Who Was James Gilmour?

“Unprayed for, I feel very much as if a diver were sent down to the bottom of a river with no air to breathe, or as if a fireman were sent up to a blazing building and held an empty hose; I feel very much as a soldier who is firing blank cartridge at an enemy, and so I ask you earnestly to pray that the Gospel may take saving and working effect.” 

Thus James Gilmour, the great 19th century missionary to Mongolia, urged his countrymen, as recorded in Richard Lovett’s James Gilmour of Mongolia.

Gilmour’s Early Years

James Gilmour was born in Scotland in 1843 to James and Elizabeth Gilmour. Masculinity pulsed through the Gilmour home in those early days, as James was the third of six children—all boys. Later in life, this manly vigor served him well during the violent Mongolian winters where he preached.

The Gilmour home practiced family worship every morning and evening, creating a spiritual temperature that was warm and godly. His parents and grandparents were dedicated Christians who loved telling missionary tales to their intrigued children.

Gilmour studied at the University of Glasgow, where he excelled at Latin, Greek, and debate. While at school he was converted to Christ and later surrendered to missionary service, in part because the needs abroad were greater than in his homeland. When making a statement on the development of his religious life, he said, “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 for the European.” Following further studies, Gilmour joined the London Missionary Society and was ordained an evangelist to Mongolia. In 1870, just a few months before his 27th birthday, he sailed for Peking (modern day Beijing), the capital city of China. 

Life in Mongolia

News of the Tientsin massacre greeted Gilmour soon after he arrived. Some Chinese men had blamed the foreign missionaries for the lack of rain. Murder followed, as did great danger to the missionaries.  The slaughter signaled a greater uprising that would come three decades later—the Boxer Rebellion. Gilmour described the peril: “We are living on the slope of a volcano that may put forth its slumbering rage at any moment.” The missionaries knew not if they would live or die.

After God had tested the faith of the missionaries, He rescued them by whipping up a rainstorm. On the murderous day when the “Clearing of Peking” was to begin, twenty-four hours of relentless rain bombarded the city, turning the city into a “muddy, boatless Venice.” In time, the uprising died down. By then, Gilmour had decided he was going north to Mongolia, the huge swath of land between China and Siberia. Mongolians followed the religion of Buddhism and had no understanding of Christianity. Large temples that were dedicated to their gods dotted the landscape, peopled by spiritual leaders called lamas that prayed with beads and traveled on pilgrimages.

While a missionary in Mongolia, Gilmour modeled Christlike character like frugality, prayer, persistence and fatherly care. But self-denial stands as the Mt. Everest mark of his life. He quickly and happily eschewed personal comfort. To reach the people, Gilmour became one of them. He learned their language. He wore Mongolian clothing. And, most practically, he lived the nomadic life. In Mongolia, most roads were simple trade routes traveled by Chinese and Russian merchants on camels and ox carts. Many of the Mongolians traveled the pasture lands with their flocks in the summer and lived in primitive huts in the winter. Being a missionary there meant moving a lot.

Trials

Gilmour endured many hardships, especially in the early days. He struggled to cross the border because of passport issues. He didn’t know the language. Few showed him sympathy. He ministered alone. Apart from his tragically short marriage, he never enjoyed the privilege of a missionary teammate. His language teachers weren’t helpful. He suffered from loneliness and depression, even contemplating suicide. He wrote:

“I take this opportunity of declaring strongly that on all occasions two missionaries should go together. I was not of this opinion a few weeks ago, but I had no idea how weak an individual I am. My eyes have filled with tears frequently these last few days in spite of myself, and I do not wonder in the least that [a local trader’s] brother shot himself.”

After a stinging remark was made about his poor progress in the language, he got radical. He ventured into the open plains until he found a man willing to teach him blue-collar Mongolian. For several months he lived as a Mongolian in their huts to learn the language. The people loved him for this, but they struggled to understand Christian doctrine. They said things like: “If God is omnipresent, how can Jesus be sitting on the Father’s right hand?” Or, “If God is everywhere, does it mean he is also in the cooking pot? Will he be scalded?”

Because the Mission underfunded Gilmour, he walked hundreds of miles from place to place. He couldn’t afford a beast to ride upon. Beyond preaching the gospel, he printed small Christian books, which were far more attractive to the people than large Bibles. He also practiced dentistry and cured the diseases of the locals as best he could, though he was never formally trained.

Marriage

Gilmour desperately wanted a wife. Early on, he wrote a letter proposing to a Scottish girl, but she was taken by the time the letter arrived. He prayed, asking God to “look me out one, a good one too.” One day while visiting friends in China, he happened to see the photo of a missionary wife’s sister, Emily Prankard. He immediately wrote to her proposing marriage. Friends laughed at him for such a rash decision. “What if you don’t like her,” they said. About a year later in December of 1847, James and Emily were married in Peking, China, having seen each other for the first time just a week earlier. The marriage proved to be a happy one. Emily was godly and sweet. Gilmour wrote of her: “She is a jolly girl, as much, perhaps more of a Christian and a Christian missionary than I am.”

His new wife adjusted well. During trips from Peking to Mongolia, Emily learned the language quickly. She also endured some strange Mongol customs, like their habit of free access to everyone’s tent—a challenge indeed for newlyweds! It was almost impossible to have private conversations.

Final Years

After Gilmour had labored on the field for twelve years, he and his family returned to England for furlough. He stayed busy by writing Among the Mongols, an adventurous account of missionary life in Mongolia. In it, he urged churches to send more missionaries. One critic said the book had more excitement than Robinson Crusoe. Gilmour still refused to take public transport on Sundays, once leaving his house three hours early and walking 24 miles round trip to hear Charles Spurgeon preach.

To this point, Gilmour still hadn’t made a single convert. This soon changed. Upon returning to China a year later in 1884, Gilmour increased his treks to Mongolia. The Mongols were shocked a foreigner would walk like a poor man with all his belongings on his back. Some inns even turned him away because they thought he was a tramp. Then, one evening in a hut, Gilmour’s first convert professed Christ. Gilmour said in his journal it was as if those words “had been spoken by an angel from out of a cloud of glory.” Gilmour’s incessant walking gave him time to disciple this man. 

Sadly, Gilmour’s  wife died soon thereafter, after eleven happy years of marriage. Yet, he remained in Mongolia, even when all thought he would quit.

Whisky, opium, and tobacco impoverished many of the Mongols. Gilmour rebuked them for wasting money, time, and land on such foolish exploits, as many of the Mongols lived in rags. He’d say: “Repent and cease this great waste.” The people sometimes asked for absurd and comical kinds of medical help. Gilmour recorded that “one man wants to be made clever, another to be made fat, another to be cured of insanity…another of hunger…most men want medicine to make their beards grow.”

His method rarely changed. After walking from the previous village, he set up his tent to dispense medicine to the sick, preach to sinners, sell books to the interested and distribute tracts to all that would take them. He kept meticulous records. In one 8-month trip to Mongolia, he saw over 5,700 patients, preached to over 27,000 people, sold over 3,000 books, distributed 4,500 tracts, and traveled (mostly on foot) nearly 2,000 miles. He wrote: “Out of all this there are only two men who have openly confessed Christ. In one sense it is a small result; in another sense there is much to be grateful for.”

He continued to deny himself. He lived on just a few cents a day. He ate basic porridge, becoming a vegetarian to reach certain Mongols. After enduring missionary life alone for nearly 20 years, the Mission Board finally sent him a partner. This man then swiftly sent Gilmour back to England for his second (and final) furlough. He met up with his two boys whom he had sent back to England three years prior. He returned to China two years later, but died of typhus fever on 21 May, 1891, a month after arriving. He was 47 years old.

Conclusion

While suffering in his early years, Gilmour wrote: “Comfort is not the missionary’s rule.” Just as Paul beat back his impulses for comfort, relaxation, and entertainment (1 Corinthians 9:25), so Gilmour resisted ease so that he might win souls to Christ, even if “success” had not been obtained.

‍

Additional Resources

· Among the Mongols, James Gilmour

· James Gilmour of Mongolia, Richard Lovett

· Gilmour and His Boys, Richard Lovett