Set Apart unto the Lord (1824-1849)

When Benjamin Hudson, a Methodist minister, was transferred in 1824 to the Barnsley Circuit, it must have seemed like coming home, for his native place lay only a few miles westward on the edge of the great grouse moors. There both he and his wife had been born and bred, and from that Yorkshire valley, running back into the Peak country and many a mile of mountain, dale and moor, had come the artistic temperament and courageous spirit of their children. The minister at the Manse, though not a gifted speaker, was a faithful and devoted minister of the Gospel, and an artist into the bargain. His decided talent for portrait painting was inherited by three at least of his children. His most prominent characteristic, and one that gave him difficulty at times, was an irrepressible fund of humour. This also was passed on in measure to his descendants. Reproved in the Methodist ‘Conference’ on one occasion for not sufficiently restraining this tendency, he apologised in a reply so witty that the whole assembly was overcome with laughter. But in Barnsley he was on his native heath. Yorkshire folk could appreciate his dry, droll speeches and pointed exhortation.

None, probably, appreciated him more than John Taylor the reed-maker, whose plain but substantial stone house stood on the opposite side of the road to the Manse. As both families had the same number of boys and girls, there was naturally a good deal of intercourse between the households. Amelia, the eldest daughter of the Manse, had a voice so sweet that John Taylor called her ‘the nightingale.’ As for his son James, apprenticed to a chemist ten miles away, more than usual eagerness winged his feet on his visits home when he came to know for himself the charming singer. The result was inevitable. A warm affection sprang up between the two, culminating in their marriage, after a seven-year engagement, in April 1831.

By this time James Taylor had started up in business on his own, and it was the chemist’s home in the Market Place that really saw Amelia shine. There the qualities that made her an ideal wife could not be hidden. In all her husband’s work and interest she bore a cheerful part. His class of forty or fifty lads felt the influence of her sympathy and prayers only less than the girls who became her special care, and one of the joys of their early married life was an old-time revival in the Chapel that resulted in the conversion of many of these young people.

In preparing sermons for his preaching engagements throughout the Circuit James Taylor found his wife an unexpected help. When his heart was full and his pen could not keep pace with the thoughts he longed to utter, she would take rapid notes, and write out many a sermon delivered as he paced the little room behind the shop. A gifted speaker, he gave much care to the preparation of his discourses. He was an excellent chemist, too, and as a business man was highly respected. So scrupulous was he in financial matters that he made it a rule to pay every debt the day it fell due.

‘If I let it stand over a week,” he would say, ‘I defraud my creditor of interest, if only a fractional sum.’

Possessed by a profound conviction of God’s infinite faithfulness, he took the Bible very simply, believing it was of all books the most practical if put to the test of experience. On a day his young wife could never forget, in their first winter together, he sought her to talk over a passage that had impressed him. It was part of the thirteenth chapter of Exodus, with the corresponding verses in Numbers:

‘Sanctify unto me all the firstborn...’

“All the firstborn are mine...’

‘Mine shall they be...’

“Set apart unto the Lord.’

Long and earnest was the talk that followed in view of the happiness to which they were looking forward. Then together they knelt to fulfil as literally as possible an obligation they could not relegate to Hebrew parents of old. Just as definitely the Lord responded, giving them faith to realise that He had accepted their gift: that henceforth the life so dear to them must be held at the disposal of a higher claim, a deeper love, than theirs.

Thus springtime came again touching with tender loveliness those Yorkshire hills and valleys, and on May 21st, 1832, this child of many prayers was born, uniting in his name that of both his parents—James Hudson Taylor.

In the course of the years others were added to the Taylor family. One great advantage of the childhood of Hudson and his sisters was that they were so continually under their mother’s care. This in itself was sufficient compensation for the limited means that made it necessary. A great deal of sewing had to be done, but she was able to go on with it while they read aloud or wrote from dictation. Many were the hours thus spent over history, literature and travels. She early inspired them with a taste for reading, and to her accuracy and thoroughness may be traced the unusual attention to detail that characterised her son in later years.

Personal neatness she taught them in the same practical way. A work-basket was always ready on their dressing table, and stitches were put in as soon as needed. It became second nature to feel that one must be clean and tidy, however simply dressed. How she managed it no one could tell; but with the entire care and education of the children, cooking to attend to, washing to be done at home, and all the housework, with the help of only one maid, she invariably kept her surroundings neat and attractive.

The little parlour behind the shop, though constantly in use for meals and lessons, needlework and play, was a picture of comfort and good order. With its corner cupboard filled with shining crockery and glass, its little window affording interesting glimpses through the shop to the Market Place beyond, its long, old-fashioned couch and its spacious bookcase, the family living room was a cosy spot.

The chief feature in the room, undoubtedly, was the bookcase, and it had also much to do with the order that prevailed. Over the lower shelves hung a curtain concealing a characteristic device of the mother’s household management. Everything in use for meals or lessons, work or play, had its appointed place in sideboard or cupboard, while magazines, books and papers found hospitality upon the ample shelves. But one shelf behind the crimson curtain was unappropriated. Clean and empty, it stood ready for emergencies. Was the room needed for unexpected visitors? The work in hand, whatever it might be, was laid away without embarrassment and just as easily brought out again. Were the older people busy with letters or accounts when the table was wanted for a meal? A place was ready in which ink and papers would be accessible and out of danger. It was a convenient receptacle at teatime for the mother’s sewing or the children’s toys. But whatever its uses in the daytime, it was always cleared and dusted before night. Simple as such a plan may seem, it was effective because of the orderly mind that carried it out, and went far toward solving the problem of how to turn one room to so many uses without litter or confusion. The mother’s gentle discipline had much to do with the happiness of Hudson’s childhood, and gave rise to a situation that was long remembered. In attending to guests at dinner one day, she overlooked the needs of her little son. The meal went on and still the child said nothing, knowing he must not ask for things at table. At length, however, an expedient suggested itself, and a little voice was heard requesting for salt. That at any rate was permissible.

‘And what do you want the salt for?’ questioned his neighbour, seeing the empty plate. _,

‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘I want to be ready. Mamma will give me something to eat by-and-by.’

On another occasion he called attention to his needs by enquiring.in a pause in the conversation,

‘Mamma, do you think apple pie is good for little boys?’ e

The children lived in touch with their father almost as much as with their mother, and he felt himself no less responsible for their training. Though he was stern and even quick-tempered at times, the influence James Taylor exerted in the life of his son can hardly be over-estimated. He was decidedly a disciplinarian. But without some such element in his early training who can tell whether Hudson would ever have become the man he was? With James Taylor, to keep the children moderately happy and goodtempered was not the point. He was a man with a supreme sense of duty. The thing that ought to be done was the thing he put first, always. Ease, pleasure, self-improvement, had to take whatever place they could. He was a man of faith, but faith that went hand in hand with works of the most practical kind. His children must be doing their duty, getting through their daily tasks, acquiring habits that alone could make them dependable men and women in days to come.;

The importance of punctuality, for example, he impressed both by teaching and example. No one was allowed to be late for meals or any other engagement.

‘If there are five people,’ he would say, ‘and they are kept waiting one minute, do you not see that five minutes are lost that can never be found again?’

Dilatoriness in dressing or undressing, or in making a start when the time came to begin, he also reprehended as a serious waste of time. ‘Learn to dress quickly,’ he would say, “for you have to do it once, at least, every day of your life. And begin promptly whatever the work in hand. To loiter does-not help, it only makes the task more difficult.’ }

‘See if you can do without’ was another of his maxims. This of course applied, among other things, to the simple pleasures of the table. He fully realised the lifelong influence of little habits, and felt he must secure to his children the power of self-control.

‘By and by,’ he would explain, ‘you will have to say “No” to yourself when we are not there to help you; and very difficult you will find it when you want a thing tremendously. So let us try to practise now, for the sooner you begin the stronger will be the habit.’

Family worship he conducted regularly, after both breakfast and tea. Every member of the household had to be present, and the passage read was explained in such practical fashion that even the children could not fail to see its application. He was very particular about giving them the whole Word of God, omitting nothing. The Old Testament as well as the New was taken in regular course, and at the close of every day’s reading the date was carefully entered in the family Bible.

He explained to them the necessity for maintaining the life of the soul by prayer and Bible study, as the life of the body is maintained by exercise and food. To omit this was to neglect the one thing needful. He spoke of it frequently as a matter of vital importance, and arranged for everyone in the house to have at least half an hour daily, alone with God. The result was that even the little ones began to discover the secret of a happy day.

James Taylor was sociable and talked freely in congenial company.,On Quarter Day, when fellow-workers came to Barnsley from every part of the Circuit, he often improved the occasion by inviting one and all home to tea. It was on those occasions chiefly that the subject of foreign missions came up, and the children were delighted by many a story from far-off lands. China held the first place in their father’s sympathies, and he used often to lament the indifference of the Church to its appalling need. It especially troubled him that the denomination to which he belonged should be doing nothing for its evangelisation.

“Why do we not send our missionaries there?’ he would exclaim. ‘That is the country to aim at, with its teeming population, its strong, intelligent, scholarly people.’

Hudson early made up his mind to go to China as a missionary, and his interest in the land was increased by a little book called China which he read and reread until he almost knew it by heart. Any hope his parents may have entertained that he would be called to just such a service, however, had been abandoned, on account of his continued delicacy. He was not even sent to school until he was eleven, and his brief career as a schoolboy terminated two years later. It was not a particularly happy period, for although he enjoyed study immensely, hardly a week passed without his having to miss a day or two on account of illness. He was not sufficiently a lover of boyish sports to become a general favourite, and was delighted when it was decided that he should leave to carry on his studies at home, and help his father in the shop on the Market Place. Thus childhood’s years passed by, and all unconsciously Hudson Taylor was drawing near the crisis of his life.

Outwardly he was a bright lad of seventeen, with few anxieties or cares, but inwardly he was rebellious and full of unbelief. For.a few months he had gone as junior clerk into one of the banks at Barnsley, where most of his new associates were thoroughly worldly. Sceptical views to which he was a stranger were freely discussed among them, and religion was seldom spoken of without a sneer. One of the older clerks in particular, a handsome and popular fellow, took every occasion to laugh at what he called Hudson’s ‘old-fashioned notions,’ and did all he could to make him as light-minded as himself. The boy began to long for gaiety and distraction, for money and a horse to go hunting, as did some of his companions. He found it weary work to try to keep up the outward forms of Christian life, though he struggled to do so for a time. And when overtime work by gas light brought on a serious inflammation of the eyes and he had to resign his position and return to his father’s shop, his unhappiness continued.

Needless to say, this state of things marred the happiness of home and overclouded his naturally sunny disposition. All was not right, and his parents could not but see it. The father tried to help him, but found it hard to be patient with the phase through which Hudson was passing. The mother understood him better, and redoubled her tenderness and prayers. But it was his sister Amelia, though only thirteen years of age, who was nearest to him and best able to win his confidence.

To her he could speak more freely than to older people and his indifference and unhappiness so affected her that she determined

to pray for him three times every day until he was really converted. This she did for some weeks, going alone to plead with God for the salvation of her brother, and even making a note in her journal that she would never cease to pray for him until he was brought into the light, and that she believed her petitions would be answered before long.

So, held by the faith and prayers of those who loved him, he came to the day he could never forget, of which he wrote years later,

My mother being absent from home, I had a holiday, and in the afternoon looked through my father’s library to find some book with which to while away the unoccupied hours. Nothing attracting me, I turned over a basket of pamphlets and selected from amongst them a Gospel tract that looked interesting, saying to myself, ‘There will be a story at the commencement and a sermon or moral at the close. I will take the former and leave the latter for those who like it.’

I sat down to read the book in an utterly unconcerned state of mind, believing indeed at the time that if there were any salvation it was not for me, and with a distinct intention to put away the tract as soon as it should seem prosy.

Little did I know at the time what was going on in the heart of my mother, seventy or eighty ‘miles away. She rose from the dinner table that afternoon with an intense yearning for the conversion of her boy; and feeling that, absent from home and having more leisure than she could otherwise secure, a special opportunity was afforded her of pleading with God on my behalf. She went to her room and turned the key in the door, resolved not to leave the spot until her prayers were answered.

Hour after hour that dear mother pleaded, until at length she could pray no longer, but was constrained to praise God for that which His Spirit taught her had already been accomplished, the conversion of her only son.

I in the meantime had been led in the way I have mentioned to take up this little tract, and while reading it was struck with the phrase: ‘The finished work of Christ’.

‘Why does the author use this expression?’ I questioned. “Why not say the atoning or propitiatory work of Christ?’

Immediately the words ‘It is finished’ suggested themselves to my mind.

“What was finished?’

And I at once replied, ‘A full and perfect atonement and satisfaction for sin. The debt was paid for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.’

Then came the further thought, ‘If the whole work was finished and the whole debt paid, what is there left for me to do?’

And with this dawned the joyful conviction, as light was flashed into my soul by the Holy Spirit, that there was nothing in the world to be done but to fall down on one’s knees and, accepting this Saviour and His salvation, praise Him for evermore.

Thus while my mother was praising God on her knees in her chamber, I was praising Him in the old warehouse to which I had gone alone to read at my leisure this little book.

Several days elapsed before I ventured to make even my sister the confidante of my joy, and then only after she had promised not to tell anyone. When Mother returned a fortnight later I was the first to meet her at the door and to tell her I had such glad news to give. I can almost feel that dear mother’s arms round my neck as she said,

‘I know, my boy.’

‘Why,’ I asked in surprise, ‘has Amelia broken her promise? She said she would tell no one.’

My mother assured me that it was not from any human source she had learned the tidings, and went onto tell the incident mentioned above. You will agree with me that it would be strange indeed if I were not a believer in the power of prayer.

Nor was this’ all. Some time after, [ picked up a pocketbook exactly like my own and, thinking it was mine, opened it. The lines that caught my eye were an entry in the little diary belonging to my sister,

to the effect that she would give herself daily to prayer until God should answer in the conversion of her brother. One month later the Lord was a to turn me from darkness to light.

Brought up in such a circle and saved in such circumstances, it was perhaps natural that from the commencement of my Christian life I was led to feel that the promises were very real, and that prayer was in sober matter of fact transacting business with God, whether on one’s own behalf or on the behalf of those for whom one sought His blessing.

It was the month of June 1849, when this definite apprehension of the atoning work of Christ changed the whole of life for Hudson Taylor. Henceforward he rejoiced in conscious acceptance with God, not on the ground of anything he could do or be, but simply because of what the Lord Jesus is and has done. ‘Not I, but Christ’ brought freedom, joy and rest. It was the turning point in his experience, the commencement of a new order of things that, little as he realised it at the time, meant for him—China.

The unspeakable value of years of steady discipline in a Christian home now became apparent. He was ina position to make rapid progress. The Bible was no strange book to him, but familiar territory, a land of promise waiting to be possessed. Prayer was no unwonted effort, but the natural outgoing of a heart long accustomed to turn to God. There was much yet to learn, but mercifully there were few habits or memories of evil to erase. The Holy Spirit had, comparatively, a free field in his heart. And at seventeen years of age, all life was yet before him in which to spend and be spent for the Lord he loved.

He longed for some work to do for God, some service that might prove his gratitude, some suffering even. A leisure afternoon gave opportunity for prayer, and with this desire filling his heart he went up to his room to be alone with God. And there in a special way the Lord met him.

“Well do I remember,’ he wrote long after, ‘as in unreserved consecration I put myself, my life, my friends, my all upon the altar, the deep solemnity that came over my soul with the assurance that my offering was accepted. The presence of God became unutterably real; stretching myself on the ground and lying there before Him with unspeakable awe and unspeakable joy, a deep consciousness that I was not my own took possession of me, which has never since been effaced.’

One result of this definite consecration was that he began to care about the welfare of others. If he could not preach as yet, he could at any rate give away tracts and invite people to the House of God. Busy from morning till night in the shop, it was not easy to make time for this work. But he found that by denying himself one of his chief pleasures, the Sunday evening service, he could gain a few hours just when people would be most accessible.

Instead of attending chapel therefore on Sunday evenings, he and Amelia went out as soon as tea was over and made their way to the poorest parts of the town. They became familiar figures, passing from door to door, handing tracts to all who would receive them. Even the poorest lodging houses were not passed over, though it cost an effort to go down those dark, narrow passages into the crowded kitchens. They were more than rewarded by a sense of their Master’s approval.

But the joy in the Lord and in His service was not the only experience as summer passed away. Coldness of heart crept in, forgetfulness, indifference. Somehow there seemed a gap between the power of the Lord Jesus to save ‘to the uttermost’ and the needs of everyday life in shop and home. The good he longed to do he did not, and the evil he hated too often had the mastery. He did delight in the law of God after the inward man, but there was that other law bringing him into captivity to sin with all its deadening influences. And he had not yet learned to cry, ‘Thanks be to God... The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.’

At such times two courses are open to the perplexed and troubled soul. One is to abandon the ideal, and gradually sink down to a low level Christian life in which there is neither joy nor power. The other is just to go on with the Lord, and because of His ‘exceeding great and precious promises’ to claim complete deliverance not from the guilt only, but also from the mastery of sin.

Nothing less than this could satisfy Hudson Taylor. Conversion with him had been no easy-going assent of the mind to an abstract creed. The Cross of Christ had cut him off for ever from the old life, and from rest in anything the world could give. Nothing could satisfy him now but unbroken fellowship with God. Hence times of spiritual lethargy and indifference were alarming. He could not take backsliding easily. It was nothing less than full deliverance upon which he had set his heart—real holiness, and daily victory over sin.

The conflict lasted all through the autumn, apparently. September brought the first break in the family circle, when Amelia went to complete her education at Bartonon-Humber, where their mother’s sister, Mrs. Hodson, had a school for girls and received a few resident pupils under her own roof. Her eldest son, John, was meanwhile apprenticed to his uncle in Barnsley, and it was arranged that the cousins should exchange homes for the time being, without additional expense to either family. With John sharing his room, there was less privacy for prayer and Bible study, more provocation to exuberance of spirits and more tendency to friction in business hours. His father had a somewhat hasty spirit, and all this combined to make things difficult, until early in December it would seem a crisis was reached.

Outwardly things were much as usual, but inwardly he was almost driven to despair. A deadness of soul had begun to steal over him. Prayer was an effort and the Bible devoid of interest. Christmas was close at hand and business correspondingly pressing. There seemed no time for quiet waiting upon God, even had the desire been present. But it was not. At times a terrible fear assailed him, that he was drifting he knew not whither and might miss the purpose of God for his life now, if not hereafter.

Just about that time his attention was arrested by an article in the November Wesleyan Magazine, setting forth in glowing terms the very experience he needed. It was entitled ‘The Beauty of Holiness,’ and it quickened again the longing of his heart for victory over self and sin. Then a mission was held in the chapel he attended, that resulted in so real a revival of spiritual blessing that within a few days more than 100 converts were gathered in. And finally a definite promise from the Word of God came home to him with power:

I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them (Ezek. 36, 25-27).

Sunday morning came, December 2nd, 1849. He was glad rather than otherwise of a cold which kept him in and gave him time to be quiet and alone. The Lord was consciously with him but things were not right. He had given himself to God without reserve, longing to be always and only His. And yet he could not maintain that attitude.

‘I cannot help wishing that instead of a slight cold I had some sickness that would take me to Heaven,’ was the weary note on which the boy still in his teens concluded a long letter to his sister. ‘I have a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far, far better.’

That night upon going to bed he was deeply troubled. His soul was athirst for God, and yet an intense realisation of failure and unworthiness almost overwhelmed him. ‘Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you’ is a promise always fulfilled to the sincere and humble spirit, but how often the vision granted calls forth the cry, ‘Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips.’

Nor was this all.

Absorbed in his own need, the lad was longing for true holiness, the life that is ‘no longer I, but Christ’ in everything. The Lord with wider needs in view was seeking him for this, but not for this only. In His great purposes the time had come when the Gospel could no longer be withheld from the ‘uttermost parts of the earth.’ China even must be opened, and its most distant provinces hear the tidings of a Saviour’s love. There it lay in age-long darkness, its teeming millions—a quarter of the human race—living, dying without God. It was of China the Lord was thinking, may we not say it reverently, as well as of Hudson Taylor. But the lad was not ready yet to hear the call, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ The work of the convicting Spirit must go deeper ere he could be fully blessed and brought into harmony with the mind of God. Thus his sense of sin and need became more intense as he wrestled for the deliverance without which he could not, dared not go on.

What was it that kept him from the life for which he longed? What was the secret of his frequent failure and backsliding in heart? Was there something not fully surrendered, some disobedience or unfaithfulness to light? Fervently he prayed that God would show him the hindrance whatever it might be, and enable him to put it away. He had come to an end of self, to a place where only God could deliver, where he must have His succour, His enlightenment, His aid. It was a life-and-death matter. Everything seemed at stake. Like one of old he was constrained to cry, ‘I will not let thee go:except thou bless me.’

And then, alone upon his knees, a great purpose arose within him. If only God would work on his behalf, would break the power of sin and save him, spirit, soul and body, for time and for eternity, he would renounce all earthly prospects and be utterly at His disposal. He would go anywhere, do anything, suffer whatever His cause might demand, and be wholly given to His will and service. This was the cry of his heart; nothing held back—if only God would deliver him and keep him from falling.

Instinctively we pause and turn aside from a scene so sacred. The place is holy ground. Of what transpired further we know no more, save for a few lines written when occasion required it in the following year. For he rarely referred to this experience, though all his life he lived it out.

‘Never shall I forget,’ he wrote, ‘the feeling that came over me then. Words can never describe it. I felt I was in the presence of God, entering into covenant with the Almighty. I felt as though I wished to withdraw my promise, but could not. Something seemed to say “Your prayer is answered, your conditions are accepted.” And from that time the conviction never left me that I was called to China.’

For distinctly, as if a voice had spoken it, the command was given, ‘Then go for Me to China.’

As silently as the sun rises over a summer sea, so dawned this new day upon his waiting soul. China? Yes, China. That was the meaning of his life—past, present, and to come. Away beyond himself, outside the little world of personal experiences, lay the great, waiting world, those for whom no man cared, for whom Christ died. ‘Then go for Me to China.’ Your prayer is answered: your conditions are accepted. All you ask and more, far more, shall be given. There shall be deeper knowledge of the Lord; fellowship in His sufferings, His death, His resurrection; a life of inner victory and power. ‘For to this end have I appeared unto thee, to appoint thee a minister and a witness both of the things wherein thou hast seen me, and of the things wherein I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.’

‘From that hour,’ the mother wrote, ‘his mind was made up. His pursuits and studies were all engaged in with reference to this object, and whatever difficulties presented themselves his purpose never wavered.’

For inwardly there was a deep subjection to the will of God, resting upon a profound and unalterable sense of what that will was for him. And with this came new purity and power, a steady growth in grace, and fullness of blessing that carried him through all the testing and preparation of the next few years.

‘Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.’ That was what made him and kept him, the real beginning of his walk with God as a man set apart.

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