fifty years together.
You must feel lonely without her. Fathers and mothers are thought
much of by the Chinese, and you, at my suggestion, were most
heartily and feelingly prayed for by the Chinese at our
prayer-meeting to-night. You would have felt quite touched could
you have heard and understood them.'

There is a special interest attaching to the sentence used frequently by
his mother. On page 41 he refers to his conversion, but no record
appears to have been preserved, giving any detail or fixing with any
exactness the date. But his brothers have a conviction that his constant
recollection of the oft-repeated and well-remembered words, 'What an
unco thing it will be if I see you shut out of heaven!' was one of the
most potent influences in bringing about his conversion. The letters
immediately following were written during the last two years of his
father's life.

'Let us not be disturbed at all about our not having more
communication. I pray often for you and remember you more
frequently still, and feel more and more that earth is a shifting
scene, that here we have no permanent place, that heaven is our
home, that your wife--my dear mother--has gone there, that my wife
has gone there and is now in the Golden City, and that, sooner or
later, you and I will be there, and that, when there, we'll have
plenty of time to sit about and talk all together in a company.
Lately I have come to see that we have but to put ourselves into
the hands of Jesus and let Him do with us as He likes, and He'll
save us _sure and certain_. He can make us willing even to let Him
change us and train us.

'You are eighty years old. I am proud of you. I like to think of
your life. Mother told me, when I was a lad, of some of your early
struggles. God has been with you and guided you on through all to a
good old age of honour and respect and love. Trust Him and He'll
not leave you. Depend upon it, God has something better for us in
the world to come than He has ever given us here. And it is not
difficult to get it. God wants to give it to us all; offers it to
us, and is distressed if we don't take it. We have only to go to
Christ and ask Jesus to make it all right for us, and He'll do it.
I know you are in earnest. Jesus will turn away no earnest man.'

Mr. Gilmour senior acted as steward of the little st