The most constant force acting in the direction of mental depression was what appeared to him like the want of immediate success. He longed with an eager and almost painful intensity for signs that Gospel light had broken in upon the mental darkness of the men with whom he was in daily contact. He yearned for evidence that the love of Christ was winning the love of Chinese and Mongol hearts, as a mother yearns over her children. Hope deferred as to his medical colleague, ever recurring difficulties defeating all his efforts to secure suitable premises for his work, failure on the part of natives whom he had begun to trust, and all these things over and above the ceaseless strain of his daily toil, are more than sufficient to account for the state in which Dr. Smith found him.
To those who knew him best, and who could appraise at their true value the toils and trials and disappointments of his daily lot, the wonder was not that he broke down; it was rather that physical collapse had not overtaken him sooner. There are many kinds of heroism, but it may be doubted whether any touches a higher level than that exhibited by this patient sower of the seed of life on the sterile field of Mongolia, bravely continuing to do so until imperatively urged to cease for a season, not by his consciousness of failing power, but by the alarm and influence of his medical co-worker.
When the decision was once taken, it was acted upon promptly. March 26, 1889, was the day, and Peking the place. On April 4 he left Peking, and on the 20th he sailed from Shanghai. He arrived in London on May 25.
This visit to England in 1889 was a great refreshment bodily, mental, and spiritual, to the overwrought labourer. The voyage itself, enforcing rest from all ordinary avocations, by removing Mr. Gilmour from the depressing surroundings amid which he had spent so much of the last three years, began the restorative process. He was beginning to feel in himself great benefit from the change even by the time he reached London. But the six years which had passed since he last walked the London streets had left their mark upon him. He had drawn to the utmost upon his physical and spiritual strength in the service of those for whose conversion he lived and toiled. He had been through the deep waters of personal affliction when his wife passed into the sinless life. The many toils and hardships of the passing years had drawn deep furrows upon the cheery face, and the eyes showed evidence of the mental and spiritual strain.
So sudden was the resolution to return, and so prompt his action upon it, that few knew even of the probability until he was actually here. On May 27, 1889, the writer was sitting in his room, overlooking the pleasant garden that brightens up the north-eastern corner of St Paul's Churchyard, in conversation with a gentleman, when a knock came at the door and a head appeared. Not seeing it very clearly, and at the same time asking for a minute's delay while the business in hand was completed, the head disappeared. As soon as the first visitor departed a man entered and stood near the door. I looked at him with the conviction that I knew him, and yet could not recall the true mental association, when the old smile broke over his face, and he burst into a laugh, saying, 'Why, man, you don't know me' 'Yes, I do,' I replied, 'you're Gilmour; but I thought that at this moment you were in Mongolia.' But when I was able to scrutinise him closely I was shocked to see how very evident were the signs of stress and strain. It was not wholly inexcusable, even in an old friend, to fail to instantly recognise in the worn and apparently broken man, thought to be hard at work many thousands of miles away, the strong and cheery Gilmour of 1883.
Carrying him off home, we talked far into the night, not because his host thought it a good thing for the invalid, but because he was so full of his work and its difficulties and its pressing needs, and what he hoped to do on behalf of Mongolia by his visit home, that there seemed no possible alternative but to let him talk himself weary. And how splendidly he talked! He pictured his life at a Mongol inn. He ranged over the whole opium and whisky and tobacco controversy. He gave, with all the dramatic effect of which he was so great a master, the story of how he forced home upon the Chinese and Mongols, until even they admitted the force of the reasoning, how natural it was that famine should visit them when they gave up their land to opium, and their grain to the manufacture of whisky. He gave in rapid dialogue his own questions, the native rejoinders, and he so vividly pictured the scene that his hearer could fancy himself standing under the tent, surrounded by Chinese and Mongols, and assenting, as they did, to the earnest and far-reaching conclusions of the speaker.
CHAPTER X
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS AS ILLUSTRATED BY LETTERS TO RELATIVES AND FRIENDS
This break in active work affords a convenient occasion for exhibiting in a still stronger light, by means of selections from his correspondence, some important sides of James Gilmour's character. He was a good correspondent and wrote freely to his relatives and friends. We have quoted largely hitherto from his official reports and from letters that refer to the condition and progress of his life-work. But it is in the letters addressed to the circle of relatives and most intimate friends that he reveals more fully the deeper side of his life, and the strong and tender affection of his nature.