Chapter XI: Closing Labours (2)

'I sent you a post-card acknowledging receipt of your kind letter
of December 10, saying that Mrs. Swan had passed away on November
22. I had not heard, and just then I had not time to write. I am
now at the east end of my district, three days' journey from where
the mail reached me.

'I am much moved to think that letter to me was her last. And there
is a fitness that it should be so. "Baptized for the dead," as the
phrase is. In some sense I am successor to her work, and it was not
out of keeping that her last letter should have been to the field
which all along had such a large place and keen interest in her
heart, where so many more good works found a place. I often think
of all the kindness and friendship I have experienced at her hands,
both on my visits to Edinburgh and through letters. Missionaries
miss such lives much when they are removed. I need not speak to
you, who knew her so well, of what a charming hostess she made, and
of how, even in her old age, all her great and abiding earnestness
had running through it all so much happy Scotch humour.

'I had no idea Mrs. Swan was so old. Eighty-one, she did not look
old except about the last time I saw her, and then I had no idea
her age was so great. She has gone; but for many years to come, if
I am spared, I shall from time to time revisit her in her house in
Edinburgh, and see her at the table with the quiet Jane moving
noiselessly around, or see her seated at her desk in the corner,
writing letters. Remember me very kindly to your father--fit
brother for such a sister. Their separation cannot be very long at
the longest. For that matter of it, those of us who are here
longest must soon be gone, and when the going comes, or looms
before us, let us look not at the going, but at the being _there_.'

Having paid considerable attention to the work and methods of the Salvation Army, the publication of _In Darkest England_ interested him greatly, and on March 9 he sent in a letter the following trenchant criticism, all the more noteworthy because of his strong sympathy with much in the Army that others find it hard to accept.

'Got here Saturday. Had a good Sunday with the Christians. To-day
it snowed, and thus we have had time to put our house in order. I
have read Booth's scheme in the _Review of Reviews_. I am greatly
puzzled. It is _so_ far a departure from Booth's principle of doing
spiritual work only. It reads well, but Booth must know just as
well as I do that much of the theory will never work in practice.
What I dislike most in it is, it is in spiritual things doing
exactly what it attempts to do in secular things--namely, it
threatens to swallow up in a great holy syndicate no end of smaller
charities which have been and are working efficiently. Again, the
finally impenitent are to be cast off. Yes, that is just the rub.
It will leave the good-for-nothings, many of them cast out as
before. Nor will Booth's despotism do in the long run. But I am for
the scheme and for old Booth too; but, nevertheless, there is both
a limit and an end to all despotism and despotisms. But I am more
favourable to the scheme than these words would seem to indicate.'

Mr. Parker, who bids fair to be a successor after Gilmour's own heart, in his first report of his experiences in Mongolia gave a bright and hopeful view of his colleague.

'On arriving at T· Ss[)u] Kou we found Gilmour very well indeed;
looking better than he did when I saw him in England. He was
jubilant over our coming, and it has been a great source of
happiness to me to know that God's sending me here has up till now
given happiness and comfort to one of His faithful servants. I have
had a slight taste of being left alone, and I must confess Gilmour
has had something to endure during the last few years.

'We are living in hired rooms of an inn. Gilmour is not in this
courtyard. I have been alone here with my Chinese boy for the last
five weeks (Dr. Smith being in Ch'ao Yang until a few days ago). I
have been unable to get a proper teacher at present. Gilmour's
student has been teaching me. He speaks distinctly. With him I have
made very fair progress. I hope in a few days to secure a proper
teacher.

'Another thing which has taught me a good amount of the Chinese I
know is having to give orders to my Chinese boy in house-keeping
generally. I am thankful to God for past experiences in my life,
though they were rather rough; for here I find they come in very
usefully. I had to teach my boy how to cook and do things
generally. It was rather an amusing piece of work, seeing that I
knew nothing of the language. Each order I gave him was a comedy in
two or three acts, all played out in dumb show. In telling him what
I wished purchased I was obliged to imitate sounds which are
peculiar to certain beasts and birds, which when he understood, he
announced that fact by opening wide his eyes and emitting a loud
"Ah!" which was generally followed by the name of the thing
indicated bellowed forth at the top of his voice as if I were
deaf. Also he in turn, when he had anything to tell me, always
stood in the centre of the room and went through a whole
performance. On one occasion, when he wished to tell me that a
certain dog had stolen the day's meat, the performance was so
amusing that, when he had got through, I asked him what he was
trying to say, in order that I might once more see the fun.

'Forgive me for taking up your time with such frivolous things. But
I have picked up much of the language in that way, although at the
cost of being grimed with soot and burning my fingers. All that is
now past, and the boy is very useful, and, although now a heathen,
I am hoping that by my influence he may be led to know the love of
Jesus Christ. I am very glad that I came straight out here. I am
sure I shall learn the language (of the _people_, perhaps _not_ of
the _books_) better than in the frontier cities. I am constantly
forced to try and speak. Every day I have some visitors here whom I
must try and entertain. I feel stupid at times with them, and
perhaps they think I am; but, nevertheless, each day's experience
is adding to my vocabulary. And when so learnt, I know that people
will understand me when I speak.

'Gilmour is doing a valuable work. Every day he goes to the street
and sets out his table with his boxes of medicines and books. He
has three narrow benches, on one of which he sits, the other two
being for his patients. Of the latter he has any amount, coming
with all the ills to which humanity is heir. It is a busy street,
not of the best repute, for it is where all the traders in
second-hand clothes and dealers in marine stores spread out their
wares.

'For some weeks I went out at a certain hour to take care of
Gilmour's stand while he went and got a "refresher" in the shape of
some indigestible pudding made of millet-flour with beans for
plums. He generally left me with a patient or two requiring some
lotion in the eye or some wound to dress. Then I, being a
new-comer and a typical "foreign devil" (being red of hair and in
complexion), always brought a large following down the street with
me, and attracted a great crowd round the stand. At first it was
not pleasant to sit there and be stared at without being able to
speak to them; but after a while I got very interested in the
different faces that came round. On one occasion I noticed the
crowd eagerly discussing something among themselves, giving me a
scrutinising look now and then. Now and again one would turn to his
fellow and rub his finger across his upper lip as if he was feeling
for his moustache. I had only been here a week or so then, and knew
very little of the language; but I listened attentively, and at
last I heard them speaking the Chinese numerals, and then it all
dawned upon me that they were inquiring about and discussing my
age; so I up with my fingers indicating the years of my pilgrimage.
I never saw a crowd so amused. "Ah, ah!" they said, and opened
their eyes, highly delighted that I was able to tell them what they
wanted to know. Then I had my turn, and, pointing to a man here and
there in the crowd, I used what little of Chinese I had in guessing
their ages.

'But the sights of misery, suffering, and wretchedness which gather
round Gilmour's stand are simply appalling. His work seems to me to
come nearest to Christ's own way of blessing men. Healing them of
their wounds, giving comfort in sickness, and at the same time
telling them the gospel of Eternal Salvation through Jesus Christ.
One day that I went I found Gilmour tying a bandage on a poor
beggar's knee. The beggar was a boy about sixteen years of age,
entirely naked, with the exception of a piece of sacking for a loin
cloth. He had been creeping about, almost frozen with cold, and a
dog (who, no doubt, thought he was simply an animated bone) had
attacked him.

'The people here are desperately poor, and the misery and
suffering one sees crawling through the streets every day is
heart-rending. I have not a doubt that I am in a real mission
field, and thank God that He has given me the opportunity to do
something towards alleviating some of this misery. But what about
the work as regards the saving of souls and establishing of a
Church? I can only speak of the work in T· Ss[)u] Kou. It is in its
initiatory stage. All the Christians and adherents can sit round
the four sides of my table. But I am highly pleased with them.'

The letters of this period have a very tender and sacred association for all who received them, since they reached England after the telegraphic tidings of James Gilmour's death had brought sorrow to his many friends. They came, in a sense, like a message from one 'within the veil.' Some of these refer to the books he was reading, and from which he had derived benefit; some depict phases of his experience; some bear directly upon his work and its needs; all possess the solemn value and are read in the clearer light imparted to them by Death.

The first was written to one of his brothers.

'Do you know _In the Volume of the Book_, by Dr. Pentecost? It is A
1. I have just read it. It is not a dear book. Read it, man, by all
means. It gives zest to the old Bible. I am reading through the New
Testament at about the rate of a gospel a day, or two epistles.
Rapid reading has advantages. Close study of minute portions has
other advantages. All sorts of reading are valuable. Go for your
Bible, brother. There is no end more in it than ever you or I have
yet seen. I am going for it both in Chinese and English, and it
pays as nothing else does. In Jesus is all _fulness_. Supply
yourself from Him. May the richest blessings be on you from Him!
Heaven's ahead, brother. Hurrah!'

The next was to the Edinburgh correspondent from whose letters we have previously taken extracts.

'This mail was sent off February 2. It came back the same day. The
man was scared by robbers. He leaves to-morrow. We are well. We are
_idle_. Would you believe it? It is Chinese New Year time, and I
cannot go on the street with my stand. No people: soon will be. We
are thankful for the rest. It won't last long.... Oh, it is good to
have Jesus to tell all to. May He be more of an intimate friend to
you and to me! The troubles of this earthly life are not few. How
many were Paul's! I am reading Farrar's _Life and Work of Paul_. It
puts much new light on the epistles. What a time the man Paul had
of it! Yet he called them "light afflictions." How much lighter are
ours! And the same heaven he looked to is for us--the same
crown--not to him only, but to all who love the appearing of
Christ. You love Him. Rejoice and be glad. I _am_ so glad that the
crown is not only for such as Paul, whom we cannot hope to imitate,
but for those (ii. Timothy iv. 8) who have loved His appearing. We
_do_ that, don't we? May the joy set before us enable us to endure,
when endurance is needed! May your heart rest in Him! May your soul
cling to Him! May His light always shine on your path! May I
always, even in dark days and dark times, have His light in my
heart and soul! Don't regard me as one always on the sunny heights,
but as one often cast down, often in much feebleness, in much
unworthiness, and falling so far short of my own ideal. But it is
good to think that, in Christ, we are perfect, that He makes up
all.

'Parker and I read _Holy of Holies_, when together. It is a good
book. Meantime, he and I are three days' journey separate, and may
be so for a month to come yet. I hope he likes it. It is a little
hard on him, but I had to come here on mission business, and, if
needed, will return to him at any time. Looking again at Heb. vi.
4-6.'

His correspondent had asked him about this passage.

'It is said--it is impossible to "renew them again to repentance."
Does it not seem clear that what is described cannot be the case of
one who has the repentant heart? I think so decidedly, and that
passage has no bearing on the sinner who repents.... No one will
come to harm who commits himself to His keeping. And no one will
lack leading who has God for his guide. If I could only hear of or
from the friends I pray for, that they had given themselves over to
God's keeping, I would be at rest and thankful. You are trusting in
Him. You will not be ashamed. He will take care to supply every
needed blessing at the right time and in the right way.

'Some day, I believe we shall stand in Eternity and look back on
Time. How ashamed we then shall be of any want of trust and of any
unfaithfulness! May He help us to look at things now in _that_
light, and how to do as we then shall wish we had done!...

'I would be glad if you would send me half a dozen copies of the
_Wordless Book_. Two copies fell into the hands of robbers and were
thus lost....

'I shall be glad to have the _Life of Faith_. You might mark any
passages that strike you.'

In a letter to the Rev. J. Paterson, dated April 1, he writes:--

'It helps me much out here to get the best consecrated literature,
and to get it early. Men in the most difficult and dangerous fields
should be the best armed and equipped. Some of these books open up
new treasures to me in God's Word. I do not use them in place of
God's Word, but as openers to the treasures.'

In almost the last letter from him received by his brother Alexander and dated April 24, 1891, the following passage occurs:--

'_The Practice of the Presence of God_, being conversations and
letters of Brother Lawrence. Please send a copy to yourself, John,
Matthew, Paterson, Miss Gowan, and ten copies to me, charging all
costs to me, of course. It is by a Roman Catholic: don't imitate
his Roman Catholicism, but his practice of the presence of God.'

In April Mr. Gilmour journeyed to Tientsin, and was unanimously elected to preside over the annual meeting of the North China District Committee of the London Missionary Society as chairman. His last communication to the home Society, with the exception of one brief note upon a matter of committee business, was a post-card, dated April 20, 1891, received in London some weeks after the tidings of his death. It runs:--

'Arrived here yesterday. The world keeps shrinking. Left T· Ss[)u]
Kou Monday 8 A.M. Tuesday noon dined in a border Mongol village, in
a Mongol's inn, served by a Mongol waiter, in presence of a number
of Mongols. Got to London Missionary Society's Compound, Tientsin,
Saturday, 5 P.M. Our headquarters are just five days from the
extended railway. Am in A 1 health, everybody says so here, and
that truly. Meantime am in clover, physically and spiritually. With
prayers for the home end of the London Missionary Society's work.

'Yours truly,
'J. GILMOUR.'

Just thirty-one days later he was lying dead in the same compound. How the interval passed is told by those who enjoyed those closing days of lofty spiritual fellowship. Had it been foreseen that the end was so near, the fervour and impressiveness and help of his presence could hardly have been increased. Before, however, passing to the details of this last month, the following letters are given _in extenso_ as they form the last lengthy sketches of his work drawn by his own hand.

'Tientsin, L.M.S.: April 20, 1891.

My dear Mrs. Lovett,--I guess you are at the bottom of 10_l._ from
Clapham Congregational Church Working Society (Ladies). Ar'n't you?
If so, thanks. If not--I was going to say you ought to be--but my
courage fails me. Anyhow, you can read and please forward the
enclosed with my best thanks to the friends. I got here two days
ago, and am here for a short time. The railway has gone out
eastwards, is still going, and has now a station near me in
Mongolia--near me being five long days' journey; but that is near,
as near and far go here.

'I have many grateful and many prayerful remembrances of England
and English friends, and a vivid remembrance of your kindness when
I was with you. My regards to your parents. I hope you and your
husband and children are all well. I heard of Mr. Lovett being in
America--_American Pictures_ on the stocks?

'I had intended to write you a nice letter, but it won't come, and
the letter must go as it is. Please read into the remaining blank
sheet all the feelings and good wishes I should express and do
feel, and next time I write you, may it not be in the ebb tide, at
the end of a mail.

'Your husband's a Director. I _do_ hope they are sending me a
doctor. If he can do anything in the matter, I wish he would.

'Yours, dried up and feeling dumb,
'JAMES GILMOUR.'

Enclosed in the above was the following letter, dated March 10, and addressed to 'The Clapham Congregational Church Ladies' Working Society.'

'Dear Friends,--Many thanks for your handsome donation (10_l._),
notice of which has reached me last night. I am told you want to
hear from me. All right. I am just back from a month's raid into
Ch'ao Yang. Had a fine time. Good weather and plenty of work in the
marketplace. Baptized four adults, three being women--all Chinese.
It is the day of small things truly, but I am not a little
encouraged, over the women especially. That now makes four
Christian families in Ch'ao Yang or its immediate neighbourhood.
The two wives baptized this time have Christian husbands. It has
all along been our prayer that the unsaved relatives of the saved
might be saved.

'Mrs. Chu's husband was baptized a couple of years ago. She
consented to his taking their two children to me to be baptized,
but she herself would have nothing to do with Christianity or
Christ. This time she got over her difficulties. I was much
pleased, especially as she had annoyed her husband a good deal last
year about his having been beaten about his Christianity. She also
had her little child baptized. Pray that God may keep and help them
in all the many complications that will arise on account of their
Christianity, living as they do in a composite family, the ruling
powers of which are heathen.

'Mrs. Ning is a model wife. They are poor. Her husband cannot dress
in good clothes, but is always as neat as a virtuous wife, skilful
with her needle, can make him. She mends so neatly. I once
discarded a vest (Chinese) and gave it to her husband. He took it
home, and later on I saw him swelling about in it quite like a neat
old gentleman, though I was almost ashamed to give it him.

'They have had family worship in their home for a year or two--they
say. We went to baptize her. It was such a small, poor house, but
so very nice inside. Mother and grown daughters and little girl,
with father and grown son, all sleep on a little brick platform,
hardly big enough for me--one man. She and the grown daughter
support the family by needlework--making horsehair women's head
fittings, which the father sells, when he has nothing more to do.

'The son is epileptic and can earn nothing, and is, in addition, a
great eater. He is a good man and a Christian. As we entered, the
son and daughter went out. The mother and little daughter were
baptized. The father did not wish his big daughter baptized. When
she is married she will get a heathen mother-in-law, who will go
for her and make her worship idols. So said the father. In a few
days the father came back, saying that out of fear of the coming
mother-in-law he had not had his daughter baptized, but that his
daughter had pressed him so hard that she was as formidable as the
mother-in-law. The daughter says she'll stick to her God and let
them stick to theirs, and so she was baptized. She has a hot time
before her. Chinese mothers-in-law are no joke. Pray for the lassie
that:--(_a_) she may be steadfast; (_b_) she may be wise; (_c_) she
may be gentle in her resistance; (_d_) enabled by God to endure;
and that the mother-in-law may be restrained. God can do all
things.

'Here, in T· Ss[)u] Kou, two of the Christians have wives very
much opposed to Christianity, and give their husbands hot times.
Remember the husbands, please, and all such in their shoes, in
prayer, and may the darkened women themselves be enlightened. You
have no notion how deeply sunk in superstition the women are. Still
another Christian has a wife whom he has to allow to worship a
weasel, because the woman shows symptoms of being possessed by the
beast if she does not worship it!

'The other day a woman came to my stand in the market-place, saying
that "Mr. Yellow" troubled her. "Mr. Yellow" turned out to be the
weasel, and she firmly believed her sickness was due to the beast.

'We are badly in want of a lady medical man in this district. Don't
you know of one who would do? Are there none of you who could study
medicine and go out as doctors to some of the many needy places?
Much was hoped for this district from the late Mrs. Smith, but God
took her. Any one who comes here should have good health, and not
fear seclusion from foreign company. I would suggest that a couple
should come, a medical and a non-medical. There is a house which
could be got for such a couple, only I don't see how they could get
on without knowing some Chinese. Perhaps some one of the Peking or
Tientsin ladies already speaking Chinese would volunteer to be a
medical lady's companion. Would that God would stir some of you up!
Meantime, thanks for the money. Thanks also for the prayers which I
take for granted you let us have. You might also pray for a woman
who has a very good, quiet, Christian husband, but herself has such
a temper that she cannot in decency take on a Christian profession.
Eh, man! eh, man! it is curious that I, a widower, should be left
to look after women's souls out here, when lots of women are
competing for men's situations and businesses at home. I guess
things will come right some day, though I may or may not see it.

'Very gratefully,
'Yours sincerely,
'JAMES GILMOUR.'

On May 8 he sent the following note to Mrs. Williams, the wife of the Rev. Mark Williams of the American Board. Their Society happened to be holding its annual meeting at the same time in Tientsin as the London Society. Mr. Gilmour was just entering his fatal illness as he penned these lines, the last, we believe, that he wrote. They are a beautiful testimony to the strength of his affection for the Mongols to whom he and his wife had ministered so well long before, and on whose behalf they had suffered so much and so deeply. Standing as he was on the borderland of the heavenly country, he recalls the hard toil of his early days, and he leaves to those who must carry on to a successful issue, not only his work, but also the great enterprise of winning all China for Jesus Christ, this as a last legacy--the fruit of his prayer, his faith, his toil and his utter self-sacrifice--namely, the conviction that the need of China is 'good, honest, quiet, earnest, persistent work in old lines and ways.'

'Tientsin: May 8, Friday.

'My dear Mrs. Williams,--Thanks for returning the photos. Not
having delivered them to you personally, I feared that in the
present whirl of people and business they might have been mislaid,
or even not reached you.

'It is a great pleasure to see you here at this time. Many memories
of past times and days come up. Though never again likely to see
Kalgan, I often in thought go along its narrow, hard streets, and
its up and down sideways, call in at your house, see all your
faces, even that of the youthful Stephen, and the studious Etta;
and often go up over the Pass into the grass land.

'It is like a rest for a little while beside the palms and wells of
Elim to meet you all here.

'Your peaceful, happy family fills me with gratitude to God. May He
bless them all (your children), and lead them not only into paths
of peace and pleasantness, but of useful service for Him! You and
your husband seem well. May many useful years of ripely experienced
labour be yours!

'Lately, I am being more and more impressed with the idea that what
is wanted in China is not new "lightning" methods so much as good,
honest, quiet, earnest, persistent work in old lines and ways.

'With many grateful memories of all old-time Kalgan kindness, and
hoping to see a note from you, or Mr. Williams, say once a year or
so, and with prayers for you and all Kalgan-wards Mongols,

'Yours, cheered by the vision of you all,
'JAMES GILMOUR.'