James Gilmour (missionary) - The Gospel and Medicine

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 labor, 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.