simple but beautiful service was closed by a
spontaneous act on the part of the Chinese converts present. Pressing
near the grave of him whose heart loved China and the Chinese with a
fervour and an enthusiasm that may have been equalled, but certainly
have never been surpassed, they sang in their own tongue the hymn
beginning, 'In the Christian's home in glory.'

The labourer had entered into the rest he had so often seen by the eye
of faith. 'There remains,' he wrote, less than a year before his death,
'a rest. Somewhere ahead. Not very far at the longest. Perfect, quiet,
full, without solitude, isolation, or inability to accomplish; when the
days of our youth will be more than restored to us; where, should
mysteries remain, there will be no torment in them. And the reunions
there! Continuous too, with no feeling that the rest of to-day is
to-morrow to be ended by a plunge again into a world seething with
iniquity, and groaning with suffering.'

Many pages might be filled with loving eulogies of James Gilmour. But
the best of all is the simple story of his life. Yet two or three
references to his work and influence must here find a place.

From the pen of Dr. Reynolds comes this weighty testimony:--

'The end of his career came all too suddenly, and in gathering
together my impressions of it as a whole, I am convinced that I
have seldom seen a man so entirely possessed by a grand idea, so
utterly persuaded that we had a debt to pay to the heathen world,
so invincibly sure that Christian faith and life was the one
supreme need of these regions beyond our circle of light. Few men
have cast the bread upon greater waters, have sown the seed over a
wider area, or had to mourn more sadly over those heart-breaking
months which intervene between the seedtime and the harvest.
Impartial critics have recognised the intense honesty, the shrewd
wit, the faculty of vision, the power to tell the story of his rare
experiences with such verisimilitude as to force upon the reader a
ready acquiescence in every detail of his narrative. But his
Christian brethren saw a deeper vein than this in Gilmour's
achievements. He was ablaze from first to last with a passionate
desire to set forth Christ in His majesty and mercy, in all His
power to heal and to command. I had unexpected opportunities of
finding how tender and affectionate his nature was; how