Emily Gilmour

Hello, I’m Joe Pursch, and this is a Transforming Moment. Let me ask you, guys, in this age of Internet dating services and psychological profiles of the perfect mate, would you ever marry someone you had never met, or even corresponded with? In fact, would you propose to someone simply based on the kind of letters she wrote to her brother? No way, you say. That kind of a blind decision would never last. Well, in 1874 missionary James Gilmour did just that, proposing to young Emily Prankard just from reading her loving letters to her brother in-law. Emily sailed from London to China to meet him, and they enjoyed a joyful marriage for 11 years until her untimely death. Gilmour said he knew more of her inmost life and soul from her letters than he would have from months of romance. The first letter he ever wrote to her was to propose and her first was to accept his proposal. We forget that love is a decision before it’s an experience. I’m Joe Pursch, and this has been a Transforming Moment.

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