Is not the real lesson of James Gilmour's life twofold? If it be looked at from the point of view of results, it should give clear and vivid ideas of the unwisdom of being cast down by the absence of results in face of the difficulties of missionary work in China. It is to be feared that there are still large numbers of good Christian people who believe that for the conversion of Chinamen and Mongols all that is requisite is to put into the hands of the heathen a copy of God's Word in their native tongue, and then preach to them the good tidings of salvation. No man in this, or in past generation, has done this more faithfully than James Gilmour. No man ever believed more firmly in the truth that it is 'not by might nor by power,' but by the direct influence of the Holy Spirit, that the intellect and conscience and heart of the heathen are to be subdued to the Saviour. No man ever wrestled more eagerly and fervently in prayer on behalf of the ignorant and sinful, and yet his avowed converts can be numbered on the fingers. Does this prove that God is unfaithful? Does this tend to show that the enterprise is hopeless? Or has God been teaching us, by the life of one of His ablest and truest servants, the lesson of patient continuance in the path of His commands, whether He blesses or whether He withholds? Is He not proclaiming to His Church the need of a self-sacrifice _in all its members_ commensurate with that displayed by James Gilmour and others who like him have not counted their lives dear unto themselves in the struggle with heathenism? Some must go in the 'forlorn hope.' Some must lay down their lives in preparing the highway of our God. 'Herein is the saying true, One soweth and another reapeth.' But succeeding toilers in the Mongolian field, as the direct result of James Gilmour's sowing, will be able in days to come to apply to themselves our Lord's words, 'I sent you to reap that whereon ye have not laboured:--others have laboured, and ye are entered into their labour.'