to his own cherished convictions and beliefs, simply for the sake
of provoking discussion. So earnestly and logically (for he was a good
dialectician) would he carry on the discussion that it was difficult to
believe that he did not really hold the opinions for which he so
pertinaciously contended. Sometimes this habit of mind reacted very
amusingly upon himself, as the following will show. The subject fixed
one Friday evening for debate in the discussion class was, "Have animals
souls?" Though fully accepting the common belief that they have not,
Gilmour, purely for the sake of argument, took the affirmative, and with
such enthusiasm pleaded his cause that he brought himself to believe, as
he told me afterwards, that animals have souls.'

'At no time during his residence at Cheshunt could there have been any
doubt as to Gilmour's piety or consecration to the great work of his
future life; but during the second year it must have been manifest to
all who knew him intimately that there was a deepening and broadening of
his spiritual life. As I look back over the interval of years I can see
that it was then he began to reach the high-water mark in Christian life
and devotion which was so steadily maintained throughout his career in
China and Mongolia. An apostolic passion for the salvation of his
fellow-men took hold upon him. He would go out in the evening, mostly
alone, and conduct short open-air services at Flamstead End, among the
cottagers near Cheshunt railway station; seize opportunities of speaking
to labourers working by the roadside or in the field through which he
might be passing. He became very solicitous for the conversion of
friends in Scotland, and would come to my study and ask me to kneel
and pray with him that God's grace might be manifested to them, and that
His blessing might rest upon letters which he had written and was
sending to them. The ordinary style of preaching towards which students
usually aspire lost its attractions for him, and his sermons assumed
more and more the character of earnest exhortations, and addresses to
the unconverted. When he knew what was to be his field of labour after
his college course was over, how solicitous he was to go out fully
prepared and fitted in spiritual equipment! The needs of the perishing
heathen were very real and weighed heavily upon his heart, and he was
very anxious to win volunteers among his college friends for this
all-important work. How he longed an