ere taken just when God's
work needed him most, when the first-fruits of the coming harvest were
being gathered, when his knowledge of the Chinese and the Mongols, and
their knowledge of him and affection for him, were beginning to tell.
But God knows best, and nothing can deprive the Church of Christ of the
splendid self-sacrifice, of the noble perseverance in the path of duty
of the bright example of courage, devotion, enthusiasm for souls, and
patient continuance in well doing shining so clearly through all the
long, years of toil. Love, self-crucifixion, Jesus Christ closely
followed in adversity, in loneliness, in manifold perils, under almost
every conceivable form of trial and hindrance and resistance both
active and passive--these are the seeds James Gilmour has sown so richly
on the hard Mongolian Plain, and over its Eastern mountains and valleys.
'In due time we shall reap if we faint not.' His work goes on. He is now
doing the Master's bidding in the higher service. There, we must fain
believe, he is finding full scope for those altogether exceptional
spiritual affinities, and powers and capacities which stand out so
conspicuously all through the story of his inner life. Upon us who yet
remain rests the responsibility of carrying forward the work he began,
of reinforcing the workers, of bearing Mongolia upon our prayers until
Buddhism shall fade away before the pure truth and the perfect love of
Jesus Christ, and even the hard and unresponsive Mongols come to
recognise the truths James Gilmour so long and so faithfully tried to
teach them--that they need the Great Physician even more than they need
the earthly doctor, and that He is more able and willing to heal the
hurt of their souls than the earthly physician is to remove the disease
of their bodies.

Is not the real lesson of James Gilmour's life twofold? If it be looked
at from the point of view of results, it should give clear and vivid
ideas of the unwisdom of being cast down by the absence of results in
face of the difficulties of missionary work in China. It is to be feared
that there are still large numbers of good Christian people who believe
that for the conversion of Chinamen and Mongols all that is requisite is
to put into the hands of the heathen a copy of God's Word in their
native tongue, and then preach to them the good tidings of salvation. No
man in this, or in past generation, has done this more faithfully than
James Gilmour. No man ever