'We miss much by not living near to Jesus--taking Him at His word
and expecting that He'll do all we need done for us both in saving
us and in making our hearts good. Jesus is real and heaven is real,
and our share in heaven, if we trust and follow Jesus, is real. You
say you are busy: so am I. You have cares: so have I. Go ahead and
look after your work and business; but you'll do it all the better
that your heart is at peace with God and at rest in Jesus. I find
that the closer I am to Jesus the better I can meet and bear all
troubles, trials, and difficulties, and you will find the same true
if you try.

'I feel quite lifted up to-night. I have a room to myself. This is
the first time I have had a room to myself since leaving Peking
January 25. It is pleasant to be private a little. This room is
private to me alone only after (say) 8 P.M., when I am left in
peace. I hope to have this room for three weeks.

'I am afraid, if you saw the room, you would not think it much of a
place. To-night, too, I have a pillow. For over three weeks I have
rested my head on some folded-up bag or article of dress: to-night
I have a pillow. Christ had not where to lay His head. In all
things I am still better off than He was. If I could only see souls
saved I would not care for the roughing it.'

In a letter later in the same year to a missionary colleague in a
distant field Mr. Gilmour unveils still further his religious history:--

'Mongolia: October 7, 1887.

'Yours of May 31 to hand three or four days ago. The China Inland
Mission has a lot of good men in it. It does a good work. It is
warm-hearted devotion that wins souls and gets God's approval. My
experience has been different from yours, happily. All along I have
gone on the "headlong for Christ" way of things here, even when
preaching to the most intellectual English and American audiences,
and they have received me royally. Man, God has waked me up these
last years to such an extent that I feel a different man. I
sometimes wonder now if I was converted before. I suppose I was,
but the life was a cold, dull one. Just the other day Jesus, so to
speak, put out His hand and touched me as I was reading a hymn,
something about desiring spiritual things and passing by Jesus