James Gilmour of Mongolia Part 11

'Some month or six weeks ago we two had talked about everything to be done in case of her death, the children, etc., and not only then, but more than once we had talked over spiritual things, because we feared that when the end came she might not be able to speak. I am glad we did so. During these four hours she was either in such great distress, or, when free from distress, was so tired and eager to sleep, that talking was hardly possible.

'The "Rest" she so longed for she has now got.

'I treasure what she said one day when she had been, I think, reading her wall text, "T_o me to live is Christ, to die is gain_,"

when I asked her if _she_ felt it so. She said she did, and often would remark that to go would be far better for her, but she was so eager to get well for my sake and that of the children. For herself, too, she was more and more enchanted with the beauty G.o.d had put in the world. On Friday I went in, she waved her hand and said, "What beauty!" It was some flowers on the table. A bunch of grapes, a beauty, filled her mouth with praise to G.o.d for all His goodness to her. The post waits. Funeral Monday.

'Yours in sorrow, 'J. GILMOUR.'

Mrs. Gilmour was buried on September 21. Her faith was clear and strong.

Uncommon as their courtship had been, the subsequent married life was very happy. She was the equal of her husband in missionary zeal and enthusiasm, and he himself bears testimony to the unerring skill which she possessed in gauging the moral qualities of the Chinese. She gave much time and labour to Christian work among the women and girls in Peking; and her husband was greatly helped in his work during the nearly eleven years of married life by her sound judgment, her strong affection, her loving Christian character, and her entire consecration to the Lord Jesus Christ.

CHAPTER IX

A CHANGE OF FIELD

During 1885 James Gilmour gradually reached the conclusion that a change of field was desirable. He was aware that friends and colleagues more or less qualified to form an opinion had urged upon him the advisability of labouring in Eastern Mongolia among the agricultural Mongols. No one knew so well as himself the advantages and the disadvantages of this plan. The reasons that finally led him to a decision were n.o.ble and characteristic. It was a hard field, and no one else could or would go.

The Mongols of the Plain were to some extent benefited by the American Mission at Kalgan; those dwelling in Eastern Mongolia were without a helper. Considerations like these, as he tells us, decided his new course of action.

'In these circ.u.mstances my mind has turned away north-east from Peking, where people are not so scarce, and where the Mongols live as farmers. I have been to that region twice. I knew some people who came from that region. As soon as Mr. Rees returns from Chi Chou I hope to go again. A doctor might be induced to settle somewhere there, and though it would be hard a bit, a family might live there too, which I don't think would be possible on the plain beyond Kalgan.

'I am fully aware of the difficulties. They are:--

'1. I have no proper Chinaman to take with me. More than half the population is Chinese, and I could not do well without a Chinaman.

'2. It is a new district and will take time to work up.

'3. It is not easily reached from Peking or anywhere else, and will be a very isolated part.

'4. It is rather a rough and unsafe district.

'I know all these, but feel, in reliance on G.o.d, like facing the thing as the best and proper thing to do. There are inns all about, and though for some time a private location may not be secured, we can still go about among the people. 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.

'I am very glad that the Mongolian region around Kalgan has shown signs of bearing fruit. It has strengthened my faith much. I am also glad that G.o.d has acknowledged in some degree my work here in Peking, and I feel more hopeful than ever I did. G.o.d, too, has cut me adrift from all my fixings, so that I feel quite ready to go anywhere if only He goes with me.'

Mr. Gilmour entered upon this new departure on the understanding that a medical colleague should be sent to him at the earliest possible moment.

This responsibility the London Board a.s.sumed and endeavoured to discharge. The result was a severe trial to the faith, not only of the solitary worker but to all interested--and they were many--in the fate of the new mission. As we shall see later on, when a congenial and competent medical colleague reached him, and was entering with vigour and hope upon the work, Dr. Mackenzie of Tientsin suddenly died, and before the immediate and urgent claims of Tientsin the claims of Mongolia had to give way. But in estimating the success of both missions, that on the Plain, and that in Eastern Mongolia, it must never be forgotten that what Gilmour considered _essential_, the presence and help of a medical colleague, was never in the Providence of G.o.d granted to him for any length of time. In the account he gives of his first visit to the region as its missionary--he had been twice before on visits of inspection--he dwells upon this necessity.

'I left Peking December 14, 1885, and re-entered Peking February 16, 1886, so that my absence from here was just two months. The part of Mongolia I went to is situated 800 li, or say 270 English miles, north-east by east of Peking, and, at the usual rate of 90 li (or 30 miles) a day, is nine days distant. This is not the part of Mongolia near Kalgan. Kalgan is north-north-west of Peking, five days' journey.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP ILl.u.s.tRATING JAMES GILMOUR'S LABOURS IN EASTERN MONGOLIA]

'Whilst I was considering my plans a Mongol appeared in Peking who was willing to take me to his home, and I went with him, hoping thus to get introduced to a district of country, an introduction being both necessary and helpful. Ta Cheng Tz[)u] is the name of the place where, through his introduction, I was located from December 23, 1885 to February 9, 1886. I had a room in an inn. I spent some days at the home of my Mongol friend and made two journeys to other places, but Ta Cheng Tz[)u] was my headquarters.

It is a small market town, with a daily fair. The surrounding neighbourhood is peopled with Mongols and Chinese in about equal proportions. The Mongols are mostly lords of the soil, and style the Chinese slaves, that is in the country. The real trade of the whole locality is in the hands of the Chinese. The Mongols all speak Chinese, and the town resident Mongols have, many of them, forgotten Mongolian, and laugh at themselves as not being able to speak their own language.

'The country is like Wales in this respect, that, though Mongolian is the native language, the coming language and the language that is affected and sought after, is Chinese. Well-to-do Mongols have Chinese teachers for their children, and read Chinese well. During my stay there I sold more Chinese than Mongolian books, and talked more Chinese than Mongolian, though my intercourse was largely with Mongols.

'Opium is largely grown there, so is tobacco, and large quant.i.ties of whisky are manufactured and consumed. It was partly a famine year. At a little distance from Ta Cheng Tz[)u] the harvest had failed, and I think the line of preaching that seemed to impress the hearers most was one that reasoned with them about the growth, manufacture, and use of these three, being so contrary to Heaven's design in giving land and rain to grow food, that it was not to be wondered at if, seeing how the land and rain were perverted, G.o.d should send short rations. Evil speaking, vile language, made a fourth subject which naturally came in for notice, and on all these four subjects I scarcely ever spoke without gaining the nearly universal concurrence of my little audiences.

'The great theme, however, was Christ, and I think that most men in that little market town, and a great many of those who used to come to the fair, both heard and understood the great gospel truth of salvation in Jesus.

'Eager to see some more of the country, and in the hope that I might be able to talk to him on the way, I hired a Mongol to carry my bedding and books, and made a descent on a village thirty miles away. The general cold of the winter was aggravated by a snowstorm which overtook us at the little market town, and I have no words to tell you how the cold felt that day as I paraded that one street. I sold a fair number of books, though my hands were too much benumbed almost to be able to hand the books out. I made some attempts at preaching, but the muscles were also benumbed--that day _was_ a _cold_ day.

'I was turned out of two respectable inns at Bull Town because I was a foot traveller, had no cart or animal, that is, and had to put up in a tramps' tavern because I came as a tramp!

'Next journey I made I hired a man and a _donkey_. The donkey was my pa.s.sport to respectability, and I was more comfortable too, being able to take more bedding with me. I was warned against going to Ch'ao Yang, sixty miles, the roads being represented as unsafe; but I went and found no trouble, though there was a severe famine in the district. I spent a day each at two market towns on the way, and two days in Ch'ao Yang itself.

'The journey home I made on foot, a donkey driven by a Mongol carrying my bedding and books. I adopted this plan mainly to bring myself into close contact with the Mongol. He proved himself a capital fellow to travel with, but as yet has shown no signs of belief in Christ. As we did long marches my feet suffered badly.'

In a private letter written at this time he enters a little more fully into what he had to endure.

'I had a good time in Mongolia, but oh! so cold. Some of the days I spent in the markets were so very cold that my muscles seemed benumbed, and speech even was difficult. I met with some spiritual response, though, and with that I can stand cold. Eh! man, I have got thin. I am feeding up at present. I left my medicines, books, &c., there, and walked home here, a donkey carrying my baggage, a distance of about three hundred miles, in seven and a half days, or about forty miles a day, and my feet were really very bad.

'At night I used to draw a woollen thread through the blisters. In the morning I "hirpled" a little, but it was soon all right. I walked, not because I had not money to ride, but to get at the Mongol who was with me.'

These graphic pictures enable us to realise how Mr. Gilmour began the last great missionary enterprise of his life. He returned to Peking, and then had to pa.s.s through that severe trial which comes to almost all missionaries in the foreign field, which is often one of their heaviest crosses. His two eldest boys were sent home for education. They sailed from Tientsin March 23, 1886, the diary for that day containing the brief but significant reference: 'At 6.45 A.M. came all the friends once more, at 7.30 cast off, and the vessel slowly fell out into the middle of the river. Oh! the parting!' But at 8.30 on the same morning the sorrowful father had started on his solitary return journey to Peking.

Bereft now of both wife, and boys he was to pa.s.s the rest of his career in China, except for the brief intervals of residence in Peking, in the cheerless, noisy, uncongenial quarters of an ordinary Chinese inn. The return of the Rev. S. E. Meech in April 1886 set him entirely free from mission work in the capital. He had already acquired the needful experience of his new field of labour, and on April 22, 1886, he started anew for Eastern Mongolia. It is neither necessary nor desirable to enter into any very detailed description of the next three years. In many respects day after day was occupied with the round of ever recurring and similar duties, but it is desirable to enter, if we can, with some minuteness into his inner life, and to lay bare the spiritual sources and springs of his outward actions. It is in these, in our judgment, that the true beauty, the abiding lesson, and the great success of his life consist. And this he has enabled us to do. In a private, not an official, letter to the Rev. R. Wardlaw Thompson, the Foreign Secretary of the London Missionary Society, he indicates his actions and the motives that were impelling him so to act, during the summer of 1886. Differences of opinion arose with his fellow missionaries as to the wisdom of his methods and the soundness of his judgment. Those who differed most strongly from him knew little or nothing by personal observation and experience of the conditions of work either on the Plain or at Ch'ao Yang. But no question ever did or ever could arise as to the absolute consecration of his heart and life to the work of winning souls. The truth of the words in one of his official reports was manifest to all: 'Man, the fire of G.o.d is upon me to go and preach.'

'The past four and a half months has been a time of no small trial and spiritual tension. Since April 22 I have had no tidings of the outer world. An agent of the Bible Society, who was selling books in the district, was with me for a month, but he had gone out before me, so that when we met he had no news for me, but wanted news from me.

'Some men, who gave promise of believing in Jesus, have fallen away, and I have a haunting suspicion that it was one such man who, on the morning of Sunday, June 6, stole my beautiful copy of the revised Bible, leaving me till now with only a New Testament in English. I had much difficulty in procuring that Bible, and wasn't it heartless of a Chinaman to steal it for the leather binding, for which even he could have hardly any use? I said not a single word to anyone in the town about it, as I feared that making trouble over it would hinder me in future, by making innkeepers afraid to receive me, lest they should be held responsible for such losses. I can hardly say though, that, at first at least, I took joyfully the spoiling of my goods. Secret tears testified to my sense of the loss, but falling back on the faith that all things work together for my good, I was comforted, and gave the more earnest heed to the New Testament.

'Then the Chinese would ask, "How many people have believed and entered the religion since you left Peking?" and such questions kept before my mind painfully how slowly things move, and drew out my soul in more painful longing for G.o.d's blessing in the conversion of men.

'In the beginning of July I must have got a touch of the sun.

Nearly all that month I was ill, but just then was the great annual fair at Ch'ao Yang, so, ill and all, I had the tent put up daily and dispensed medicines. My a.s.sistant, however, had to do most of the preaching; I had not much strength for that. The first three weeks in August I had diarrh[oe]a and dysentery. I was at Ta Cheng Tz[)u]. There was no fair, and but poor market gatherings, but, weather permitting, we put up our tent daily and did good work.

Paul says (Gal. iv. 19), "My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you," and he is right. It is a carrying of men in prayer until the image of Christ is formed in them; and how many of them prove abortions.

'One of the converts at Ta Cheng Tz[)u] caused me no little anxiety. I knew that he professed to be impressed last winter. He said he wanted to call on me in my inn and tell me his difficulties. I was eager to get home, but as he said he would have no leisure before a certain date, I waited till then, nearly a week, for almost no other purpose than to see him. He never came, and I trudged back to Peking downcast about him.

'This year when we came to Ta Cheng Tz[)u] on our way to Ch'ao Yang, on going to his place for breakfast (he is one of two brothers who own and manage a restaurant, and both of them, and a third brother, are members of a sect which forbids opium, whisky, and tobacco), we were shown into the more private part, and he and his brother and the cook set upon us to inquire more fully about Christianity, how to enter it, etc, etc. This took me by surprise, and made me so glad that my breakfast for the most part remained uneaten, though we had travelled eight hours that morning. In the evening I did not go for a meal, and my a.s.sistant on going was met at the door by the inquirers, and so engaged in conversation about Christianity that darkness set in, the cooking range was closed, and the establishment shut for the day before they were finished.

My man had no dinner. Next day we went on towards Ch'ao Yang thankful and happy. These restaurant people had a few days before been visited by the Bible Society's agent, and had derived much Christian benefit from his Chinese a.s.sistant.

'Our interview with the restaurant men was on Monday. In Ch'ao Yang next Sunday, just six days after being, so to speak, on the mount of transfiguration with these Chinamen, on dismissing the few hangers-on that remained at the close of the afternoon preaching, and stepping down from the little vantage-ground from which I had been speaking, one of the audience said he would go home with me to my inn, as he had come with a letter to me from Ta Cheng Tz[)u]

from the Bible agent. I went to the inn, read the letter, and found that he and his Chinese helper had differed, and he had come to Ta Cheng Tz[)u] seeking me. He needed and asked my help, so next day I started for Ta Cheng Tz[)u], and on arriving there found that the little place was full of the news of the quarrel between the Christian foreigner and the Christian native. That was bad, but, worse still, on going to the restaurant I found the earnestness of the inquirers gone, and one of them said openly, "If this is the sort of fruit that Christianity bears, what better is it than any other religion?"

'In a later visit paid in May they seemed colder still, and the place where I had hoped to gather fruit seemed barren and hopeless.

'In August we again visited Ta Cheng Tz[)u]. I was blue. The fever of July, the defection of the Mongol donkey man, who failed to come for us, the diarrh[oe]a, which on the journey changed to dysentery, being baffled in attempting to find suitable quarters in Ta Cheng Tz[)u], and the chilled hearts of the restaurant men, made our entrance not cheerful. On the way my a.s.sistant and I had talked over matters, and resolved by prayer and endeavour to see what could be done for the restaurant men. Just ten days after our arrival the eldest brother called on me in my inn and said, "To-night I dismiss my G.o.ds, henceforth I am a Christian. I am ready to be baptized any day you may be pleased to name."

'I cannot say what a relief these words brought me. There still remained anxieties in his case, but in a day or two things came out all right, and day by day in public in the restaurant he might be seen studying his catechism when unemployed, and speaking for Christianity to all who asked what book that was.