'The Practice of the Presence of God, being conversations and letters of Brother Lawrence. Please send a copy to yourself, John, Matthew, Paterson, Miss Gowan, and ten copies to me, charging all costs to me, of course. It is by a Roman Catholic: don't imitate his Roman Catholicism, but his practice of the presence of God.'
In April Mr. Gilmour journeyed to Tientsin, and was unanimously elected to preside over the annual meeting of the North China District Committee of the London Missionary Society as chairman. His last communication to the home Society, with the exception of one brief note upon a matter of committee business, was a post-card, dated April 20, 1891, received in London some weeks after the tidings of his death. It runs:—
'Arrived here yesterday. The world keeps shrinking. Left Tá Ssŭ Kou Monday 8 A.M. Tuesday noon dined in a border Mongol village, in a Mongol's inn, served by a Mongol waiter, in presence of a number of Mongols. Got to London Missionary Society's Compound, Tientsin, Saturday, 5 P.M. Our headquarters are just five days from the extended railway. Am in A 1 health, everybody says so here, and that truly. Meantime am in clover, physically and spiritually. With prayers for the home end of the London Missionary Society's work.
'Yours truly,
'J. Gilmour.'
Just thirty-one days later he was lying dead in the same compound. How the interval passed is told by those who enjoyed those closing days of lofty spiritual fellowship. Had it been foreseen that the end was so near, the fervour and impressiveness and help of his presence could hardly have been increased. Before, however, passing to the details of this last month, the following letters are given in extenso as they form the last lengthy sketches of his work drawn by his own hand.
'Tientsin, L.M.S.: April 20, 1891.
My dear Mrs. Lovett,—I guess you are at the bottom of 10l. from Clapham Congregational Church Working Society (Ladies). Ar'n't you? If so, thanks. If not—I was going to say you ought to be—but my courage fails me. Anyhow, you can read and please forward the enclosed with my best thanks to the friends. I got here two days ago, and am here for a short time. The railway has gone out eastwards, is still going, and has now a station near me in Mongolia—near me being five long days' journey; but that is near, as near and far go here.
'I have many grateful and many prayerful remembrances of England and English friends, and a vivid remembrance of your kindness when I was with you. My regards to your parents. I hope you and your husband and children are all well. I heard of Mr. Lovett being in America—American Pictures on the stocks?
'I had intended to write you a nice letter, but it won't come, and the letter must go as it is. Please read into the remaining blank sheet all the feelings and good wishes I should express and do feel, and next time I write you, may it not be in the ebb tide, at the end of a mail.
'Your husband's a Director. I do hope they are sending me a doctor. If he can do anything in the matter, I wish he would.
'Yours, dried up and feeling dumb,
'James Gilmour.'
Enclosed in the above was the following letter, dated March 10, and addressed to 'The Clapham Congregational Church Ladies' Working Society.'
'Dear Friends,—Many thanks for your handsome donation (10l.), notice of which has reached me last night. I am told you want to hear from me. All right. I am just back from a month's raid into Ch'ao Yang. Had a fine time. Good weather and plenty of work in the marketplace. Baptized four adults, three being women—all Chinese. It is the day of small things truly, but I am not a little encouraged, over the women especially. That now makes four Christian families in Ch'ao Yang or its immediate neighbourhood. The two wives baptized this time have Christian husbands. It has all along been our prayer that the unsaved relatives of the saved might be saved.
'Mrs. Chu's husband was baptized a couple of years ago. She consented to his taking their two children to me to be baptized, but she herself would have nothing to do with Christianity or Christ. This time she got over her difficulties. I was much pleased, especially as she had annoyed her husband a good deal last year about his having been beaten about his Christianity. She also had her little child baptized. Pray that God may keep and help them in all the many complications that will arise on account of their Christianity, living as they do in a composite family, the ruling powers of which are heathen.
'Mrs. Ning is a model wife. They are poor. Her husband cannot dress in good clothes, but is always as neat as a virtuous wife, skilful with her needle, can make him. She mends so neatly. I once discarded a vest (Chinese) and gave it to her husband. He took it home, and later on I saw him swelling about in it quite like a neat old gentleman, though I was almost ashamed to give it him.
'They have had family worship in their home for a year or two—they say. We went to baptize her. It was such a small, poor house, but so very nice inside. Mother and grown daughters and little girl, with father and grown son, all sleep on a little brick platform, hardly big enough for me—one man. She and the grown daughter support the family by needlework—making horsehair women's head fittings, which the father sells, when he has nothing more to do.
'The son is epileptic and can earn nothing, and is, in addition, a great eater. He is a good man and a Christian. As we entered, the son and daughter went out. The mother and little daughter were baptized. The father did not wish his big daughter baptized. When she is married she will get a heathen mother-in-law, who will go for her and make her worship idols. So said the father. In a few days the father came back, saying that out of fear of the coming mother-in-law he had not had his daughter baptized, but that his daughter had pressed him so hard that she was as formidable as the mother-in-law. The daughter says she'll stick to her God and let them stick to theirs, and so she was baptized. She has a hot time before her. Chinese mothers-in-law are no joke. Pray for the lassie that:—(a) she may be steadfast; (b) she may be wise; (c) she may be gentle in her resistance; (d) enabled by God to endure; and that the mother-in-law may be restrained. God can do all things.
'Here, in Tá Ssŭ Kou, two of the Christians have wives very much opposed to Christianity, and give their husbands hot times. Remember the husbands, please, and all such in their shoes, in prayer, and may the darkened women themselves be enlightened. You have no notion how deeply sunk in superstition the women are. Still another Christian has a wife whom he has to allow to worship a weasel, because the woman shows symptoms of being possessed by the beast if she does not worship it!
'The other day a woman came to my stand in the market-place, saying that "Mr. Yellow" troubled her. "Mr. Yellow" turned out to be the weasel, and she firmly believed her sickness was due to the beast.
'We are badly in want of a lady medical man in this district. Don't you know of one who would do? Are there none of you who could study medicine and go out as doctors to some of the many needy places? Much was hoped for this district from the late Mrs. Smith, but God took her. Any one who comes here should have good health, and not fear seclusion from foreign company. I would suggest that a couple should come, a medical and a non-medical. There is a house which could be got for such a couple, only I don't see how they could get on without knowing some Chinese. Perhaps some one of the Peking or Tientsin ladies already speaking Chinese would volunteer to be a medical lady's companion. Would that God would stir some of you up! Meantime, thanks for the money. Thanks also for the prayers which I take for granted you let us have. You might also pray for a woman who has a very good, quiet, Christian husband, but herself has such a temper that she cannot in decency take on a Christian profession. Eh, man! eh, man! it is curious that I, a widower, should be left to look after women's souls out here, when lots of women are competing for men's situations and businesses at home. I guess things will come right some day, though I may or may not see it.
'Very gratefully,
'Yours sincerely,
'James Gilmour.'
On May 8 he sent the following note to Mrs. Williams, the wife of the Rev. Mark Williams of the American Board. Their Society happened to be holding its annual meeting at the same time in Tientsin as the London Society. Mr. Gilmour was just entering his fatal illness as he penned these lines, the last, we believe, that he wrote. They are a beautiful testimony to the strength of his affection for the Mongols to whom he and his wife had ministered so well long before, and on whose behalf they had suffered so much and so deeply. Standing as he was on the borderland of the heavenly country, he recalls the hard toil of his early days, and he leaves to those who must carry on to a successful issue, not only his work, but also the great enterprise of winning all China for Jesus Christ, this as a last legacy—the fruit of his prayer, his faith, his toil and his utter self-sacrifice—namely, the conviction that the need of China is 'good, honest, quiet, earnest, persistent work in old lines and ways.'
'Tientsin: May 8, Friday.
'My dear Mrs. Williams,—Thanks for returning the photos. Not having delivered them to you personally, I feared that in the present whirl of people and business they might have been mislaid, or even not reached you.
'It is a great pleasure to see you here at this time. Many memories of past times and days come up. Though never again likely to see Kalgan, I often in thought go along its narrow, hard streets, and its up and down sideways, call in at your house, see all your faces, even that of the youthful Stephen, and the studious Etta; and often go up over the Pass into the grass land.
'It is like a rest for a little while beside the palms and wells of Elim to meet you all here.
'Your peaceful, happy family fills me with gratitude to God. May He bless them all (your children), and lead them not only into paths of peace and pleasantness, but of useful service for Him! You and your husband seem well. May many useful years of ripely experienced labour be yours!
'Lately, I am being more and more impressed with the idea that what is wanted in China is not new "lightning" methods so much as good, honest, quiet, earnest, persistent work in old lines and ways.
'With many grateful memories of all old-time Kalgan kindness, and hoping to see a note from you, or Mr. Williams, say once a year or so, and with prayers for you and all Kalgan-wards Mongols,
'Yours, cheered by the vision of you all,
'James Gilmour.'