He corresponded regularly with his parents until the earthly tie was broken by the death of his mother in 1884 and of his father in 1888. His letters to the latter were very beautiful, especially those designed to strengthen his faith in the closing years when he had passed the eightieth milestone. The tone of the correspondence may be judged from the following examples:—
'Peking: Friday, January 23, 1885.
'My dear Father,—So this must in future be the heading of my letters—no longer my dear parents. Mother has gone. Yours of November 21 reached me this afternoon, or evening rather. As I came home from the chapel I found a beggar waiting at the gate. I thought he was going to beg, but he did not. Inside I found the gate-keeper waiting at our house door for a reply note, to say that the letter had been delivered. I went to my study, and was praying for a blessing on the chapel preaching when Emily came. I let her in. She had your letter in her hand. It had come by Russia, and the Russian post sometimes sends over our mail by a Peking beggar, paying him of course.
'I have not had time to think yet. On my heels came in men for the prayer-meeting we hold in our house on Friday evening, and till now I have been almost continuously engaged. It is now 10.20 P.M. It so happens that this week I am much behind in my sermon preparation for Sunday, and it also happens that I am going to preach on whole families believing on Christ. What brought this subject to my mind is one of our old Christians who is dying, the only Christian in his whole family. His great grief is that they (his family) remain heathens. In addition, too, a Christian father admitted to a missionary the other day that he had not taught Christ to his daughter who had just died. Preaching on this subject I will have something to say about my own dear, good, anxious mother, and of how she used to say when I was a boy, "What a terrible thing it will be if I see you shut out of heaven!" She did not say terrible; "unco" was her word.
'I have not yet had time to realise my loss, and cannot think of the Hamilton house as being without her. Eh, man! you know how good a mother she was to us, and I have some idea of what a companion and help she was to you. You two had nearly fifty years together. You must feel lonely without her. Fathers and mothers are thought much of by the Chinese, and you, at my suggestion, were most heartily and feelingly prayed for by the Chinese at our prayer-meeting to-night. You would have felt quite touched could you have heard and understood them.'
There is a special interest attaching to the sentence used frequently by his mother. On [page 41] he refers to his conversion, but no record appears to have been preserved, giving any detail or fixing with any exactness the date. But his brothers have a conviction that his constant recollection of the oft-repeated and well-remembered words, 'What an unco thing it will be if I see you shut out of heaven!' was one of the most potent influences in bringing about his conversion. The letters immediately following were written during the last two years of his father's life.
'Let us not be disturbed at all about our not having more communication. I pray often for you and remember you more frequently still, and feel more and more that earth is a shifting scene, that here we have no permanent place, that heaven is our home, that your wife—my dear mother—has gone there, that my wife has gone there and is now in the Golden City, and that, sooner or later, you and I will be there, and that, when there, we'll have plenty of time to sit about and talk all together in a company. Lately I have come to see that we have but to put ourselves into the hands of Jesus and let Him do with us as He likes, and He'll save us sure and certain. He can make us willing even to let Him change us and train us.
'You are eighty years old. I am proud of you. I like to think of your life. Mother told me, when I was a lad, of some of your early struggles. God has been with you and guided you on through all to a good old age of honour and respect and love. Trust Him and He'll not leave you. Depend upon it, God has something better for us in the world to come than He has ever given us here. And it is not difficult to get it. God wants to give it to us all; offers it to us, and is distressed if we don't take it. We have only to go to Christ and ask Jesus to make it all right for us, and He'll do it. I know you are in earnest. Jesus will turn away no earnest man.'
Mr. Gilmour senior acted as steward of the little store which his son by rigid economy was amassing for the benefit of his children. Scotch thrift was well exemplified in them both. But in the course of 1887 James Gilmour became troubled about this accumulation of even that small sum which he could call his own. In his lonely introspective Mongolian life the possession of money came to wear in his view the aspect of distrusting God. At this juncture the London Missionary Society was in a somewhat serious state as regards funds. A special appeal had been sent out indicating that if additional funds were not forthcoming, some fields of work might have to be given up. James Gilmour's response was an order to pay over anonymously the sum of 100l. to the general funds of the Society, and 50l. to that set apart for widows and orphans.
'March 16, 1887.
'My dear Father,—Some explanation is due to you of the order to pay the London Missionary Society 100l. of my money as a contribution to their funds.
'The money that I have in the bank is the result of long and, much of it, of self-denying savings on my part and the part of my late wife—more on hers than mine, perhaps. When she died, and I was going off to this remote and isolated field, it was a comfort to me to think that in the event of my death there was a little sum laid past which would help my sons to get an education. I have added to that sum all I could from my house-furniture sale, &c., and it has reached a good figure—the exact sum I cannot yet tell—I have not yet had your account for 1886.
'Some time ago God seemed to say, "Entrust that money to My keeping!" and, as days went on, the command seemed to get more loud and be ever present, so much so that finally I could not read my Bible for it or pray. I had no resource left but to obey; I did not like to give it up; but finally it has appeared to me that God is only keeping the funds for the lads and that He will arrange for them to have them all right when they are needed. How He can do this I need not ask. He may, for instance, keep me alive for the sake of the lads. In one sense it seems an unwise thing not to be laying up something for the children's education; but that is only one side of it. God seems to ask me to trust Him with my children, and I trust Him with them. They are far from my care and control, and I know such painful cases of the children of missionaries growing up unbelievers that I dare not do anything that seems to me not to be putting them fully into God's care and up-bringing.
'In addition, I am exhorting people here to become Christians, by doing which they throw themselves and their children outside of the community. I tell them to do it, and trust God's protecting them in troubles and helping them in difficulties; and I can hardly do that if I have not faith in God myself for me and mine.
'Again, I need God's help and blessing much in my work here, and I do not seem to myself to be able to expect it if I do not trust Him. So please regard the money removed as not lost, only put into a safer bank.'
The following letter, also dealing with money matters from the Christian point of view, is so striking in many ways that it has been deemed advisable to quote it in extenso:—
'Ch'ao Yang, Mongolia: May 6, 1888.
'My dear Father,—Enclosed please find some directions about the disposal of my money. These arrangements are so contrary to my previous arrangements that some explanation is due to you and to my brothers. Here they are.
'In my mission work out here I am much thrown upon God. The field is a very hard one. The superstitions are like towns walled up to heaven. The power of man avails nothing against them. As far as man is concerned I am almost alone. I turn to God. I hear the words, "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit," saith the Lord. I trust Him. I call upon Him. I commune with Him. He comes near me. I ask Him to convert men. There are conversions, a few true, as far as I can judge. But there seems some barrier between God and me to a certain extent. Thinking round to see what it can be, I hear a voice saying, "Can't you trust Me with the money you have laid up for your children?" I think over it I pray over it. I say, "I may die and the boys need the money." God replies, "If you trust Me with it, don't you think I'd give them it as they needed?" I say, "But my father and brothers might not see it so, and might not like the idea of destitute orphan children on their hands." God replies, "With Me for their banker children are not destitute, and if you prefer father and brothers before Me, you are not worthy of Me." Then I say, "What will you have me do?" God says, "Give Me the money; I'll see they have all that is necessary." I dare not disobey. I don't want to disobey. I am so much exercised over the spiritual well-being of the boys, that I gladly do anything that will make them in any sense more specially protégés of God. I am alarmed at the fate of some missionaries' children who have not turned out godly men. Preserve the boys from this!
'This is no sudden resolution. I have thought and prayed much over it. I can delay this step no longer without feeling I would be refusing to follow God's guidance. I feel, too, that God has so many ways in which He can bless the lads and me, that in making this arrangement I am running no risk. The only thing I am not quite clear about is the detailed disposition of the money. Meantime, it seems to me that I can best use it for God in this mission here. I mean to bank it in Peking, in the first instance, and use it for renting or buying premises.
'As to the general principle of having money for ourselves or children, I do not think God asks us all to put all we may have or get thus in His keeping, or asks me even to put all into His keeping in this especial manner. You know the money was originally saved from the salary given by the mission, and in this sense is peculiar. Money that I had earned by trade, or otherwise come by, I do not think God would ask me to dispose of it so. But His voice seems very plain in this present case.
'My salary I shall still have paid to me, and the children's remittances shall come as usual. If I live I guess this will be enough for the education of the lads. If I die, the lads are not destitute. Even in a worldly sense, and quite apart from this sum which I am banking with God, and which I am sure He'll repay with compound interest when needed, if left orphans they would be in some sense provided for by the London Missionary Society, which, though it gives no pensions to any one, yet yearly raises funds and gives money to broken-down old missionaries, widows, and orphans. I don't suppose it is much or enough, but it is something. I say this that you may not be troubled should your faith be weak or waver.
'I hope that these arrangements may not seem unwise to you, and will commend themselves to you far enough to have your consent if not your warm approval. For myself I am thankful that God has given me faith enough to trust Him so. It has taken time to come to this. Myself is a small matter—it takes more faith to trust for one's children. Just fancy old Abraham offering his Isaac. Just fancy, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. Let us respond to God's love.
'Your loving son,
'James Gilmour. '
In compliance with his wish a sum amounting to several hundred pounds was sent out to Peking and there banked by him. Had not the many difficulties which Chinese habits placed in the way prevented the completion of negotiations, there is hardly any doubt that James Gilmour would have himself spent this money on his own mission-field. He died before any of the negotiations for premises which he had commenced reached a successful issue. As he had not specified in his will that this sum was to be devoted to mission work, the trustees of his boys have had no alternative, and have felt it their duty to consider it a part of his estate, the income of which should be devoted to the education of his sons. But the intention of James Gilmour was clear and well known, and it is to be hoped that the interest felt by many friends in his life and work will prove strong enough to secure a permanent home for the mission as a memorial of its founder, and on the site of his glad and self-sacrificing toil.
A year or two later, in a letter to his boys, he seeks to enforce the duty of careful, systematic giving to God.