"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 deg. 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 Amaesa, 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 30l. a year, the scribe about 4l.; 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 1l. 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 4s. 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 15l., 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 25l. to 30l.

'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.'



CHAPTER VI

'IN JOURNEYINGS OFTEN, IN PERILS OF RIVERS'

The year following the marriage, owing to the absence of Dr. Dudgeon on furlough, was spent almost entirely in Peking. In his absence Mr. Gilmour took charge of what may be called the unprofessional work of the hospital, the purely medical superintendence being in the hands of Dr. Bushell of the British Legation. He varied this work and the routine of ordinary mission duties by an occasional trip to other centres where fairs were being held, in the company of Mr. Murray, of the National Bible Society of Scotland, for the purpose of selling Christian books. There was often a very keen friendly rivalry as to which could sell the most, and not unfrequently very large quantities of tracts and booklets were thus put into circulation.

Early in 1875, with the object of enabling his colleagues and his friends among the other missions which have centres in Peking the better to realise what life in Mongolia was like, he set up his Mongol tent in the compound, and invited them in companies of five or seven to partake of a Mongol dinner, cooked in Mongol fashion, and served as on the Plain. His diary records that five such entertainments were necessary, the utmost limit of the tent accommodation being reached on each occasion.

'The guests came,' we are told, 'at the appointed time, and the fire of wood was lighted in the middle of the tent. While the guests sat around on felt spread upon the ground, Gilmour proceeded to cook the millet and the mutton which furnished the feast. When all was ready a blessing was asked and the meal was eaten. On one occasion a reverend gentleman was called on to ask the blessing, but declined, feeling apparently that what he was expected to eat was not of such a quality that he could ask a blessing on it. Gilmour used often to refer to this with much amusement, though at the time he felt some chagrin.'

In 1876 the Mongolian trips were resumed. No colleague had yet been secured for him, and, with a bravery and consecration beyond all praise, Mrs. Gilmour accompanied him. This she did not once simply. For the first journey the novelty of the experience and the conviction that she could at any rate help to preserve her husband from the feeling of utter loneliness, which had been so hard to bear in past years, were powerful reasons. But she went a second and a third time. She went after the novelty had worn off, after she had learned by very stern experience how hard and rough the life was, after previous exposure had told but too severely upon her physical strength. And thus she deserves the eulogy passed upon her by her husband: 'She is a better missionary than I.' Comparisons of this kind are obviously out of the question. But it would be hard to find a more beautiful illustration of true wifely affection than the love for her husband that made her willing to share his Mongol tent as readily as the Peking compound. And if James Gilmour manifested a Christlike love for the ignorant and stolid Mongols, so also did the delicately nurtured and refined lady who, in order to do her part in winning them to the Saviour, endured privations, faced perils, and bore a daily and hourly series of trials so irksome and so repugnant that no motive short of all-absorbing love to Jesus Christ is strong enough to account for her endurance.

Here are some pictures of what this life meant to Mrs. Gilmour. The first journey which they took together lasted from April 4 until September 23, 1876, one hundred and thirty-six days being passed in Mongolia itself.

'On the evening of April 25 we came upon our servants' tent, already pitched beside some Mongol tents near a stream. Our things were unloaded from the Chinese cart, which soon drove off and left us fairly launched out on the Plain. We had two tents—one for ourselves and one for our servants. They were both alike, made of common blue Chinese cloth outside, and of commoner white Chinese cloth inside. It was originally intended that our tent should be private for our retirement and for Mrs. Gilmour's use; but we soon found that this idea could not be carried out. The Mongols are so much in the habit of going freely into everybody's tent in Mongolia that we found we could not retain our tent to ourselves without running risk of offending them by our seeming haughtiness. That they should think us uncongenial and distant would have been an obstacle to our success among them. So we made a virtue of necessity, and kept open house in the literal sense of the word. At our meals, our devotions, our ablutions, there they were—much amused and interested, of course. It was sometimes annoying to have them so much and so constantly about, but there was no help for it, and soon we began to care little for them, and took their presence not only as a matter of course, but without being disturbed by it.

'One advantage of this sort of public life was that Mrs. Gilmour, being almost constantly in the presence of the spoken language, picked it up very accurately and very rapidly. It is hardly possible to conceive a better plan of becoming easily and well acquainted with any language than that of thus living where it is impossible not to hear it in almost constant use.

'Another advantage of this sort of public life was that one gained the friendship of the people. This perfect freedom of intercourse pleased them much, and even conciliated those not very friendly inclined. It was quite common to hear visitors remark that, while other foreigners in Mongolia are distant and harsh, these people were gentle and accessible, and that such friendly people did a great deal to remove the unfavourable impressions made by other less considerate travellers.

'Our sojourn extended to the end of August, giving us a little over four months at a stretch of tent life. In that time we had experience of many kinds of weather. At first it was cold. Even in May ice was to be seen in the mornings. Then came heat, premature and burning, and all the more trying for ourselves and cattle on account of the lack of rain. Then we had a furious tempest, which raged for about thirty-six hours, overturning our covered cart and threatening to sweep ourselves and our tents away. We had to load down our tent ropes with bags of earth, stones, sod, the bodies of our carts, wheels, boxes, and anything we could find, and even then we had but a precarious existence. Every now and then, by day and by night, there would arise a shout from the one tent or the other, and amid the roar of the wind we heard cries for the hammer and the spare tent pins. We managed to fix ourselves without being blown away, and when the storm was over we patched our riven tents, and were thankful we had weathered it so well. Then came the summer rains—late in season, it is true, but great in strength—pouring and lashing and roaring, the great drops bursting through our rent cloth, broken up into spray and looking like pepper shaken from a box. We had waterproof sheets, but it was next to impossible to keep anything dry. While the rain lasted we sat huddled in our rain cloaks, or, spade in hand, cut new channels for suddenly extemporised streams and pools that grew larger and continued to come closer to our bedding and boxes. As soon as the sun returned, there was a general drying of garments, mattresses, and sheepskin robes. The heat was perhaps the most trying of our meteorological experiences; but even that passed away at last, and before we had left the plains night frost had reappeared, covering the pools about well mouths with thin sheets of ice.



'Later in the season, one afternoon, the loungers in the tent looked out and remarked, "The Mandarin has come," and gave place to a richly dressed, corpulent Mongol, who entered the tent, followed by one of his servants. Salutations over, he soon showed his colours and unmasked his batteries. He had come to fight, and we both went at it tooth and nail. He had read a good deal, and had come evidently prepared and primed, not in any spirit of unfriendliness, but under the evident conviction that a better case could be made out for Buddhism than for Christianity. The tent was crammed with eager listeners, and we reasoned together from the Creation to the finish, including all manner of side issues and important questions. It was a long time before he could be convinced that our Jesus was not spoken of and made known in the Buddhist classics. When he was at length satisfied (on that point), he wanted to know about the Trinity; how men could get good; how it was right that men should escape punishment due to their misdeeds by praying to Jesus; why God allowed animals, such as starving dogs, to lead a life of suffering; why God did not keep sin from entering the world; how could Jesus come, when it is said He is always with us; and how about the souls who died before Jesus came.

'At last the sun got low, and the Mandarin, with many words of friendship, rode away, promising to come another day. But he never came.'

In a later journey they had a very narrow escape from one of the frequent perils of this tent life:—

'In Mongolia we had one rather serious adventure. The south edge of the Plain is famed for storms, and the night we camped there, just after dark, began one of the fiercest thunderstorms I can remember having seen. The wind roared, the rain dashed, the tent quivered; the thunder rattled with a metallic ring, like shafts of iron dashing against each other, as it darted along a sheet-iron sky; the water rose in the tent till part of our bed was afloat. It was hardly possible to hear each other speak; but amid and above all the din of the tempest rose one sound not to be mistaken, the roar of rushing water. There was a river to right of us, but the sound came more from the left. Venturing out, I found there was a great swift-flowing river on both sides of us; that we could not move from the little piece of elevated land plain on which we had our tent; and that a few inches more water, or an obstacle getting into the path of the upper river, would send the full force of the current down on our tents. Flocks, herds, men are said to be swept away now and again in Mongolia, and for an hour our case seemed doubtful; but about 11 P.M. the storm ceased and the danger was over, and, though we had hardly anything left, we went to sleep, thanking God for His preserving mercy.'

Courageous, undoubtedly, Mrs. Gilmour was; her example of self-sacrifice in the Master's cause was lofty in itself, and is stimulating to every Christian mind. Yet it is to be greatly feared that the first of these journeys aggravated, if it did not actually develope, the disease from which she ultimately died. She found the ceaseless round of millet and mutton so unpalatable as at the last to be able hardly to eat at all; and experience of tent life was needful before she could realise how absolutely devoid it was of almost everything that a European lady looks upon as essential to daily existence, and thus make adequate preparation for the life. Yet, in 1878, she not only accompanied her husband again, better equipped by reason of previous experience, but she also took with her their infant boy.

The winter of 1876 in Peking was devoted to work more or less directly bearing upon the Christian conquest of the nomad tribes.

'Since returning from Mongolia I have had here a teacher whom I had come from the plains. I read some Buddhist classics with him, then had him write to my dictation some of the more striking incidents narrated in the Book of Daniel; then finally had him write for me an explanation of the way of salvation through Jesus. The extracts from Daniel were written mostly with the idea of accustoming him to my dictation; but the explanation of Christianity was a tract that I had long wanted to write, in which I sought to make it as plain as possible, not only that Jesus does save, but also that there is no salvation through any other name. The Religious Tract Society has consented to print for me both the extract from Daniel and the explanation of Christianity.'

During 1877 the ever-recurring question, inevitable, perhaps, and yet very paralysing to any steady progress, as to whether it was really worth while to continue labour in such a sterile field, came up once more for discussion. In an elaborate report, designed rather to elicit the views of the home authorities than to express his own, dated August 18, 1877, Mr. Gilmour depicts rapidly and clearly his relations, on the one hand, to the workers in the station of the American Board at Kalgan, and, on the other, to his colleagues of the North China Committee of the London Society. The American Board had sent out another missionary, and Mr. Gilmour was at first inclined to the view that, although working independently, they might yet act practically as colleagues.

'In addition, the new man, Rev. W. P. Sprague, and I one day undertook to climb a mountain together, and, by the time we got half-way up, we discovered that our ideas about working together quite agreed, and that there was a fair and good prospect of our making good harmonious colleagues in one work, though we belonged to different societies and hailed from different nations. Here, then, the thing seemed to be accomplished; here was a colleague ready to my hand, or I to his.'

But Mrs. Gulick, a most energetic and enthusiastic missionary to the Mongols, died, her husband was invalided to Japan, and Mr. Sprague found himself with the whole mission on his shoulders.

'If things are to remain as they are, it amounts pretty much to this, that in the warmer months of the year I can travel through parts of Mongolia teaching the Gospel and dispensing medicines; the rest of the year I can turn my attention to Chinese work in Peking. This is a pleasant enough arrangement for me, but it is not a very vigorous prosecution of the work of the Mongol mission. On the other hand, such is the fewness of people to be reached in Mongolia that it is only by alternating these periods of deprivation with seasons of activity among the Chinese that a man can keep his spirit alive.

'As regards the opinion of other members of the Committee here, I have never called for any formal expression of it, nor have they (the members of Committee) ever been invited to discuss the question of the Mongol mission in committee, but I know their individual opinions in an informal way. Messrs. Meech and Barradale don't say much; Mr. Owen thinks we will never do much in Mongolia working upon so distant a base as Peking; Mr. Lees thinks it a pity to take up such a seemingly unproductive field while so many more promising fields call for attention; he moreover thinks that the only way to do much for Mongolia is through China; Dr. Edkins thinks I spend too much time and labour over the Mongols, his idea being seemingly a combination of Mongol and Chinese work, with a preponderating tendency towards Chinese; Dr. Dudgeon has always regarded the Mongol mission as hardly practicable.

'On the principle, however, of Sow beside all waters, and Thou knowest not which shall prosper, this or that, perhaps it is well that the Gospel should be exhibited to the Mongols also, and if anyone is to go to Mongolia, perhaps many people would have more disqualifications than myself.'

In 1877 there was what seemed to be a very hopeful development of Christian work in Shantung, and Mr. Gilmour and Mr. Owen visited that district and baptized a large number of converts. Still later, Dr. Edkins and Mr. Owen, on another visit, baptized some two hundred people. With reference to this latter ingathering Mr. Gilmour wrote, 'I much regret that we have not some definite system of putting men on a period of probation.... About these two hundred I have nothing to say, but of the hundred odd Mr. Owen and I baptized in November I have to admit that, making all allowances, some of them cause me more anxiety than satisfaction.' There was, unfortunately, only too much ground for this fear. Ultimately the movement dwindled almost as rapidly as it had developed, and with little permanent benefit to the missionary cause. Shantung had been devastated by famine, locusts, and cholera. Missionaries brought relief to the stricken people, giving both money and food. Large numbers were drawn towards the new religion by this example of its deeds, and most of the converts had professed Christianity in the hope of getting something by its means. But this incident brought to a head a divergence of view as to the whole conduct of affairs in the Peking mission between the two older missionaries, Dr. Edkins and Dr. Dudgeon, and their three younger colleagues, Mr. Gilmour, Mr. Owen, and Mr. Meech. Into this strenuous and protracted controversy we do not propose to enter. Both parties were actuated by high and honourable motives; both were able to express their views pointedly, and with all appropriate force. In the end the view advocated by Mr. Gilmour triumphed. This was that, so far as possible, no pecuniary inducement whatever, either by way of payment for services, or even employment in connection with the mission, should be allowed to influence a Chinaman's judgment in the acceptance of Christianity. Gilmour could take an active part in the discussions only during his winter residence in Peking. But the reader who has followed its history so far will be quite prepared to learn that he made up for the infrequency of his participation in the controversy by the energy which he displayed when he did so. And in depicting Gilmour as he was, it is essential that he should be seen when opposing no less than, as he much preferred to be in all matters affecting the welfare of the mission, in the heartiest concord with his colleagues. And yet his keenest opponents would cordially assent to the following statement by one who took an active part in all the discussions. It is mainly for the purpose of emphasising this testimony that the matter is referred to here.

'When in Peking Gilmour took his full share in the debates which were constantly arising. Although he could and did argue to the extremest point, and very hot and sharp words might be spoken during the discussion, he harboured no bitterness of feeling against his opponents. After excited argument he would get up and say, "Nevertheless I love you." Nor were these empty words. He was kind, and willing to help all, and was doing acts of service continually for those who opposed him most.'

Towards the close of 1878 the Rev. J. S. Barradale, of the Tientsin Mission, died, leaving the Rev. J. Lees alone without a Chinese-speaking helper. Mr. Gilmour sympathised deeply with him in his loss, and wrote to say that, so long as Mr. Lees was thus left alone, he would be glad to make two trips annually to his country stations, either with him or for him. Mr. Gilmour's journal of this work is not only a record of the willingness with which he added gladly to his own heavy labours in order to assist a colleague; but it also gives some most realistic pictures of what ordinary life in China is like, and under what conditions evangelistic itineration there is carried on. Some of the districts visited had just been devastated by a severe famine.

'From Tientsin to Hsiao Chang is five days' journey. Three hours out from Tientsin we came upon some dogs feasting on a corpse lying at a cross-road. The dogs belonged to cottagers near, but no attempt was made by the owners to keep them away; no one took the trouble to bury the body or cover it up even. Later on we passed through one famine-devastated district. Half the houses in the villages were unroofed; large tracts of land were untilled; the landscape was almost entirely destitute of animal life; travellers were nowhere to be seen; round the villages the little stacks of straw and fuel were not to be seen; the lanes were silent; no dogs, no cocks and hens, no pigs; no groups of children playing or running after the foreigner as he passed by; and the words of Scripture came to my mind, "the land desolate without inhabitant." We continued to pass these desolations for about sixty English miles. We stopped a night in one of these ruined villages, and Mr. Lees took me round the place to see the nature and extent of the destruction. Closer inspection revealed even more ruin than a mere traveller's passing look would detect; for, evidently, some care had been taken to leave house walls and boundary walls on the street standing, so as to hide some part of the destruction, and thus make things look better than they really were.

'Natives of the place gave us numbers, which showed the population was then estimated at not much, if any, more than half the former population. It was expressly stated, however, that the missing half were not regarded as all dead; very many were dead, had died in the place, but many had gone elsewhere—in most cases no one knew where. Of these some few would doubtless return; but it is to be feared that the mortality in a hard year among famine refugees is very large, and of those who left their homes and native places, the few that may eventually return will be very few, I fear.

'Doesn't the Bible say that it is a harder fate to die of famine than to die by the sword—to die stricken through for want of the fruits of the earth? But of all those who died in the famine in North China there is one class whose case is perhaps more distressing than ordinary. A large number of people seem to have died just as the harvest—a plentiful one—ripened. Through all these hard dreary months, when, day after day, month after month, they looked for and longed for rain, those I now speak of struggled through, kept up hope, fared hard, hoped eagerly, and at last saw the rain come, saw the crops flourishing, saw them beginning to ripen, congratulated themselves and others on the prospect of abundant food and better days. But they were to see it with their eyes, but not to eat thereof. As far as could be gathered from the natives themselves, the case would seem to be thus.

'The great mass of the population was much reduced in bodily strength by the long period of half-starvation they went through; summer and early autumn came with the rains and the attendant ague, which last—the ague—still more reduced the strength of their already emaciated frames. You can imagine them, with lean faces and hungry eyes, tottering about the fields, and counting the days that must yet elapse before the grain would ripen. The rage of hunger was no longer to be borne; they anticipated by a few days the ripening; took the grain, still a little green—perhaps sometimes very green—and put it into the pot. But here again was another difficulty. The fuel used is grain stalks, and the famine deprived them at once of food and fuel. Green grain they might cook, but green-grain stalks would not burn. Fuel was thus deficient; and was it wonderful if, as they stood round the pot, and the fuel was deficient, their patience should fail them and they should fall upon the food half cooked? That was bad enough; but that is not all. The Chinese have nearly as little self-control as children; and is it to be wondered at if, when at last, after long months of the slow torture of unappeased hunger, they found a full meal before them, they should have eaten to the full? When a man emaciated from having gone through a famine, and further enfeebled after repeated prostrations by ague, at length rises up and gorges himself with farinaceous food, half ripe and half cooked, the consequences are not difficult to divine. Diarrh[oe]a and dysentery set in, and became fearfully prevalent—not only prevalent, but peculiarly fatal. To make matters worse, medicines in that part of the country are dear; the people were too poor to get medical help, and great numbers who had lived to see the famine end and prosperity return lived only to see the prosperity, and to die when it touched them. The famine fever in summer seems to have been fearfully prevalent. It is said that in a single courtyard two or three people would be lying about the gate, two or three under the shadow of some house, two or three more inside the house—all stricken down with fever. The air of some villages is said to have been loaded with the effluvia to such an extent that one riding along the street perceptibly discerned the taint in the atmosphere. The fever was deadly too, but evidently not so deadly in proportion as the autumn dysentery. Frequently, when talking to a boy, we would hear he was an orphan, and, on inquiry, he told that his father had died in autumn; frequently, in talking to a woman, we would hear that she was a widow, and, on asking when her husband died, the reply was, "Autumn."