am safe enough in His hands. If He can forward mission work more

by my death than by my life, His will be done.'

'_Sept. 18._--To-day let pass me, as all were starting from the

temple, about six men and three women without telling them of

Jesus.'

At the close of the year Mr. Gilmour sent home another elaborate report,

a large portion of which appeared in the _Chronicle of the London

Missionary Society_ for December 1874. We extract here a few paragraphs

not then printed for obvious reasons. There was still a difficulty with

the American Board, and there was still in London some inability to

grasp the exact bearing and the full needs of the situation. The first

extract is given here simply because it illustrates the noble

unselfishness of Gilmour's character, and the way in which he

persistently refused to be stopped by hindrances that would have barred

the road against most men. He supplied a statement of account showing

that even with the most rigid economy he had exceeded his allowance by

110 taels, equivalent to from 25_l._ to 30_l._

'This leaves me with a deficit of 110 taels 63 cents, and explains

how it is that I ask next year's (1874) grant to be raised to 150

taels at least. I had only two courses open to me, either to use up

the grants for 1872 and 1873, and stop without accomplishing all I

could, or to make full proof of my ministry and exceed the grants.

Considering the cause more important than silver, I chose the

latter course, and, despite the most rigid economy, exceeded to the

above amount. Present circumstances enable me to make up the

deficit from my own private purse, and I don't ask to be refunded,

but I don't know that I shall be flush of money next year, and _do_

ask that the grant may be not less than 150 taels, which is the

lowest estimate I can make.

'As proof of the reasonableness of my request, and of my anxiety to

avoid drawing on the funds of the Society beyond what is absolutely

necessary, I may be allowed to state that this year, in addition to

making up the lacking 110-63 taels, I walked afoot behind my

caravan in the desert for _weeks_, to avoid the expense of

purchasing another camel.'

On the question of Christian literature he placed on record some wise

words, as needful now almost as when he penned them, in order to correct

the notion that it is enough simply to place into the hands of a heathen

a copy of the Word of God in his native tongue. The reply of Candace's

eunuch, 'How can I understand unless someone shall guide me?' meets the

missionary of to-day, as it met Philip in the days of old. The

practically unanimous opinion of the Shanghai Conference held in 1890

shows that the same need is still strongly felt by the missionaries of

all the societies.

'In addition to the Scriptures and the Catechism, I think small

simple books containing little portions of Scripture history or

little portions of Scripture teaching would be very useful. The

Bible is all very well for those who have advanced a little, but

there is very little of the narrative portions even--the simplest

parts of the whole book--which you can read without encountering

terrible names of persons or places, or quotations from the prophet

Isaiah or Jeremiah. When a Mongol comes upon these he feels

inclined to give up in despair. Even in China my experience has

been that people are slow to buy a complete gospel, even at less

than the paper on which it is printed costs, while they will buy

with avidity very small books at almost their full value.

'Chinamen themselves notice this, and when surrounded by a crowd I

have heard them remark laughingly, "Small books go quick."

Remembering my instructions, which among other things say, "Pause

before you translate," I have hitherto refrained, but now have a

very small illustrated narrative in the press, another also

illustrated in manuscript, and other two not illustrated in

contemplation. If I find funds--the Peking branch of the Tract

Society is bankrupt just now--and get them out, you shall have

specimens. Probably they won't look well, being first attempts, but

you need not be ashamed of the Mongol of them, as they have been

written under my direction by a "crack" native scholar, and

carefully revised by Schereschewsky, who is a general linguist of

good ability, and has paid so much attention to Mongolian that he

revised the Gospel by Matthew in conjunction with Mr. Edkins, and

is at present at work on a Mongol dictionary.'

Medical missions were only in their infancy in 1874, and Gilmour in the

same report describes what many another has felt. He illustrates also

one of his fixed principles, viz., always do _something_; and never let

the work stop simply because you cannot do what is ideally the best.

'I know very little about diseases and cures, but the little I _do_

know is extremely useful. Almost every Mongol, man and woman and

child, has something that wants putting right. To have studied

medicine at home would have been a great help, but though I cannot

hope now ever to gain a scientific knowledge of the subject, I am

glad that in our hospital here I have a good opportunity of

learning much from Dr. Dudgeon, and all I can do now is to make the

best of this good opportunity. I am told that professional men at

home are suspicious of giving a little medical knowledge to young

men going out as missionaries. I sided with them till I came here,

but here the case is different. At home it is all very well to

stand before the fire in your room, within sight of the brass plate

on the doctor's door on the opposite side of the street, and talk

about the danger of little knowledge; but when you are two weeks'

journey from any assistance, and see your fellow-traveller sitting

silent and swollen with violent toothache for days together, you

fervently wish you had a pair of forceps and the _dangerous_

amount of knowledge. And when in remote places you have the choice

of burying your servant or stopping his diarrh[oe]a, would you

prefer to talk nonsense about professional skill rather than give

him a dose of chlorodyne, even though it should be at the risk of

administering one drop more or less than a man who writes M.D. to

his name would have done?

'I speak earnestly and from experience. No one has more detestation

than I have for the quack that patters in the presence of trained

skill; but from what I have seen and known of mission life, both in

myself and others, since coming to North China, I think it is a

little less than culpable homicide to deny a little hospital

training to men who may have to pass weeks and months of their

lives in places where they themselves, or those about them, may

sicken and die from curable diseases before the doctor could be

summoned, even supposing he could leave his post and come.'

During the summer of 1874 James Gilmour continued his itinerating work

among the nomads of the Plain. He met with much to discourage him, but

he steadily enlarged his knowledge of the people and his acquaintance

with the best methods of work among them. How difficult it was to adapt

ordinary methods of teaching to their habits may be judged from the

following sketch:--

'My tent is not only my dwelling-house and dispensary, but also my

chapel. I always endeavour to instruct the visitors and patients as

far as I can. Preaching to Mongols is a little different from

preaching at home--a little different from preaching in China even.

You can get a congregation of heathen Chinese to listen for, say,

twenty minutes, or half an hour, or even longer; but begin to

preach to a lot of Mongols, and they begin to talk to each other,

or perhaps to ask you questions about your dress and your country.

'The nature of their own service is partly to blame for this. When

a Mongol sends for a lama or two to read prayers in his tent, the

inmates, though present, don't think it necessary to attend much to

what is going on. Though they did attend, they would not be able to

understand, so talking goes on among them pretty much as usual. If

I were to stick myself up and begin, and start off sermonising to

them, I would be treated much as they treat their own lamas; so I

confine my preaching to conversations and arguments--a style of

teaching which I find secures their attention'.

Many, too, are the sketches in his letters and diaries of the men he

met. They are all drawn with that remarkable and largely unconscious

power, which he possessed so fully, of being able to see very vividly

the striking points and details of passing events, and of enabling those

to whom he wrote, by his aptly chosen words, also to see exactly what

passed before his eyes. One or two out of many examples must suffice:--

'This season (1874) I met a deaf and dumb man. He was uneducated,

but of great quickness and intelligence. He could converse easily

and readily with his fellow-Mongols by signs, and I could ask many

simple questions and understand his answers without trouble. His

perception was remarkable. While sitting in the dusk outside my

tent, a messenger came from his father's tent to tell him that some

of the sheep were missing. A single turn of the hand followed by a

glance around, as if searching for something, was all that was

required. He had been sitting quietly in the circle, looking at us

talking; but the moment the communication was made he uttered an

inarticulate sound betraying great excitement, knocked the ashes

out of his pipe, stuck it into his boot, threw himself into the

saddle, and rode off into the gathering darkness to search for the

lost sheep. All agreed that he had an extra share of intelligence,

and he was evidently regarded as a capable and useful member of the

community.

'One of the sad sights seen was that of a sick Chinaman near his

end. He was one of a company of four, who went about dressing skins

of which the Mongols make garments. He had been an opium taker, and

an incurable diarrh[oe]a had seized him. At the time he was lodging

with the Mongol for whom the party had come to dress skins; but the

Mongol, seeing he would die, and fearing trouble and expense over

his death, ordered him off the premises. Borrowing an ox cart, his

companions had him conveyed away some five or ten miles, jolted in

the rude vehicle and suffering from the blazing sun, to a place

where some Chinese acquaintances were digging a well. They had a

tent of their own, most likely a poor ragged white cloth affair,

open to the winds and pervious to the rain; and in this the poor

man hoped he might be permitted to die. It was the dark side of the

picture. The glorious summer, the green and flowery plains, the

fattening flocks, the herds exulting in the deep pastures, the gay

Mongols riding about, the white tents bathed in the sunlight and

gleaming from afar. In the midst of all this, a feeble man, far

from home and kin, sick unto death, cast forth from his poor

lodging, and seeking for a place to lie down and die in. The

Mongols are a hospitable race, but pray ye that ye may not get sick

on their hands.

'On the whole I have been very well received everywhere, and have

been treated with great confidence. I have sometimes wondered at

the readiness with which they take medicine from the hand of an

utter stranger. One reason why they are ready to trust me,

doubtless, is that going among them, they can go round my tent and

see that there is nothing secret and terrible behind it; they enter

it and see all that is in it. They know and see that I am utterly

in their power, and, perhaps, reason that I am there with no intent

to harm, because if I made trouble I could not move another step

without their consent.

'In the shape of converts I have seen no result. I have not, as far

as I am aware, seen any one who even _wanted_ to be a Christian;

but by healing their diseases I have had opportunity to tell many

of Jesus, the Great Physician.'

CHAPTER V

MARRIAGE

During the year 1873 James Gilmour devoted much thought to the natural

and all-important question of marriage. Uncommon as he was, in so many

ways, it was, perhaps, to be expected that in this great undertaking he

would depart from ordinary methods. The Rev. S. E. Meech had married, in

1872, Miss Prankard, of London. After the return of Mr. Edkins to

England, in May 1873, Mr. Gilmour went to board with Mr. and Mrs. Meech.

There he saw the portrait of Mrs. Meech's sister, and often heard her

referred to in conversation. Towards the close of 1873 he took Mrs.

Meech into his confidence, and asked permission to enter into

correspondence with her sister. The following most characteristic

letters show the course of subsequent events:--

'Peking, January 14, 1874.

'My dear Parents,--I have written and proposed to a girl in

England. It is true I have never seen her and I know very little

about her; but what I do know is good. She is the sister of Mrs.

Meech, and is with her mother in London. Her mother supports

herself and daughter by keeping a school. One of the hindrances

will be perhaps that the mother will not be willing to part with

her daughter, as she is, no doubt, the life of the school. I don't

know, so I have written and made the offer, and leave them to

decide. If she cannot come, then there is no harm done. If she can

arrange to come, then my hope is fulfilled. If the young lady says

"Yes," she or her friends will no doubt write you, as I have asked

them to do.... You may think I am rash in writing to a girl I have

never seen. If you say so, I may just say that I have something of

the same feeling; but what am I to do? In addition I am very

easy-minded over it all, because I have exercised the best of my

thoughts on the subject, and put the whole matter into the hands of

God, asking Him, if it be best to bring her, if it be not best to

keep her away, and He can manage the whole thing well.'

By some mischance this letter was delayed, and Mr. Gilmour's relatives

were startled, one March day in 1874, by receiving from an entirely

unknown lady in London a letter, containing the unlooked-for statement:

'Your son, Mr. Gilmour, of Peking, has asked my daughter to write to

you, telling you of her decision to join him as his wife. She has wished

me to write to you for her, and will be pleased to hear from you when

you feel inclined to write.'

The friendly intercourse that followed soon convinced Mr. Gilmour's

family, as any knowledge of Emily Prankard herself soon convinced all

who made her acquaintance, that, however unusual it might appear, this

was indeed one of the marriages made in heaven. By both parties God's

blessing and guidance were invoked, upon both His benediction rested,

and, after a brief separation in this world, they are now both enriched

with the fuller knowledge and the perfect joy of the life beyond.

No time was lost in the arrangements for Miss Prankard's departures to

China. In a letter to his mother, dated October 2, 1874, Mr. Gilmour

writes:--

'You have seen Miss Prankard, but you have not told me what you

think of her. She was delighted with her visit to Scotland and with

you all. You will be glad to hear that I have had some delightful

letters from her. I wrote her, and she has written me in the most

unrestrained way concerning her spiritual hopes and condition, and

though we have never seen each other, yet we know more of each

other's inmost life and soul than, I am quite certain, most lovers

know of each other even after long personal courtship. It is quite

delightful to think that even now we can talk by letter with

perfect unreserve, and I tell _you_ this because I know you will be

glad to hear it. I knew she was a pious girl, else I would not have

asked her to come out to be a missionary's wife, but she turns out

better even than I thought, and I am not much afraid as to how we

shall get on together.'

In the course of the autumn of 1874 Miss Prankard sailed, and in a

letter to the writer, December 13, 1874, Gilmour thus refers to the

close of his unusual but satisfactory courtship:--

'I was married last week, Tuesday, December 8!

'Mrs. Meech's sister is Mrs. Gilmour. We never saw each other till

a week before we were married, and my friends here drew long faces

and howled at me for being rash and inconsiderate. What if you

don't like each other? How then? It is for life! As if I did not

know all this long ago. Well, the time came, the vessel was due at

Shanghai, but would not come. Mr. Meech and I went down to Tientsin

and waited there a fortnight, but no tidings. At last on the

evening of Sabbath, November 29, a steamer's whistle was heard

miles away down the river. It was Mr. Meech's turn to preach. After

sermon he and I walked away down the river side to see what we

could see. After a while a light hove round the last bend, then a

green light, then the red light, then came the three lights of the

steamer! We listened. It was the high-pressure engine of the steam

launch which is used to lighten the deep-sea steamers before coming

up the narrow river. Fifteen minutes more and she was at the

landing stage. A friend went on board. Miss Prankard was on board

the Taku, which was still outside the bar, waiting for water to

bring her over and up to the settlement. The lighter was going to

unload and start down the river at five A.M., and Meech and I went

in her. About eight A.M. we met the steamer coming up, and when she

came abreast we saw Miss Prankard on board, but could not get from

our vessel to hers. The tide was favourable for running up, and

they were afraid to lose a minute, so would not stop the steamer;

we did not get on board till we reached the bund at Tientsin about

eleven A.M. We started for Peking next day, got there on Thursday,

and were married following Tuesday.

'Our honeymoon is now almost over. I am to have only a week of it.

I hope to start with Meech on a mission trip to the country on

Tuesday next.'

Miss Prankard's first view of her future husband was hardly what she

might have expected. Mr. Meech has also sketched that scene on the

river.

'The morning was cold, and Gilmour was clad in an old overcoat which had

seen much service in Siberia, and had a woollen comforter round his

neck, having more regard to warmth than to appearance. We had to follow

back to Tientsin, Gilmour being thought by those on board the steamer to

be the engineer!'

Two letters may be quoted in this connection. The first was to one of

his most intimate Scotch friends.

'London Mission, Peking,

'January 31, 1875.

'My dear----, Your kind, long, and much-looked-for letter dated May

12, 1873, and August 21, 1874, reached me on January 9, 1875. Many

thanks for it, but I think it would be quite as well in future to

send me half the quantity in half the time, if you really find you

cannot write me oftener. As I was married on December 8, 1874, to

Mrs. Meech's sister, that lady, Mrs. Gilmour, had the great

pleasure of reading your earnest, long, and reiterated warning to

me not to have her. Your warning came too late. Had you posted your

letter on May 12, 1873, it might have been in time, as the first

letter that opened our acquaintance was written in January 1874. If

nothing else will have effect with you, perhaps the thought that

you might have saved me from the fate of having an English wife may

have some effect in moving you to post your letters early, even

though they should not be so long and full.

'About my wife: as I want you to know her, I introduce you to her.

She is a jolly girl, as much, perhaps more, of a Christian and a

Christian missionary than I am. I don't know whether I told you how

it came about. I proposed first to a Scotch girl, but found I was

too late; I then put myself and the direction of this affair--I

mean the finding of a wife--into God's hands, asking Him to look me

out one, a good one too, and very soon I found myself in a position

to propose to Miss Prankard with all reasonable evidence that she

was the right sort of girl, and with some hope that she would not

disdain the offer. We had never seen each other, and had never

corresponded, but she had heard much about me from people in

England who knew me, and I had heard a good deal of her and seen

her letters written to her sister and to her sister's husband. The

first letter I wrote her was to propose, and the first letter she

wrote me was to accept--romantic enough!

'I proposed in January, went up to Mongolia in spring, rode about

on my camels till July, and came down to Kalgan to find that I was

an accepted man! I went to Tientsin to meet her; we arrived here on

Thursday, and were married on Tuesday morning. We had a quiet week,

then I went to the country on a nine days' tour, and came back two

days before Christmas. We have been at home ever since. Such is the

romance of a matter-of-fact man.

'You will see that the whole thing was gone about simply on the

faith principle, and from its success I am inclined to think more

and more highly of the plan. Without any gammon, I am much more

happy than ever even in my day-dreams I ventured to imagine I might

be. It is not only me that my wife pleases, but she has gained

golden opinions from most of the people who have met her among my

friends and acquaintances in Scotland and China. My parents were

scared one day last year by receiving a letter from a lady in

England, a lady whose name even they had not known before, stating

that her daughter had decided to become _my wife_. Didn't it stir

up the old people! They had never heard a word about it! My letter

to them, posted at the same time with the proposal, had been

delayed in London. The young lady went to Scotland, and was with

them two weeks, and came away having made such an impression on

them that they wrote me from home to say that "though I had

searched the country for a couple of years I could not have made a

better choice."

'Perhaps I am tiring you, but I want to let you know all about it,

and to assure you that you need not be the least shy of me or of my

English wife. She is a good lassie, any quantity better than me,

and just as handy as a Scotch lass would have been. It was great

fun for her to read your tirade about English wives and your

warning about her. She is a jolly kind of body, and does not take

offence, but I guess if she comes across you she will wake you up a

bit.'

The other letter was to Miss Bremner, and referred to the part Gilmour

was to take in her marriage in 1883 to his brother Alexander:--

'Now as to your affair, a much more serious matter. Alex has said

something about my part. I want to take part, but only such a small

part as will make it true to say, "assisted by the brother of the

bridegroom." It is for you and Dr. Macfadyen to say what that

_small_ part shall be; all I have to say about it, the smaller the

better.

'My experiences of the ceremonies of social Christianity have been

mixed a little. In England I baptised a child by a wrong name, and

had actually to do it again. In China on a similar occasion I began

by saying, "Friends, God has given you this child," when the

seeming father stopped me, and explained that God had not given

them this child, but he himself had picked it up in a field where

it had been exposed.

'I think I married only one Chinese couple, and to this day I doubt

if either the one or the other uttered a syllable where they should

have said, "I do." In my own case I think I must have said "I will"

in a feeble voice, for my wife when her turn came sung out "I will"

in a voice that startled herself and me, and made it ominous how

much _will_ she was going to have in the matter. Wishing you all

blessings,

'Believe me yours truly,

'JAMES GILMOUR.'