James Gilmour of Mongolia Part 10

'_March 21._--Left Pei Kuan at 4 A.M. Dark and snow. Terrible march over slippery stones. Nan Kou at 7 A.M. No donkey on such a snowy day. Hired the next twenty-seven li. Stiff march. Shatto at 11.35.

Terrible march to Ching Ho at 3 P.M. Terrible march to Te Sheng Men. Home at 6.10. Prayer Meeting. Thanks be unto G.o.d for all His mercies.'

Early in 1885 Mr. Gilmour's heart was rejoiced by the tidings of the baptism of Boyinto, the Mongol to whom reference has been repeatedly made above. Although Gilmour's was not the hand to administer the rite, undoubtedly the conversion was the result of his work. On January 26, 1885, he received a letter from the Rev. W. P. Sprague, of the American Mission at Kalgan, part of which we quote.

'Kalgan: Jan. 14, 1885.

'Dear Brother Gilmour,--I hasten to tell you the very good news.

Boyinto of Shabberti was baptized by my hand this day into the Church of Christ, here at Kalgan, in the presence of our a.s.sembled church and congregation. I'm sure you will rejoice and thank G.o.d more than any of us. And I never saw our Christians so happy to receive any one into the Church. The only thing I regret is that it should not be your hand instead of mine to administer the sacred rite.

'I wrote you of his visit to us a month ago, and his application to join the Church here, and our satisfaction with his appearance. He turned up again yesterday morning, and spent all day with us. In the afternoon we had, by previous appointment, a union meeting of upper and lower city congregations, as a continuation of week of prayer meeting, because the interest was so great. Mr. Roberts preached, and in the after part of meeting, when two or three others had risen for prayers, I asked Boyinto if he wanted to ask Christians to pray for him, and he arose and expressed his desires, including wanting to be baptized very plainly. We called church meeting at close of the service, and proceeded to examine him for admission to Church. He answered so well as to please every one, making some happy hits, as when asked what sort of a place heaven was, replied, "I haven't been there--how can I tell?" Then said, "Would any one pray to go there if it were not a good place?" But his straightforward, open simplicity was refreshing. There seemed no reason for thinking he was other than an honest believer--seeking to follow Jesus in all things. The native church members first responded with enthusiasm that he was a most fit candidate for receiving to the Church, and expressed great delight at finding a Mongol who loved and trusted our Saviour. So we felt with Peter, "Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized?" The others then asked me to baptize him on the morrow, when we were to have another union meeting at our place. And could you have seen his rising and answering my questions, give a.s.sent to creed and covenant, and then see him remove his cap and bow his head reverently and receive the water of baptism, your heart would overflow with grat.i.tude and praise to G.o.d for this first fruit from Mongolia. After prayer we sang "From Greenland's icy mountains," changed to "From Mongolia, &c," and we felt it as never before.

'Though G.o.d has thus given us great pleasure in gathering this first fruit, still I feel, and we all feel, that the honour of the work belongs to G.o.d, and the reward to you and others.'

During 1884 and 1885 the regular work of the Peking mission occupied almost the whole of his time, the Rev. S. E. Meech being in England on furlough, and most of his duties therefore falling upon Mr. Gilmour.

During his stay in England he had attended many of the Salvation Army meetings, and had caught much of their spirit. He had also come to the conviction that men needed to be dealt with individually rather than in the ma.s.s. Hence he gave much time to conversation, to teaching single persons the Christian catechism and the New Testament, and endeavouring, by talking and praying with them, to lead them to a knowledge of the truth. From six in the morning until ten at night he was at the service of all comers. In the afternoon he attended one or both of the Peking chapels, preaching if there were the opportunity, but always eagerly on the alert for any individuals showing signs of interest in the Gospel.

It had been the custom of the missionaries to reserve the Sunday evening for an English service, devoted to their own spiritual refreshment.

This, which was held in the mission compound, he ceased to attend, even although his absence sometimes made it impossible to hold the service, in order that he might find time to read and talk and pray with his Chinese servants. Frequently the meal-time would find him thus engaged, but the meal had to wait until his visitor had left, or until the interview came to its natural close. He ceased to read all newspapers except those distinctively Christian. He found no time for books, as he felt that direct work for the Chinese should fill the hours he might otherwise devote to reading. He became more wholly than ever the man of one book--the Bible--and so absorbed did he grow in this close dealing with souls that in the earlier stages of his wife's illness he felt constrained to place it before even her wish that he would remain by her at periods of severe suffering and weakness.

'_December 9, 1883._--At chapel met w.a.n.g from a place 300 li away down in the country. He had heard a sermon there two or three years before which he remembered, and could quote. I began the service, and brought him up here to my study. We were talking when another man, Jui, came in from 130 li north of Peking. He had to run away from home on account of misconduct. These two kept me till dark.'

In a letter to the Rev. S. E. Meech, dated November 9, 1885, Mr. Gilmour refers to a number of these individual cases in which he has been interesting himself, and the way in which he has dealt with them. It ill.u.s.trates his method of close and careful dealing with each native.

'Ch'ang attends Sunday and Friday services. My opinion about Ch'ang is that he wants mission employ. He has no expectation of that from me, and little from Rees. I think, too, that he does not mean to break with Christianity or with us, and I faintly hope that his experiences with us will do us good, though they have been most painful to us. I think you'll find him much more tractable than he would have been had he not been through these troubles with us.

'Hsing has had the devil putting philosophic doubts into him. I have pressed him to pelt the devil with Scripture, as our Master did.

'Li, shoemaker, I _do_ like. He cannot stay to Sunday service. I take him before service therefore.

'Fu does well. Last Friday he remained after prayer-meeting, and talked till 9.40 about all manner of things secular and sacred. He has most pleasant remembrances of Emily--Emily, too, liked him.

'Jui Wu, the powder magazine man, is in a more hopeful case. He may come all right yet.[5]

[5] Fu is now (1892) an evangelist, and Jui Wu a dispenser, in the Chi Chou Mission.

'Old Tai nearly went, but will now, I think, remain till you come.

He wants to tiffin with me on Sundays, and enjoys much four, five, or six small cups of good strong tea with milk and sugar. He is growing in grace.

'Young Tai I am detaining after his father goes and reading with him and teaching him. He gives up his trade for the day, and I want to give him a good day.

'Chao Erh attends well and is improved in circ.u.mstances.

'Lu Ss[)u] is in his old trade, and doing well. He comes on Sundays when he comes. He was the man I hoped least of, and as yet he pleases me almost most.

'Lama comes to-morrow to finish reconstructing Mongol catechism. I may go on a two months' journey to Mongolia, starting in December.

I'll have to see the children to Tientsin in February, and want to meet you.

'Hsus as they were.[6]

[6] Father and son; the only native preachers in the West City of Peking at that time.

'I am very much encouraged and thankful about the little Church. I can honestly say that I have tried to do my best for it during your absence, and G.o.d has encouraged me a good deal in it. I have reaped some that you have sown, and have endeavoured to sow something for you to reap when you return.

'I sometimes have deep fits of the blues when I think of the children, but their mother was able to trust Jesus with them, and why should not I?

'The Mongol work, too, has entered on a new phase, and that opens up a new future for me. It is a formidable affair. I don't think I'll go to Kalgan or that region. I fear no doctor would stay with me there. I may go away North-east. I can hardly tell yet.

Meantime, with G.o.d's help, I hope to do another month's work in Peking, and then hand the thing over to Rees once for all. Most of my books I'll sell. What use are they to me? I never have time to read them, and am not likely ever to have.'

The letter just quoted was written after the sad event to which we must now refer. Towards the close of the summer of 1885 Mr. Gilmour awoke to the fact that one of the heaviest sorrows of his life was coming upon him. For some years past Mrs. Gilmour had been subject to severe attacks of pain. The visit to England and the rest and change of the old home life had in a measure restored her. But hardly were they comfortably established in their old Peking quarters ere some of her most trying symptoms reappeared. With that brave heart and resolute spirit characteristic of her whole missionary career, for a time she gave herself to the duties of the mission and bore her full share of its anxieties and toils. But gradually she was constrained to recognise that her active work was over. From the first she had thrown herself whole-heartedly into missionary Service. She could converse fluently with the Mongols, having acquired their language in the same way as her husband, by enduring repeatedly all the privations of life in a Mongol tent. She had impressed them by her fondness for animals, by her gentleness of spirit, and by her evident interest in all that bore upon their own welfare. In Peking she had laboured hard among the women and girls, both in the matter of education and also of direct religious instruction. A very bitter element in her cup of sorrow was the conviction gradually forced upon her that her power to do this work was fast slipping away. In a letter to her sister, Mrs. Meech, then in England, dated May 2, 1885, she gives the first clear expression to this feeling: 'I would have written before, but I have been ill for about six weeks; not actually ill, except one week, but not able to do anything except the children's lessons and the harmonium on Sundays sometimes.

All the rest has had to go. I am sorry, but it can't be helped. How long it will last I don't know. I can't get stronger, so I must be content to be tired. I am nothing more than weak, and a great many people are that.

There has been a grand revival here. It seemed to pa.s.s like a mountain torrent, while I had only to look on and see. My only wonder was that people had lived so long without the happiness that they might have had for the taking. I didn't want to go to the meeting, I felt so weak and unable to bear the tension of spiritual excitement. But as it was it didn't tire me at all, but made me love a lot of the people. May the Chinese feel the flood tide of new life that has come into Peking! And they must, there can be nothing to hinder it.'

The reference in the last part of this letter is to a great deepening of spiritual life that took place among the missionaries, and also among some of the European residents in Peking.

The first explicit reference by Mr. Gilmour to his coming sorrow occurs in the Diary; but in his report, sent home a month later, and dated August 4, 1885, he wrote: 'Mrs. Gilmour is very ill, and now very weak.

I fear all hope of her recovery is taken away. Her trouble is a run-down, but the serious complication is her lungs. We are at the hills in a temple with another family, the Childs. Mrs. Child came out in the same ship with Mrs. Gilmour, when, as Miss Prankard, she came first to China. Mrs. Child renders invaluable service to the sick one.'

In the Diary the following entries show the course of sorrowful events:--

'_July 4, 1885._--It really dawns upon me to-day in such a way that I can feel it that my wife is likely to die, and I too feel something of how desolate it would be for me with my motherless children sent away from me. Eh, man!'

'_August 22._--Emily spoke of being sometimes _so_ happy. She is quite aware now she cannot recover.'

'_September 13_, Sunday, Peking.--Emily saw all the women. She felt very weak to-day. Remarked at 7 P.M.: "Well, Jamie, I am going, I suppose. I'll soon see you there. It won't be long." I said she would not want me much there. She said fondly she would. "I think I'll sit at the gate and look for you coming." Said she has been out for the last time. Asked me not to go to chapel, but went.'

'_September 17._--To-day, in the morning, I promised Emily that I would remain home from the chapel and give her a holiday. She was _so_ pleased. We had a most enjoyable afternoon. She was so happy.

She sat up for an hour or so, and we conversed about all things, the use of the beautiful in creation, &c.'

All the next day Mrs. Gilmour slowly sank, and soon after the midnight of September 18 pa.s.sed peacefully within 'the gate.' The story of the closing scene was thus told by her husband:--

'Peking: Sat.u.r.day, September 19, 1885.

'My dear Meech,--Emily crossed the river last night, or this morning rather at 12.15.

'I was called in from the Friday evening prayer meeting just as it was concluding, and found her with laboured breath and fixed eyes.

For a time we thought it was all to end at once. After a time she got over it.

'10 P.M. was a repet.i.tion of 8 P.M.'s experience.

'At 12 midnight she was labouring much in her breath, coughed a very little cough, and all at once the rapidity of her breath nearly doubled, suddenly her hand fell over powerless, her eyes became fixed, there was some difficult breathing, and with Mrs.

Henderson on the one side of the bed, which had been moved when we came from the hills into the sitting-room, she departed.

'During these four hours she spoke little; once or twice she called for milk, but for the most part contented herself with a.s.senting or dissenting to and from my remarks and suggestions by moving the head.

'At 10.30, seeing me sleepy and desiring to sleep herself, she asked me to go and lie down, but I said I would not do so while she was so ill.

'I asked her if she felt all safe in the hands of Jesus. She nodded her a.s.sent.