James Gilmour of Mongolia Part 9

'If you get into conversation with one man, the congregation is, for the most part, practically secured, because, though a Chinaman is very much afraid of being spoken to directly by a foreigner, most Chinamen are very curious to overhear any conversation that may be carried on; so if you are speaking to him, in comes another man to listen, and if you can get other men to come in and listen over each other's backs, very soon more come in than the original speaker cares to overhear his private conversation; and when that step is reached, it is time to go to the platform and ask the hearers to sit down and begin the regular service. Sometimes n.o.body comes in, and then you have to try something else, and that is to go and sit down a little nearer the door, and sometimes, in that way, gradually a few people come in. But then in Peking sometimes there is a great north-west wind blowing; and I think that is about the hardest thing on a man's congregation before he gets it, because, when the weather is unfavourable, there are not many people about, and so we have to adopt another plan. We do not go on to the streets, but inside the chapel the native preacher and I do our best to sing a hymn. I say do our best, because sometimes these native preachers do not succeed in singing very well; however, we succeed in making a noise, and that is the thing that draws. The people look in, and see what they suppose to be a foreigner and a native chanting Buddhist prayers. In they come; they have not seen that before, and they sit down, and, as soon as the hymn is through, we have the opportunity of telling them the contents of the hymn; and there you have your sermon ready to your hand.

'But suppose you have got your congregation, it is not all smooth-sailing water. Sometimes there are interruptions. Sometimes, just when you have the ear of your audience, all at once a tremendous row happens just outside the door, and the congregation jump to their feet and rush out to see what is going on. I could have told them if they had only asked me. No doubt, some unwise Chinaman, in place of coming straight in and sitting down, stood on the outskirt of the crowd on tiptoe. A city thief coming along says, "Ah, there is my man," and he walks quietly up to him with a pair of sharp scissors, cuts off his tobacco pouch, and goes off with it. Of course, as soon as the man misses the pouch, his first impulse is to grab his next neighbour; that neighbour remonstrates, and then a fight commences.

'Sometimes a funeral pa.s.ses, and that is almost as serious an interruption as a fight; because, although a Chinaman does not think much about his soul after he dies, he thinks a vast deal about his dead body, and, in order to be perfectly sure that he will not be cheated by the undertaker, he buys his coffin before he is sick, and sees that he has a good bargain. And so, having a good coffin, he wants a good funeral; and it is said some men spend nearly half of their fortune in having a grand procession when they are carried to their grave. When one of these enormous funerals, with a procession sometimes a quarter of a mile long, comes by, it is a very bad job for your congregation. Out they go to have a look at it.

'Then the interruption is sometimes another thing, and this last one is a more difficult case to settle. When one of the upper ten thousand in China has a marriage, they want to have a great exhibition; and after they have bought the furniture, they get and hire a great many men, and have them dressed to carry that furniture in procession along the streets and show it to their neighbours. First comes a great wardrobe, and then a little cupboard, a washstand, a square table, and all sorts of furniture.

Now when that comes, what are you to do? They have been at the expense of paying for an exhibition for their neighbours to see, and they feel that it would be unneighbourly if they did not step to the door and look out and see the things carried past, and there goes your congregation. Sometimes unusual interruptions happen. I remember once a woman put her head in at the door. Women do not come to these chapels often--I am very glad they do not. That woman put her head in at the door, and I saw danger. She glared round the place, and then she spied one man, and she shouted out something at him: "Come out of that!" and, friends, he came out of that, in a big hurry, too. He disturbed us very considerably. It was not the woman so much as the man--we all pitied him as he went out.

'Those audiences are very mixed, and they are very curious to your eyes. Sometimes I see those audiences, most of whom we do not know anything about, listening to what I have to tell them, quite as still as you are now--their pipes out, the smoke cleared away. They lean forward and listen just as still as audiences in this country sometimes listen when the preacher, in an interesting discourse, is coming up to a division of his subject. And, friends, let me tell you what it is that makes them listen best of all--it is the central doctrine of the truth of Christianity. When we come to tell them of how Christ left the surroundings of heaven, and came to spend so many years in such very poor, unsympathetic company on earth (and that is a subject that a missionary sometimes can talk feelingly upon when he has been in a foreign country for some time), when we can tell them that, and then come to the last and greatest part of all: how Christ allowed Himself, for love of man, to be nailed to the cross, and not only that, but kept in Him that gentle spirit that made Him pray for those who were putting Him to death--oh, friends, when we come to that and tell them of it--I know that a Chinaman is degraded, corrupt, sensual, material, but he has a human heart; and when you can get at the heart, it responds to the story of the Cross. We want to do something in drawing the net, and so, on this table in the corner, there is a pile of books, and as it gets towards the time to close, I say to the friends, "Now, you will soon be going away to your evening meal; and as I am a foreigner, probably you have not understood all that I have said;" and then I say, "Now, before you go, there are a number of books upon this table, where you will find the whole of this subject put down in black and white; will you just come up and have a look at the books before you go?" We want, if possible, to establish a point of contact with them, and so to get a little private conversation, as it were. If you ask them to come up and look at a book, and they ask the price of it, you have an opportunity of talking to them, and some of these men not only buy the books, but they read them and come back for others.

'Now, how does the matter stand? These heathen have been in our chapel, and we have taken the opportunity of putting some of the truth into their hearts; but I know a good part, much, it may be, of what the man has heard when he goes out--well, it is stolen away, or it is trampled under foot; but some part of it remains.

'And now I can come to the practical part. I have not been trying to entertain you, but I have been trying to interest you, and what I want to impress upon you is this: after those men have left the chapel you can do as much for their conversion as we can do in China. I want you to pray for the conversion of these men to whom we in Peking, and others in other parts of the world, are the means of communicating these truths of Christ. I believe it is not only the earnestness of the missionary that is going to produce results, but it is your earnestness here. We are your agents, and I believe, fervently, we shall have results there in direct proportion to the measure of your earnestness here. I believe I am speaking to the right people when I ask you to pray. Unprayed for, I feel very much as if a diver were sent down to the bottom of a river with no air to breathe, or as if a fireman were sent up to a blazing building and held an empty hose; I feel very much as a soldier who is firing blank cartridge at an enemy, and so I ask you earnestly to pray that the Gospel may take saving and working effect on the minds of those men to whose notice it has been introduced by us. Not long ago, at the close of a local anniversary, when we had been having a meeting, as we were going home, three of us got off a tram-car--two ministers of the locality and myself--and, as we were walking along, one said: "Ah, Gilmour, it is all the same over again; it is just the old thing; you missionaries come, and you have an anniversary, and the people's earnestness seems to be stirred up, and you ask their prayers, and it looks as if you would get them, but," he said, "you go away, and the thing pa.s.ses by and is just left where it was before." I do not think that was quite correct. I think my brother was labouring under a temporary fit of the blues, and I was very glad to find his companion said it was not quite correct. What I want is this, to go back to my work feeling that there are those behind us who are praying earnestly that G.o.d's Spirit would work effectually in the hearts of those to whom we have the privilege of preaching. If you pray earnestly you can but work earnestly, and then you will also give earnestly; and I do not think we can be too earnest in the matter for which Christ was so much in earnest that He laid down His own life.'

The month of June and part of July was spent at Millport, a watering-place on the west coast of Scotland, near the lovely scenery of Arran. On July 4 he ascended Goatfell, and in so doing had an adventure which might have had very serious consequences. He started late, lost his way, but finally reached the summit at 8.45 P.M., and then, as he notes in his diary: 'Fog came on nearly at once with rain and thunder. Sat in the lee of a dripping rock on a wet stone and looked at a couple of acres of fog and granite boulders. Very dark and cold about midnight, the time wore on very slowly, more rain dripping, and fog. At 2 o'clock A.M. I began the descent, and in a short while it was light enough to see. Came on all right, and saw where I had missed the way.... I have not caught cold. I was wet all night, but kept wrapt up in my plaid and as warm as I could manage. Next day the minister congratulated me on being seen alive after my Goatfell adventure.'

On September 1 the return voyage to China began, and Peking was reached on November 14.

CHAPTER VIII

SUNSHINE AND SHADOW

In Peking the old familiar round of mission duties recommenced. Gilmour after his absence of eighteen months was the same man, and yet not the same. He yearned for fruit in the conversion of souls, and he began to devote himself with more eager self-denial than ever to the winning of Chinamen's hearts for the Saviour. The winter of 1883-1884 was spent in Peking, and his diary is full of incidents ill.u.s.trative of the time and effort he gave to dealing with individuals.

In February, 1884, he made one of the most remarkable of his Mongolian journeys. He visited the Plain, travelling on foot, and thus subjecting himself to risks and hardships of a very serious order. But he had good reasons for his method, and he sets them forth with his usual clearness.

Possibly no other journey of his life more strikingly testifies to his strict sense of duty, the unsparing way in which he spent himself in its discharge, and his eager desire to win souls.

'On this occasion, partly owing to the shortness of the time at my disposal, which made it hardly worth while to set up an establishment, and partly owing to the peculiar season of the year, which would have made it difficult to find pasture for travelling cattle, I determined to go on foot, without medicines, in a strictly spiritual capacity, and not seeking so much to make fresh acquaintances or open up new ground as to revisit familiar localities and see how far former evangelistic attempts had produced any effect. In addition there were some individual Mongols who have been taught a good deal about Christianity, and on whom I wished once more, while there was still opportunity, to press the claims of Christ.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CHINESE MULE LITTER]

'Five cold days in a mule litter brought me to Kalgan, and another day in a cart took me up over the pa.s.s and landed me in a Chinese inn on the Mongolian plain. This inn has no separate rooms; the guests all share the ample platform of the kitchen, and sleep on straw mats laid over the brickwork, which is heated by flues leading from fires on which their meals are cooked. The Chinese innkeeper was an old friend of mine, and he permitted me to share his room with him. From this, as a centre, I was able to make expeditions to four Mongolian settlements.

'My first visit was made to a lama whom I have known for years, and who has been instructed in Christianity by others, both before and since I made his acquaintance. He is a man of influence, wealth, and leisure, and, though a priest, has a wife and child. I spent almost a whole day with him, and hardly know what to think about him. He seems to admit that there must be a G.o.d of the universe, and admits that Christ may be a revelation of Him, but in the same sense in which Buddha was. From one part of his conversation I was almost led to believe that he had been praying to Jesus, but I could get him to make no such admission. I fear that the inquiring spirit of former years has given place to a spirit of indifference.

He has everything he wants, he has little or no care, seemingly; he is content to let things drift, and keeps his mind easy. If he were only waked up he might do much for his countrymen.

'My second visit was to a temple and cl.u.s.ter of tents, where I found some old acquaintances; was politely received, but nothing more.

'My third visit was to another cl.u.s.ter of tents, where I was at once hailed as the doctor, and, _nolens volens_, compelled to examine and prescribe for a number of diseases. Some cures accomplished years before explained the enthusiasm of the friends there, but for spiritual results I looked in vain.

'My next expedition was to a place some miles--say eight--away.

Some years ago, in stormy weather, Mrs. Gilmour and I, soaked out of our tent, had found shelter in the mud-house of a Mongol, who refused to take anything for the use of his building, remarking that we would be going and coming that way afterwards, and that then we might give him a present of some foreign article or other.

I had sent him a few things, but had never since personally visited him, and when I reached the settlement I was grieved to find that the old man was dead. His son, a lad of twenty-three, had succeeded to his estate, and his small official dignity and emoluments, and received me in a most remarkably friendly way. He was just starting from home, but on seeing me gave up all idea of his going away, and, insisting on my staying in his tent for the night, spent the remainder of the day with me.

'Next day, slinging on one side a postman's brown bag containing my kit and provisions; on the other an angler's waterproof bag, with books, &c.; and carrying from a stick over my shoulder a Chinaman's sheepskin coat, I left my landlord drinking the two ounces of hot Chinese whisky which formed the invariable introduction to his breakfast turned my face northwards, and started for a twenty-three miles' walk to the settlement which, for some summers in succession, has furnished me with men and oxen for my annual journeys. Now the Mongols are familiar with the

Russians, who, as tea-agents, reside in Kalgan; they have seen many pa.s.sing foreign travellers on horses, camels, and in carts; they have seen missionary journeys performed on donkeys and ox-carts; but I think that that morning for the first time had they seen a foreigner, with all his belongings hung about him, tramping the country after the manner of their own begging lamas. There were few people to meet on the road, but those I did meet asked the customary questions in tones of great surprise, received my answers with evident incredulity, and, for the most part rode away muttering to themselves, _You eldib eem_, which may be translated to mean, "Strange affair." My feet, through want of practice, I suppose, soon showed symptoms of thinking this style of travelling as strange as the Mongols did, and were badly blistered long before the journey was over.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JAMES GILMOUR EQUIPPED FOR HIS WALKING EXPEDITION IN MONGOLIA IN FEBRUARY 1884]

'An occasional rest and a bite of snow varied the painful monotony of the few last long miles; the river was reached at last, and, crossing it, I was soon in front of the cl.u.s.ter of huts I had come to visit, and on looking up I was agreeably astonished to find that the first man to come out to meet me was the mandarin of the district. He was soon joined by others, and, rescued from the dogs, I was escorted to his tent, seated before the fire, and supplied with a cup and full tea-pot. I had intended to drink tea in his tent only for form's sake; but his tea was good, the snow seemed only to have increased my thirst, the man himself was sincerely friendly; under the circ.u.mstances my stoicism broke down, and the mandarin's tea-pot was soon all but empty. Meanwhile, his tent had been filling with friends and neighbours, to whom the news of my arrival had spread, and in a little while I had round me a representative from nearly every family in the village. Among the others came my two servants--the priest and the layman who had driven my ox-carts for me. Escorted by these I went to another tent, rested there awhile, and then moved into a mud-built house.

The priest I had come to visit was busy lighting a fire which would do nothing but smoke, and the room was soon full. Finding him alone, I told him that I had come to speak to him and my other friends about the salvation of their souls, and was pressing him to accept Christ, when a layman I also knew entered. Without waiting for me to say anything, the priest related the drift of our conversation to the layman, who, tongs in hand, was trying to make the fire blaze. Blaze it would not, but sent forth an increasing volume of smoke, and the layman, invisible to me in the dense cloud, though only about two yards away, spoke up and said that for months he had been a scholar of Jesus, and that if the priest would join him they would become Christians together. Whether the priest would join him or not, his mind was made up, he would trust the Saviour. By this time the cloud had settled down lower still. I was lying flat on the platform, and the two men were crouching on the floor--I could just see dimly the bottom of their skin coats--but the place was beautiful to me as the gate of heaven, and the words of the confession of Christ from out the cloud of smoke were inspiriting to me as if they had been spoken by an angel from out of a cloud of glory.

'But neighbours came in, duty called the blackman (layman) away, the evening meal had to be prepared and eaten, and it was not till late at night that I had opportunity for a private talk with him who had confessed Christ; and even then it was not private, because we were within earshot of a family of people in their beds.

'Of all the countries I have visited Mongolia is the most spa.r.s.ely peopled, and yet it is, of all the places I have seen, the most difficult to get private conversation with any one. Everybody, even half-grown children, seems to think he has a perfect right to intrude on any and all conversation. Bar the door and deny admittance, and you would be suspected of hatching a plot. Take a man away for a stroll that you may talk to him in quiet, and you would be suspected of some dangerous enchantment. Remembering that one must always have some definite message or business to perform when he travels, and hoping to be able to do something with this same blackman, I had purposely left, in the Chinese inn, some presents which I could not well carry with me, and after a day's rest the blackman and I started to bring them. That gave us twenty-three miles' private conversation, and a good answer to give to all who demanded, "Where are you going?" "What to do?" He gave me the history of the origin and growth of his belief in Christ. I taught him much he did not know, and at a lonely place we sat down and lifted our voices to heaven in prayer. It was the pleasantest walk I ever had in Mongolia, and at the same time the most painful.

My feet broke down altogether. It was evident I could not walk back again the next day, so, acting on my follower's advice, by a great effort I walked into the inn as if my feet were all right; we bargained for a cart and, the Chinaman not suspecting the state of my feet, we got it at a reasonable rate. Mongols and Chinese joined in explaining to me how much time and labour I would have saved if I had hired a cart at first, taken everything with me, and not returned to the inn at all. From their point of view they were right; but the blackman and I looked at the thing from a different standpoint. We had accomplished our purpose, and felt that we could afford to let our neighbours plume themselves on their supposed superior wisdom.

'Another day's rest at this place gave me what I much wanted--an opportunity for a long quiet talk with the mandarin of this small tribe. I was especially anxious to explain to him the true nature of Christianity, because the Mongol who professes Christianity lives under his jurisdiction, and I felt sure that a right understanding of the case might be of service in protecting the professor from troubles that are likely to come to him through men misunderstanding his case. The mandarin came. On my last visit I had been the means of curing him of a troublesome complaint over which he had spent much time and money; in addition, I had brought him a present from England. He was perfectly friendly and exceedingly attentive, and at the close of the conversation asked some questions which I thought evinced that he had somewhat entered into the spirit of the conversation. He is a man of few words, but from what he said I hope that he feels something of the truth of Christianity.

'My next expedition was to a mandarin of wealth and rank, whose encampment occupies a commanding site on a mountain-side overlooking a large lake. I found him at home, and, as he knows well the main doctrines of Christianity, my main mission to him at this time was to try and rouse him to earnestness of thought and action in regard to his personal relation to Christ. We spent great part of the afternoon in earnest talking, and I was much pleased with the manner in which he, from time to time, explained to another mandarin, who was there as guest, doctrines and facts which were alluded to in our conversation. Next morning he started on a journey connected with the business of his office, and I returned to my friendly quarters where I had left my belongings.

'I felt it laid upon me to visit two lamas at a temple some seventy miles from where I was, and started next day. I reached the temple in three days, and found that both the lamas I had come to see were dead. So, as far as they were concerned, I was too late. Both on the road, however, and at the temple itself, I had good opportunities for preaching and teaching. I met some interesting men, and not only in tents where I was entertained as guest, but sometimes out in the open desert, stray travellers would meet me, dismount from their horses, and give me occasion for Christian conversation. Five days completed this round, and after another day's rest I started back for Kalgan, escorted for ten miles by him who had professed Christ. We walked slowly, as we had much to say.

Arrived at the parting place, we sat down and prayed together. I then left, and the last I saw of the poor fellow, there he was, sitting in the same place still. I reached Kalgan without adventure, and returned to Peking on March 21, having been away just over a month.'

Possibly the most touching comment upon this extraordinary journey is to give some of the brief entries which refer to it in the diary.

'_February 19, 1884._--Started in a litter for Mongolia. Good talk in inn with innman.'

'_February 23._--Went to Mr. Williams. My letter had not reached them. No one knew I was coming.'

'_February 25._--Over the Pa.s.s to Barosaij.'

'_February 26._--Spent the day with Tu Gishuae. Urged on him the internal proof of Christianity--the change of heart.'

'_February 28._--Shabberti. Boyinto Jaugge has desire to become scholar of Jesus.'

'_March 1._--Walked here. Feet terribly bad. Snow on the road.

Great thirst. Badma Darag met me. Tea in his tent. Boyinto's confession in the smoke of the _baishin_.'[4]

[4] Fire in the centre of the tent.

'_March 2._--Sabbath. Quiet day. Much talk with all. The Lord opened my lips.'

'_March 3._--Walked to Barosaij with Boyinto to bring my presents.

Talk about Christianity. Prayer in the desert. Feet terribly bad, oh, such pain in walking.'

'_March 4._--Carted back.'

'_March 7._--Hara Oss. Walked back here. Called on Tu Lobsung.

Talk. He knew the way to heaven, but said, "Tell it to some of the younger ones." "You go first," I replied. "You most need to know."'

'_March 8._--Terrible feet. Got to Chagan Hauran.'

'_March 14._--Boyinto accompanied me to Chagan Balgas with his pony. Saw him sitting as long as I was in sight. Feet bad.'