n is Chinese, and I could not do well without a Chinaman.

'2. It is a new district and will take time to work up.

'3. It is not easily reached from Peking or anywhere else, and will
be a very isolated part.

'4. It is rather a rough and unsafe district.

'I know all these, but feel, in reliance on God, like facing the
thing as the best and proper thing to do. There are inns all about,
and though for some time a private location may not be secured, we
can still go about among the people. My main hope, though, is in
settling down somewhere as a head centre, in close contact with the
people, so that I earnestly desire that the doctor should come. If
he is unmarried I would be glad to see him to-morrow. Could you not
get a doctor who would be willing to remain single till a location
could be secured? After a location has been secured let him marry
if he likes.

'I think that the region I have in my mind would make a good centre
for a doctor, and that he would have plenty of practice among
Mongols and Chinese, especially if he could start a hospital for
in-patients.

'I am very glad that the Mongolian region around Kalgan has shown
signs of bearing fruit. It has strengthened my faith much. I am
also glad that God has acknowledged in some degree my work here in
Peking, and I feel more hopeful than ever I did. God, too, has cut
me adrift from all my fixings, so that I feel quite ready to go
anywhere if only He goes with me.'

Mr. Gilmour entered upon this new departure on the understanding that a
medical colleague should be sent to him at the earliest possible moment.
This responsibility the London Board assumed and endeavoured to
discharge. The result was a severe trial to the faith, not only of the
solitary worker but to all interested--and they were many--in the fate
of the new mission. As we shall see later on, when a congenial and
competent medical colleague reached him, and was entering with vigour
and hope upon the work, Dr. Mackenzie of Tientsin suddenly died, and
before the immediate and urgent claims of Tientsin the claims of
Mongolia had to give way. But in estimating the success of both
missions, that on the Plain, and that in Eastern Mongolia, it must never
be forgotten that what Gilmour considered _essential_, the presence and
help of a medical colleague, was never in the Providence of