And yet James Gilmour had nothing of the fanatic or bigot about him. At the period of his life with which we are now dealing, his severest trial was the loneliness due to his having no colleague. Whenever his brethren ventured to address remonstrances to him, they were due largely to the conviction that entire isolation, such as he had to endure throughout his Mongolian career, must tell adversely upon his temperament. But in judging the character of the man it only heightens our love and respect for him that he did not allow the utter and successive failures of all efforts to secure him a colleague to hinder the work. No man more readily and more constantly acted upon the principle of doing the next best thing. His idea of satisfactory conditions for the work was never reached; but this never led him for one day to relax his own efforts or to loosen the strong hand of his self-discipline. To any reader who has carefully followed the previous pages it must have become abundantly evident that Mr Gilmour believed in God's present and immediate influence in the passing events of daily life, and that the right attitude of life is one of absolute dependence upon, and submission to, the will of God. His diaries abound with proofs of this. He is delayed one morning in starting from his inn, and is annoyed. An hour or so later he overtakes the travellers who started earlier, and finds them just recovering from the assault of a band of robbers. The delay was God's providential care protecting him from robbery. And yet no man was ever less under the spell of religious fatalism. All that active effort and promptitude of mind and body could effect in the service of life he freely and constantly expended in his work. And indeed there lies before us a long letter written at T· Ss[)u] Kou on March 15, 1888, asking for an official proclamation from the Chinese authorities at Peking affirming 'that Christian worship is an allowed thing, and that native Christians are not required to contribute, or are exempted from contributing, to idol and heathen ceremonies, such as theatricals, or the building and repair of temples.' The proper official document was applied for at Peking, and in due time obtained. On March 24, 1888, James Gilmour was rejoiced by the seeming fulfilment of his heart's most eager desire--the arrival at T· Ss[)u] Kou of a fully qualified medical colleague, Dr. Roberts. We have seen how repeated had been his entreaties, how earnest his yearnings after this essential factor in the success of his mission. For a month he enjoyed to the full the uplifting of congenial fellowship and of skilled help. Then came a blow, harder almost to endure than the previous solitude.