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 mass. 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 Wang 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 illustrates 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 circumstances.
'Lu Ssŭ; 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.
'Hsüs 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 God 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 God'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 pass 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 passed peacefully within 'the gate.' The story of the closing scene was thus told by her husband:—