He corresponded regularly with his parents until the earthly tie was
broken by the death of his mother in 1884 and of his father in 1888. His
letters to the latter were very beautiful, especially those designed to
strengthen his faith in the closing years when he had passed the
eightieth milestone. The tone of the correspondence may be judged from
the following examples:--

'Peking: Friday, January 23, 1885.

'My dear Father,--So this must in future be the heading of my
letters--no longer my dear parents. Mother has gone. Yours of
November 21 reached me this afternoon, or evening rather. As I
came home from the chapel I found a beggar waiting at the gate. I
thought he was going to beg, but he did not. Inside I found the
gate-keeper waiting at our house door for a reply note, to say that
the letter had been delivered. I went to my study, and was praying
for a blessing on the chapel preaching when Emily came. I let her
in. She had your letter in her hand. It had come by Russia, and the
Russian post sometimes sends over our mail by a Peking beggar,
paying him of course.

'I have not had time to think yet. On my heels came in men for the
prayer-meeting we hold in our house on Friday evening, and till now
I have been almost continuously engaged. It is now 10.20 P.M. It so
happens that this week I am much behind in my sermon preparation
for Sunday, and it also happens that I am going to preach on _whole
families_ believing on Christ. What brought this subject to my mind
is one of our old Christians who is dying, the only Christian in
his whole family. His great grief is that they (his family) remain
heathens. In addition, too, a Christian father admitted to a
missionary the other day that he had not taught Christ to his
daughter who had just died. Preaching on this subject I will have
something to say about my own dear, good, anxious mother, and of
how she used to say when I was a boy, "_What a terrible thing it
will be if I see you shut out of heaven!_" She did not say
terrible; "unco" was her word.

'I have not yet had time to realise my loss, and cannot think of
the Hamilton house as being without her. Eh, man! you know how good
a mother she was to us, and I have some idea of what a companion
and help she was to you. You two had nearly