James Gilmour (Chinese:景雅各; 12 June 1843 – 21 May 1891) was a Scottish Evangelical Christian missionary in China and Mongolia. He served with the London Missionary Society.
Early life James Gilmour was born at Cathkin, Scotland on 12 June 1843, the third of six sons born to James and Elizabeth Pettigrew Gilmour on the Cathkin estate of a half dozen farms in the parish of Carmunnock, about five miles from Glasgow, Scotland. His ancestors were Calvinist Christians. The grandfather Gilmour and his wife walked regularly every Sunday to Glasgow to worship in the Congregational church. Their faith made a deep impression upon the community. James' parents maintained the same strict integrity and devotion. His mother delighted in gathering her sons about her in the evening and reading to them missionary and religious stories and making comments upon them. It is supposed that here was planted the desire that led the missionary later to write his interesting accounts of his experiences. Family worship was so strictly adhered to that neighbours would have to wait until the hour was passed before they could be served. In as much as James' father was in comfortable circumstances, the lad did not pass through the ordeal of poverty that some missionaries have. He had good school privileges, first at Cambuslang and then at Glasgow, applied himself not so much because of love for learning but because he willed to do so, and earned for himself many prizes. Still he was a boy full of fun and games and noted for his teasing. He loved the wild and would wander alone among the hills, woods, and glens, delighted with nature and what it gave back to him.
University life At first when James attended University of Glasgow he lived at home. Because some of his classes came too early for train service he walked to school in the morning. Later he furnished a small house which belonged to his father in the city, and prepared his breakfast and other meals as he thought best. He was especially bright in Latin and Greek, the secret of his success being in his "unspeakable value" placed on time. He never willfully lost an hour. Though having money he was very economical. He had a horror for intoxicants. Once he called on a classmate who had beer in his room. Young Gilmour quietly raised the window and as he poured it out on the street said, "Better on God's earth than in His image." Gilmour got his bachelor's degree in 1867, and his master's degree a year later in 1868. His early religious training bore fruit in his confession of conversion to Christianity during his university life.
He selected missionary service because the workers abroad were fewer than at home, and "to me the soul of an Indian seemed as precious as the soul of an Englishman, and the Gospel as much for the Chinese as the European." He also had read the command in Matthew to "Go into all the word and preach", he thought that there was a command to preach, but it was coupled with a command to go into all the world. He didn't believe that what God had joined he could separate. He believed that God hadn't called him to stay home, so if he were to be obedient he must go. The moral effect of the brightest student deciding for missions was very great indeed. When he offered himself as a missionary to the London Missionary Society he was sent to Cheshunt Congregational Theological College (14 miles north of London) for further training. While he retained his love for fun, he studied his Bible with such great earnestness that it was said that "his soul became all aflame with love for the perishing heathen". His zeal shone brightly at home, too. He would go out evenings alone and conduct open-air preaching services or talk to labourers by the roadside or in the field about the things of Christ.
Missionary appointment After Cheshunt College, Gilmour studied a year in the society's missionary seminary at Highgate, and Chinese in London. While here, through a misunderstanding the students rebelled against the directors of the Mission Society. Gilmour spoke for the student body, was looked upon as a ringleader and with disfavour, though afterwards the directors acknowledged that the students were right in their position. On 10 February 1870 he was ordained as a missionary to Mongolia in Augustine Chapel, Edinburgh. He set sail from Liverpool, on 22 February 1870 upon the steamship Diomed. He was made chaplain of the ship on which he sailed. At night he talked to every member of the crew while on watch, and laid the matter of salvation so clearly before them that he afterwards wrote, "All on board had repeated opportunities of hearing the Gospel as plainly as I could put it."
Arrival in China
Gilmour reached Beijing, on 18 May 1870, right away he settled down to continuing his Chinese studies. About a month later, on 22 June, news reached Beijing of a massacre. There had been a drought in the area, and the Chinese were quick to blame the missionaries for this, (they did the same thing sometime later, using a drought to gather the whole of China up in arms against the foreigners, resulting in the murder of many westerners in the Boxer Rebellion. Thirteen French Roman Catholic missionaries at Tianjin, (at that time port city of Beijing) were killed. The weeks following the massacre were very tense, and Gilmour and the older LMS missionaries weren't sure that it would be the right thing to send Gilmour to Mongolia just yet. Gilmour wrote of this time "We are all living on the slope of a volcano that may put forth its slumbering rage at any moment." Though not thinking of leaving the field, the situation was so grave that he wrote again, "Our death might further the cause of Christ more than our life could do."Richard Lovett, James Gilmour of Mongolia, pg. 48 A massacre of all foreigners was planned, but a great downpour of rain the first day it was to begin shut the Chinese in their homes and when they could go out again the excitement was gone and there was no disturbance. By the end of July (1870) Gilmour had reached a fixed resolution to go to Mongolia as soon as the necessary arrangements had been made.Richard Lovett, ibid He set out in the beginning of August, and reached Buryatia by mid September.
Mongolia
At the time Gilmour went to the field, Mongolia embraced that vast territory between China proper and Siberia, stretching from the Sea of Japan on the east to Turkestan on the west, a distance of about 3,000 miles; and from Asiatic Russia on the north to the Great Wall of China on the south, a distance of about 900 miles. In the center is the great Gobi Desert. Kalgan was over 100 miles northwest of Beijing, on the border between China and Mongolia. Still farther northwest about 900 miles is the town of Kyakhta. This route was marked by a large trade, -- exchange of China tea for salt, soda, hides and timber, -- all borne hither and thither between China and Russia by caravans of camels or oxcarts. West of this ancient caravan route were wandering tribes almost knowing no government or fearing no power. In the winter they live in rude huts or tents; during the heated summers they seek the best pastures they can command for their flocks. Terrible dust storms swept over the land. Religion, where it has gained a foothold in the southeastern part, was Buddhism; it was estimated that over half the male population were Buddhist lamas. Many temples of impressive splendour in gold and colours, seen from afar, and great reverence for sacred places by the people, impressed the missionary on every hand. To carry the Gospel to the nomadic bands of this land, Gilmour of necessity adopted a roving life and puts up with its hardships.
Long Loneliness Having decided that the proper way to learn the language and start the work was to go into the heart of the proposed field, Gilmour, in company with a Russian postmaster, left Kalgan, to which point he had come, on 27 August 1870, for the first trip across the great plain to Kyakhta. The journey took a month. Here he was detained because his passport would not be accepted by either Russian or Chinese, until he could obtain another from Beijing. He found a home with a Scotch trader. He went among the people asking the names of articles and thus gathered a vocabulary. He hired a teacher; but the teacher was so slow that the restless nature of the missionary felt life had reached its greatest stagnation. Before the close of 1870 he left Kyakhta to share the tent of some Mongol engaged in prayer. He arranged with this devout man, who had welcomed him, to share the hospitality of his home. The man lived alone, attended by two lamas that lived in adjoining huts. Here Gilmour spent three months, acquired the language rapidly and gained real insight into the hearts and minds of the natives. The cultural divide was great. To illustrate, he taught that God was everywhere and without form. The Mongol was puzzled to understand how, if God had not form, Jesus could sit at his right hand; further, if God is everywhere, how could one keep from walking on him? Within one year he could read the Bible in Mongolian slowly and at sight, and write the language imperfectly.
The Gospel and medicine During the summer of 1872 Gilmour, in company with Joseph Edkins, visited the sacred city of Wutai Shan, a famous place of Mongol pilgrimage. These people tried the zealous missionary greatly. Drunkenness, hopeless indebtedness, and a desire to borrow were characteristics that greatly disturbed him. Debts never distressed them, but rather their inability to borrow more. Amidst these discouragements he comforted himself as he once wrote, "All our good work will be found, there is no doubt of that. All I am afraid of is that our good work will amount to little when it is found!" He was concerned that in the judgment no heathen can be justified in "pitching into us for not pitching into them more savagely, for not, in fact, taking them by the cuff of the neck and dragging them into the kingdom." He endured many hardships here. He would walk to save the expense of a camel. His tent was dwelling, chapel, and dispensary. Gilmour followed the example of Jesus in healing the sick as far as he was able; and the few simple remedies he found a very great help to him in his work. Yet at the end of 1874, after four years of labour, he could not report one convert, not even one who could be classed as interested in Christianity. The people did not have even a sense of need of what the Gospel was.
Marriage