ertain to consult it. But in addition to these
special classes the book did good service in some cases, by deepening
the impression already made by other first-rate delineations of
missionary enterprise and endurance, and in others by creating respect
for missions and missionaries in minds hitherto strange to that feeling.
In various editions very many thousands of the book have been sold
during the nine years which have passed since the publication of the
first edition.

The success of his book led to the suggestion that he might easily find
much useful employment for his pen. He did contribute some papers to the
_Sunday at Home_, _Pall Mall Gazette_, and other publications. But in
this, as in all other enterprises, loyalty to the great work of his life
ruled him. He soon came to the conviction that he ought not to take time
from the work of winning souls, and spend it in writing papers and
books--and from the moment of that decision he put mere literary work
resolutely aside.

'I feel keenly,' he wrote in 1884, on his return to Peking, 'that
there is here more than I can do, and writing must go to the wall.'
And as late in his life as 1890 he added, 'I could have made, and
could now make, I believe, money by writing, but I do not write. I
settle down to teach illiterate Chinamen and Mongols, heal their
sores, and present Christ to them.'

Towards the end of 1882 James Gilmour entered upon a long series of
meetings on behalf of the London Missionary Society, consisting of
sermons and addresses to Sunday School children on the Sunday, and
speeches at public meetings during the week. A long series of his
letters written to his wife between November 1882 and March 1883 is
still extant, and they form an impressive record of the work considered
suitable for a wearied missionary at home in search of rest and change.
He visited Edinburgh, Falkirk, Glasgow, Liverpool, Kilsyth, Hamilton,
Paisley, Dundee, St Andrews, Arbroath, Lytham, Aberdeen, Montrose,
Manchester, Hingham, Cambridge, Norfolk, and Southampton. And this list
exhausts only a portion of his excursions on the effort to stimulate and
develope the faith and the zeal of the churches at home. His wanderings
brought him into contact sometimes with relatives, sometimes with old
college friends, now grave pastors fast hastening towards middle life.
The meetings he attended always added to the circle of his friends, for
none could hear his