believed more firmly in the truth that it is
'not by might nor by power,' but by the direct influence of the Holy
Spirit, that the intellect and conscience and heart of the heathen are
to be subdued to the Saviour. No man ever wrestled more eagerly and
fervently in prayer on behalf of the ignorant and sinful, and yet his
avowed converts can be numbered on the fingers. Does this prove that God
is unfaithful? Does this tend to show that the enterprise is hopeless?
Or has God been teaching us, by the life of one of His ablest and truest
servants, the lesson of patient continuance in the path of His commands,
whether He blesses or whether He withholds? Is He not proclaiming to His
Church the need of a self-sacrifice _in all its members_ commensurate
with that displayed by James Gilmour and others who like him have not
counted their lives dear unto themselves in the struggle with
heathenism? Some must go in the 'forlorn hope.' Some must lay down their
lives in preparing the highway of our God. 'Herein is the saying true,
One soweth and another reapeth.' But succeeding toilers in the Mongolian
field, as the direct result of James Gilmour's sowing, will be able in
days to come to apply to themselves our Lord's words, 'I sent you to
reap that whereon ye have not laboured:--others have laboured, and ye
are entered into their labour.'

If the life of James Gilmour be looked at altogether apart from the
results that can be entered in tables of statistics, how splendidly
inspiring it is! Faithful to his Master, faithful to his work, although
the Master _seemed_ to delay the blessing, although the work wore down
the worker. 'I,' said St. Paul to the thankless Corinthian Church,
'will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more
abundantly, am I loved the less? But be it so.' And in the Epistle to
the Romans he applied to the Jews who were resisting the Gospel the
ancient words of Isaiah: 'But as to Israel He saith, All the day long
did I spread out my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. I
say then, Did God cast off His people? God forbid.' Nor will God cast
off the Israel of China, or the Mongols who gave to the faithful teacher
respect, attention, and in a way the love of their hearts, but who as
yet have not surrendered those hearts to their true Lord. James Gilmour,
in season and out of season, in almost constant solitude, in
superabounding physical labours that often overburdened him, and once
ne