To Mr. Owen he wrote on March 2:—
'Does God not mean to have a medical man here? I wonder! Wondering, I tell Him as I tell you, and try to leave it with Him, and in very great part do leave it to Him too. It is good to have His calm mercy and help. How's your soul, brother? I'll tell you how mine is—eager to experience more of the Almighty power inworking inside. Eager to be more transformed. Less conformed to the world. Eager to touch God more, and have Him touch me more, so that I can feel His touch.
'I am distressed at so few conversions here. But again sometimes very fully satisfied in believing I am trying to do His will. That makes me calm. I am scared at our property venture, but again trust in God, and the fears subside. The world to come, too, sometimes looms up clear as not far distant, and the light that shines from that makes things seem different a good deal.'
From other letters that remain we catch glimpses of the course of his action and thought during these last weeks. During the year 1869 he met in Edinburgh Mrs. Swan, the widow of one of the pioneers of the Mongol Mission of 1817 to 1841, and that interview gave the chief direction to the work of his life. In March 1891 he heard of Mrs. Swan's death, and he wrote to Miss Cullen, her niece, the following letter:—
'I sent you a post-card acknowledging receipt of your kind letter of December 10, saying that Mrs. Swan had passed away on November 22. I had not heard, and just then I had not time to write. I am now at the east end of my district, three days' journey from where the mail reached me.
'I am much moved to think that letter to me was her last. And there is a fitness that it should be so. "Baptized for the dead," as the phrase is. In some sense I am successor to her work, and it was not out of keeping that her last letter should have been to the field which all along had such a large place and keen interest in her heart, where so many more good works found a place. I often think of all the kindness and friendship I have experienced at her hands, both on my visits to Edinburgh and through letters. Missionaries miss such lives much when they are removed. I need not speak to you, who knew her so well, of what a charming hostess she made, and of how, even in her old age, all her great and abiding earnestness had running through it all so much happy Scotch humour.
'I had no idea Mrs. Swan was so old. Eighty-one, she did not look old except about the last time I saw her, and then I had no idea her age was so great. She has gone; but for many years to come, if I am spared, I shall from time to time revisit her in her house in Edinburgh, and see her at the table with the quiet Jane moving noiselessly around, or see her seated at her desk in the corner, writing letters. Remember me very kindly to your father—fit brother for such a sister. Their separation cannot be very long at the longest. For that matter of it, those of us who are here longest must soon be gone, and when the going comes, or looms before us, let us look not at the going, but at the being there.'
Having paid considerable attention to the work and methods of the Salvation Army, the publication of In Darkest England interested him greatly, and on March 9 he sent in a letter the following trenchant criticism, all the more noteworthy because of his strong sympathy with much in the Army that others find it hard to accept.
'Got here Saturday. Had a good Sunday with the Christians. To-day it snowed, and thus we have had time to put our house in order. I have read Booth's scheme in the Review of Reviews. I am greatly puzzled. It is so far a departure from Booth's principle of doing spiritual work only. It reads well, but Booth must know just as well as I do that much of the theory will never work in practice. What I dislike most in it is, it is in spiritual things doing exactly what it attempts to do in secular things—namely, it threatens to swallow up in a great holy syndicate no end of smaller charities which have been and are working efficiently. Again, the finally impenitent are to be cast off. Yes, that is just the rub. It will leave the good-for-nothings, many of them cast out as before. Nor will Booth's despotism do in the long run. But I am for the scheme and for old Booth too; but, nevertheless, there is both a limit and an end to all despotism and despotisms. But I am more favourable to the scheme than these words would seem to indicate.'
Mr. Parker, who bids fair to be a successor after Gilmour's own heart, in his first report of his experiences in Mongolia gave a bright and hopeful view of his colleague.
'On arriving at Tá Ssŭ Kou we found Gilmour very well indeed; looking better than he did when I saw him in England. He was jubilant over our coming, and it has been a great source of happiness to me to know that God's sending me here has up till now given happiness and comfort to one of His faithful servants. I have had a slight taste of being left alone, and I must confess Gilmour has had something to endure during the last few years.
'We are living in hired rooms of an inn. Gilmour is not in this courtyard. I have been alone here with my Chinese boy for the last five weeks (Dr. Smith being in Ch'ao Yang until a few days ago). I have been unable to get a proper teacher at present. Gilmour's student has been teaching me. He speaks distinctly. With him I have made very fair progress. I hope in a few days to secure a proper teacher.
'Another thing which has taught me a good amount of the Chinese I know is having to give orders to my Chinese boy in house-keeping generally. I am thankful to God for past experiences in my life, though they were rather rough; for here I find they come in very usefully. I had to teach my boy how to cook and do things generally. It was rather an amusing piece of work, seeing that I knew nothing of the language. Each order I gave him was a comedy in two or three acts, all played out in dumb show. In telling him what I wished purchased I was obliged to imitate sounds which are peculiar to certain beasts and birds, which when he understood, he announced that fact by opening wide his eyes and emitting a loud "Ah!" which was generally followed by the name of the thing indicated bellowed forth at the top of his voice as if I were deaf. Also he in turn, when he had anything to tell me, always stood in the centre of the room and went through a whole performance. On one occasion, when he wished to tell me that a certain dog had stolen the day's meat, the performance was so amusing that, when he had got through, I asked him what he was trying to say, in order that I might once more see the fun.
'Forgive me for taking up your time with such frivolous things. But I have picked up much of the language in that way, although at the cost of being grimed with soot and burning my fingers. All that is now past, and the boy is very useful, and, although now a heathen, I am hoping that by my influence he may be led to know the love of Jesus Christ. I am very glad that I came straight out here. I am sure I shall learn the language (of the people, perhaps not of the books) better than in the frontier cities. I am constantly forced to try and speak. Every day I have some visitors here whom I must try and entertain. I feel stupid at times with them, and perhaps they think I am; but, nevertheless, each day's experience is adding to my vocabulary. And when so learnt, I know that people will understand me when I speak.
'Gilmour is doing a valuable work. Every day he goes to the street and sets out his table with his boxes of medicines and books. He has three narrow benches, on one of which he sits, the other two being for his patients. Of the latter he has any amount, coming with all the ills to which humanity is heir. It is a busy street, not of the best repute, for it is where all the traders in second-hand clothes and dealers in marine stores spread out their wares.
'For some weeks I went out at a certain hour to take care of Gilmour's stand while he went and got a "refresher" in the shape of some indigestible pudding made of millet-flour with beans for plums. He generally left me with a patient or two requiring some lotion in the eye or some wound to dress. Then I, being a new-comer and a typical "foreign devil" (being red of hair and in complexion), always brought a large following down the street with me, and attracted a great crowd round the stand. At first it was not pleasant to sit there and be stared at without being able to speak to them; but after a while I got very interested in the different faces that came round. On one occasion I noticed the crowd eagerly discussing something among themselves, giving me a scrutinising look now and then. Now and again one would turn to his fellow and rub his finger across his upper lip as if he was feeling for his moustache. I had only been here a week or so then, and knew very little of the language; but I listened attentively, and at last I heard them speaking the Chinese numerals, and then it all dawned upon me that they were inquiring about and discussing my age; so I up with my fingers indicating the years of my pilgrimage. I never saw a crowd so amused. "Ah, ah!" they said, and opened their eyes, highly delighted that I was able to tell them what they wanted to know. Then I had my turn, and, pointing to a man here and there in the crowd, I used what little of Chinese I had in guessing their ages.
'But the sights of misery, suffering, and wretchedness which gather round Gilmour's stand are simply appalling. His work seems to me to come nearest to Christ's own way of blessing men. Healing them of their wounds, giving comfort in sickness, and at the same time telling them the gospel of Eternal Salvation through Jesus Christ. One day that I went I found Gilmour tying a bandage on a poor beggar's knee. The beggar was a boy about sixteen years of age, entirely naked, with the exception of a piece of sacking for a loin cloth. He had been creeping about, almost frozen with cold, and a dog (who, no doubt, thought he was simply an animated bone) had attacked him.
'The people here are desperately poor, and the misery and suffering one sees crawling through the streets every day is heart-rending. I have not a doubt that I am in a real mission field, and thank God that He has given me the opportunity to do something towards alleviating some of this misery. But what about the work as regards the saving of souls and establishing of a Church? I can only speak of the work in Tá Ssŭ Kou. It is in its initiatory stage. All the Christians and adherents can sit round the four sides of my table. But I am highly pleased with them.'