ell, as the men in the furnace said
of God, "Will He care to defend us? if not, be it known unto you we
will not yield." I might have died in childhood, in youth, before
conversion, and if then, alas! alas! I can remember the time when
the pains of hell got such a terrible hold upon me that I would
have gladly changed places in the world with anyone who had the
hope of salvation. Death, life, prospects, honour, shame, seemed
nothing compared with this hope of salvation, which I was then
without. "Could I ever be saved?" was the question; "would I ever
have the hope that I knew others had?" Had I died in darkness--God
be thanked, the light has shined forth, and I have the hope of
eternal life. May God make me more Christlike, and give me stronger
hope! Well, then, this hope I have; from this fearful pit I have
been delivered; in the light I now walk. God I call my Father,
Christ my Saviour, heaven my home, earth and the life here the
entrance to real life. If there is anything in our faith or in our
belief, then heaven is as much better than earth as it is higher
than earth, and our souls life is insured from all harm. If a man
is insured against all possible harm, why should he be afraid? Not
one hair of our head shall perish! O Lord, help me to live this
faith and to be in this frame of mind. In this city are many
foreigners, who came here to learn the language, &c., and many of
them have no great hope of heaven. They seem calm enough, and are
no doubt calm enough; shall the courage of the world, shall the
courage of scepticism, shall the courage of carelessness be greater
and produce better fruit than the courage of the Christian? O Lord,
preserve me from the sin of dishonouring Thy name through fear and
cowardice! Let us be bold in the Lord!'

By the end of July 1870, Gilmour had reached a fixed resolution to go to
Mongolia as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made. A severe
test had been applied to him, and the way in which he met it gives the
key to the whole of his after life. He used the trial as a help onwards
in the path of duty, and the chain of events which would have led many
men to postpone indefinitely the beginning of a new and hard work only
drove him the more eagerly into new fields. The reasons that influenced
him are set forth in his official report written ma