James Gilmour

“ Men, poor it may be, strive through college with a mind and deter mination beyond their circumstances and bodily strength, fight a great battle with poverty and more clever students, resolute to take the first place if possible, and just as the college is finished with them, and sending them forth to the field of life decorated with all the honours it can bestow, the fond Alma Mater has to keep on mourning and drop her tear over an early grave. ”

“ 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. Saluta tions 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 un friendliness, but under the evident conviction that a better case could be made out for Buddhism than for Christianity. ”

“ Do we not in our day rest too much on the arm of flesh ? Cannot the same wonders be done now as of old ? Do not the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, still to show Himself strong on behalf of those who put their trust in Him ? Oh that God would give me more practical faith in Him! Where is now the Lord God of Elijah ? He is waiting for Elijah to call on Him. ”

“ If heaven sees you taking a large part of your superior land for raising the useless tobacco, and taking a very large proportion of the grain sent you as food, and using it not to eat, nor to feed animals, but distilling it into the hurtful whisky, do you think heaven, seeing all this waste going on, is likely to hear your petitions and increase the supply of what you now waste so large a proportion ? ”

“ I Boys, do be true to Jesus. In your words and deeds honour Him. Make His heart glad. Jesus wants your love. He loves you and died for you. You cannot but love Him if you think how He loves you. Good-bye. Mean time I am just going to breakfast, and then for a day on the street, trying to tell the people about Jesus. God bless you, my dear lads ! ”

“ There, twice a day, I had an oppor tunity of studying the drinking habits of the country. Almost every man who entered the eating-house first called for a whisky warmer. Supplied with that, he would go out and buy his whisky, coming back he would set it in the charcoal fire to warm, and then slowly drink it from the tiny wine cups common in China, inviting me to join him, and wondering at a man who could evidently afford it, not treating himself to two ounces of whisky, and won dering still more when he learned that I did not use tobacco. ”

“ 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 : every thing better than we could wish it, and complete joy. ”

“ Often a gentleman would come up and ask, " Where are you going ? " to which Mr. Gilmour would reply, " We are cooling ourselves ; we are going nowhere." It was always a mystery to people what we could possibly mean by taking walks to the country. One day two lads followed us for some miles across some low hills, anxious to know our busi ness, and getting well laughed at by their friends, poor fellows, on their return to the town.
One thing about Mr. Gilmour always impressed me deeply his wonderful knowledge of the little touches of Chinese politeness, and his wonderful power of observation. ”

“ God I call my Father, Christ my Saviour, heaven my home, earth and the life here the entrance to real life. If there is anything in our faith or in our belief, then heaven is as much better than earth as it is higher than earth, and our soul s life is insured from all harm. If a man is insured against all possible harm, why should he be afraid ? ”

“ Drinkers of whisky, and smokers, especially of opium, the better the year is, the more they indulge. In a poor year they use less whisky and opium ; the better the year, and the cheaper tobacco, whisky, and opium are, the more they use, so that in place of making a proper return to heaven for a good year, they only take the opportunity afforded them of running deeper into waste and wrong-doing. ”

“ The diseases presented for treatment are legion, but the most common cases are skin diseases and diseases of the eye and teeth. Perhaps rheumatism is the disease of Mongolia ; but the manner of life and customs of the Mongols are such that it is useless to attempt to cure it. Cure it to-day, it is contracted again to-morrow. Skin diseases present a fair field for a medical missionary. They are so common, and the Mongolian treatment of them is so far removed from common-sense, that anyone with a few medicines and a little intelligence has ample opportunity of benefiting many sufferers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He is truly the true source of true satisfaction. May we be led to trust Him more largely in all the things of our lives ! I am sure, too it will be the things where we have trusted Him most and been most consecrated in His service that we shall value most when we look back on life from the end. May you be largely satisfied with His blessing and Himself! ”

“ The mothers bringing their babies moves me much. It reminds me of scenes in Peking when another and more skilful hand ministered to their diseases ; then the picture of the family surroundings fills itself up, and I have to seek a place where to weep.
1 Altogether it is a sowing in tears. The district is not an easy one, the life which the work entails is a hard one. ”

“ They seem calm enough, and are no doubt calm enough ; shall the courage of the world, shall the courage of scepticism, shall the courage of carelessness be greater and produce better fruit than the courage of the Christian ? O Lord, preserve me from the sin of dishonouring Thy name through fear and cowardice ! Let us be bold in the Lord!
By the end of July 1870, Gilmour had reached a fixed resolution to go to Mongolia as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made. ”

“ 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 DC summoned, even supposing he could leave his post and come. ”

“ Still another man is forbidden by his father to be a Christian. That is, in all, five men are Christians at heart, and read our books and are learning Christianity, but do not confess Christ in this one place. Do you know what Jesus says about such people (Matt. x. 32-39) ? Jesus says that, if they obey others rather than Him, they are not worthy to be His disciples. I am praying for all these people. I ask you, too, to pray for these and all like them, that they may be able to confess Christ. It is difficult for men in China to be Christians. ”

“ But a sojourn at home is not by any means a season of entire rest for the jaded worker. The Churches constantly need the stimulus and awakening that are best supplied by the men who have been filling the hard places in the field. Gilmour also was so full of enthusiasm for his work, and so eager in his desire to benefit the Mongols, that he would doubtless have found for himself many opportunities of pleading their cause, had not the authorities of the London Missionary Society, following their usual custom, furnished him with a long list of deputation engagements. ”

“ Let us now measure our actions by the standard of that scene, let us now look upon the things of time in the light of eternity, and we shall see them better as they are, and live more as we shall wish then we had done. It is not too late. We can secure yet what remains of our life. ”

“ Heaven had given them good land and good rains for the purpose of growing food. The growth of tobacco was defeating heaven s purpose, and as long as they did so, what face had they to ask for good seasons ? To take good land and plant it with tobacco, with what face could they ask heaven to send rain, seeing that if rain came, what grew would not be grain but tobacco, a thing which they themselves to a man admitted was no use at all ? And so my audience would admit that as preliminary to getting or even expecting a good harvest was the discontinuance of the use and growth of tobacco. ”

“ My main hope, though, is in settling down somewhere as a head centre, in close contact with the people, so that I earnestly desire that the doctor should come, If he is unmarried I would be glad to see him to-morrow. Could you not get a doctor who would be willing to remain single till a location could be secured ? After a location has been secured let him marry if he likes.
I think that the region I have in my mind would make a good centre for a doctor, and that he would have plenty of practice among Mongols and Chinese, especially if he could start a hospital for in-patients. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But when pointed out to them they readily admit that tobacco cultivation lessens the production of grain, and as readily admit that the wrongdoing in this misuse of land is likely to further harm the harvest by offending heaven into being unwilling to send rain. I myself never used to look on smoking as any great evil, till led into this district, and thus forced to study the subject In England I had never seen tobacco grown. A smoker there spends a few coppers, and smokes ; what harm does he do ? Does not he increase trade and help the revenue ? His smoking seems to harm no one but himself. ”

“ The danger lies all the other way. To leave Christians drinking whisky and smoking tobacco in that region, would be to preach forgiveness of sin through Christ to men who were still going on in the practice of what their conscience told them was sin, and all must admit that this would never do. The condition of things in that region is such that I have no hesitation in saying that a man, to be honest in obeying God by refraining from what is wrong, must throw up his connexion with these three things, tobacco, whisky, opium. ”

“ I find good reading in dull spiritual weather, and the Psalms too are useful. When I feel I cannot make headway in devotion, I open at the Psalms and push out in my canoe, and let myself be carried along in the stream of devotion which flows through the whole book. ”

“ The glare of the sun on the Plain at all seasons, except when the grass is fresh and green in summer, the blinding sheen from the snowy expanse in winter, and the continual smoke that hangs like a cloud two or three feet above the floor of the tent, all combine to attack the eye. Eye diseases are therefore very common. The lama medicines seem to be able to do nothing for such cases, and a few remedies in a foreigner s hands work cures that seem wonderful to the Mongols. ”

“ I pray often for you and remember you more frequently still, and feel more and more that earth is a shifting scene, that here we have no permanent place, that heaven is our home, that your wife my dear mother has gone there, that my wife has gone there and is now in the Golden City, and that, sooner or later, you and I will be there, and that, when there, we ll have plenty of time to sit about and talk all together in a company. ”

“ I feel sure that almost any missionary placed as I was would have done exactly what I have done, taken a stand against this excessive growth and more excessive use of tobacco, for, not content with what they grow, they actually import quantities of it. Tobacco is not the greatest cause of poverty and hunger in the district, but it is a much greater factor in poverty than would at first be supposed. But for its use in that district a large number of men, women, and children, who are deficiently clothed and fed, would be warm and sleek. ”

“ There is my opponent, I ll thrash him if I can ; better to toil out my life-blood drop by drop than let it mount to my cheek as a mantle of shame when I find myself defeated when I might have been victorious. ”

“ The nights were long in reality, and, in such unsatisfactory surroundings as the discomforts of a poor tent and doubtful companions, the nights seemed longer than they were. At sunrise I was only too glad to escape from smoke and everything else to the retirement of the crest of a low ridge of hills near the tent This, perhaps the most natural thing in the world for a foreigner, was utterly inexplicable to the Mongols. The idea that any man should get out of his bed at sunrise and climb a hill for nothing ! ”

“ Matthew Gilmour and his wife were people of strict integrity and Christian living. They walked regularly every Sunday the five miles to the Congregational Church in Glasgow, though there were several places of worship within two miles of their residence. I have often heard the old residents of the steep and rough country road they used to take for a short cut when nearing home tell how impressed they have been by the sight of the worthy couple and their family wending their way along in the dark winter Sabbath evenings by the light of a hand-lantern. ”