'The Tsai li ti are strong in Ch'ao Yang. I have been praying and working to gain them for a year and more. One evening a deputation of two men called upon me in my inn, and said they had come representing many who wanted to know about Christianity. They, the Tsai li ti, had been watching me ever since I had come to Ch'ao Yang. They had listened much and often to our preaching, and now they had come to make formal inquiries. I gave them such information as I thought they needed, and we got on well enough till they asked me to refute a slander. The slander was to the effect that in a chapel in Peking, the preacher would, when he finished preaching, get down off the platform and have a smoke! I had to admit that this was no slander, but a true statement. I had a good deal to say in explanation of it; but, alas! the men came no more.' To form any just estimate of Mr. Gilmour's work in Eastern Mongolia, it is needful constantly to bear in mind that it was practically a new departure. So far as we know, he is the only missionary in China connected with the London Missionary Society who adopted _in toto_ not only the native dress, but practically the native food, and, so far as a Christian man could, native habits of life. His average expense for food during his residence in his district was _threepence a day_. This rate of expenditure was, of course, possible only because he adopted vegetarianism. His practice acted and reacted upon his thought, and he came at this time to hold the view, for and against which a great deal may be said, that it was a mistake for Chinese missionaries to live as foreigners--that is, to wear foreign dress, arrange their houses and furniture as nearly as possible in European style, and eat European food. Both on its economical side and also as impressing the mind and heart of the Chinese, he believed that his was the more excellent way. Most of his co-workers at Peking and Tientsin did not agree with him. As agreement would have involved, perhaps, following his example, under conditions that differed widely from those of Ta ChÍng Tz[)u] and Ch'ao Yang, this difference of opinion was only what was to be expected. It is referred to here only as a well-known fact, and no story of Mr. Gilmour's life could be trustworthy which did not represent the decided way in which, when he felt that loyalty to his work and loyalty to his Master constrained him, he could and did act in direct opposition to the wishes and views of brethren whom he fervently loved.