The Mission that Had to Be (1865-1866) (part 1 of 2)

It was an anxious moment for the young missionary fraught with possibilities of which he was keenly conscious. From an early hour that morning he had been alone with God, pleading for abiding results from this meeting. Now the great hall with its sea of faces lay before him; but how weak he felt, how inadequate to the opportunity! And no one was expecting his message. A stranger at Perth and indeed in Scotland, it had only been with difficulty he had persuaded the leaders of the Conference to give him a few minutes in which to speak on China—that vast empire with its four hundred millions, a fourth of the entire human race, about which his heart was burdened.

‘My dear sir,’ the Convener had exclaimed, scanning the introductions of this unknown Hudson Taylor, ‘surely you mistake the character of the Conference! These meetings are for spiritual edification.’

But the missionary was not to be denied, nor could he see that obedience to the last great command of the risen Saviour was out of keeping with spiritual edification. To him it seemed rather to lie at the root of all true blessing, and to be the surest way to a deepened experience of fellowship with God. It was at no little cost, however, that he ventured to urge this point of view; for those were not days when foreign missions occupied a place of much importance, and his dread of public speaking was only less than his sensitiveness about putting himself forward. In the train between Aberdeen and Perth, Taylor had written to his wife,

Through God’s goodness I have got some letters of introduction to Perth. May the Lord help and guide and use me there. My hope is in Him. I do desire not to please myself, but to lay myself open for China’s sake. I much need to add to faith courage: may God give it to me.

The facts, the great unseen realities, burned as a fire within him. He could not be at the Perth Conference and see those multitudes of Christian people, intelligent, influential, and caring deeply about spiritual things, without longing that they should see and feel needs incomparably greater than their own.

And now: the moment had come. Trembling from head to foot as he rose, Hudson Taylor could only grasp the rail of the platform and command voice enough to ask his hearers to unite with him in prayer to God. To Him it was easy to speak; and unusual as this beginning was, even for a missionary address, it arrested attention and opened the way to many a heart. For there was about that prayer a peculiar reality and power. More simple it could not have been, and yet it revealed a sacred intimacy that awakened longing for just such confidence in and certainty of God. A strange hush came over the people before the prayer ended, and then all else was forgotten in scenes to which they found themselves transported.

For the missionary came at once to the heart of his message. Back again in thought in the land of his adoption, he was travelling by native junk from Shanghai to Ningpo. Among his fellow-passengers, one Chinese, who had spent some years in England and went by the name of Peter, was much upon his heart, for, though not unacquainted with the Gospel, he knew nothing of its saving power. Simply he told the story of this man’s friendliness and of his own efforts to win him to Christ. Nearing the city of Sungkiang, they were preparing to go ashore together, when Taylor in his cabin was startled by a sudden splash and cry that told of a man overboard. Springing at once on deck he looked round and missed Peter.

“Yes,” exclaimed the boatmen unconcernedly, ‘it was over there he went down!’

To drop the sail and jump into the water was the work of a moment; but the tide was running out, and the low, shrubless shore afforded little landmark. Searching everywhere in an agony of suspense, Taylor caught sight of some fishermen with a drag-net—just the thing needed.

‘Come,’ he cried as hope revived, ‘come and drag over this spot. A man is drowning!’

‘Veh bin, was the amazing reply: ‘It is not convenient.’

‘Don’t talk of convenience! Quickly come, or it will be too late.’

‘We are busy fishing.’

‘Never mind your fishing! pene only come at once! I will pay you well.’

‘How much will you give us?’

‘Five dollars! only don’t stand talking. Save life without delay!’

‘Too little!’ they shouted across the water. ‘We will not come for less than thirty dollars.’

‘But I have not so much with me! I will give you all I’ve got.’ a

‘And how much may that be?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. About fourteen dollars.’

Upon this they came, and the first time they passed the net through the water brought up the missing man. But all Taylor’s efforts to restore respiration were in vain. It was only too plain that life had fled, sacrificed to the callous indifference of those who might easily have saved it.

A burning sense of indignation swept over the great audience. Could it be that anywhere on earth people were to be found so utterly callous and selfish! But as the earnest voice went on, conviction struck home all the more deeply that it was unexpected.

Is the body, then, of so much more value than the soul? We condemn those heathen fishermen. We say they were guilty of the man’s death—because they could easily have saved him, and did not do it. But what of the millions whom we leave to perish, and that eternally? What of the plain command ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,’ and the searching question inspired by God Himself, ‘If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall he not render to every man according to his works?’

China might be far off and little known; we might silence conscience by saying that its vast population was largely inaccessible; but every one of those men, women and children was a soul for whose salvation an infinite price had been paid; every one of them had a right to know that they had been ransomed by the precious blood of Christ, and to have the offer of eternal life in His Name. While we were busy about other things, quite profitably occupied it may be, they were living, dying without God and without hope—a million every month in that one land passing beyond our reach.

Rapidly, then, Hudson Taylor arrayed before his hearers facts that recent prayer and study had burned afresh upon his soul. Not the coast-board provinces only, to which the little band of Protestant missionaries was confined, but the great unreached interior, every part indeed of the mighty empire passed in review. To most if not all present it was a revelation. Millions upon millions of their fellowcreatures, unknown, unthought-of, were brought out of the dim mists of forgetfulness, and put before them in such fashion that their claim upon Christian hearts could never again be disregarded. Missionary addresses were not wont to be of that order. It was not speaking, so much, about these startling facts as letting the light of God fall upon them—making those present see as the speaker saw, hear as the speaker heard, God’s view, God’s verdict upon the matter.

And what a verdict that was!

In Scotland, with its population of four millions, several thousand ministers were needed to care for the spiritual interests of people already flooded with Gospel light. China with a hundred times as many precious, immortal souls, had not even one Protestant missionary, on an average, to every four millions. Moreover, its ninetyone missionaries of all societies were not by any means evenly distributed. They were gathered in a few, a very few, centres near the coast. Confined to the treaty ports, ~ they were in touch with a mere fringe of the population of the provinces in which they were found; while beyond lay the vast interior, inhabited by 200 millions of our fellow-creatures, amongst whom no voice was raised to tell of salvation, full and free, through the finished work of Christ. Yet we believe that ‘the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.’ Amazing inconsistency, appalling indifference to the revealed will of Him whom we call Master and Lord, and to the deepest needs of the human soul!

It was for these inland provinces and dependencies the speaker pleaded—populous regions as large as all the countries of Europe put together, in which no Protestant missionary was yet to be found.

‘Do you believe that each unit of these millions has an immortal soul,’ he questioned searchingly, ‘and that there is “none other name under heaven given among men” save the precious name of Jesus “whereby we must be saved”? Do you believe that He and He alone is “the way, the truth, and the life”, and that “no man cometh unto the Father” but by Him? If so, think of the condition of these unsaved souls, and examine yourself in the sight of God to see whether you are doing your utmost to make Him known to them or not.

‘It will not do to say that, you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at-home. If in the sight of God you cannot say you are sure that you have a special call to stay at home, why are you disobeying the Saviour’s plain command to go? Why are you refusing to come to the help of the Lord against the mighty? If, however, it is perfectly clear that duty—not inclination, not pleasure, not business—detains you at home, are you labouring in prayer for these needy ones as you might? Is your influence used to advance the cause of God among them? Are your means as largely employed as they should be in helping forward their salvation?’

Recalling a Ningpo experience, Taylor went on to tell how Nyi, full of joy in his new-found faith, had enquired:

‘How long have you known this Good News in your country?’

“We have known it a long time,’ was the reluctant answer; ‘hundreds of years.’

‘Hundreds of years,’ exclaimed the ex-Buddhist leader, ‘and you never came to tell us! My father sought the Truth,’ he added sadly, ‘sought it long, and died without finding it.

Oh, why did you not come sooner?’

Shall we say that the way was not open? At any rate it is open now. Before the next Perth Conference twelve millions more, in China, will have passed for ever beyond our reach. What are we doing to bring them the tidings of Redeeming Love? It is no use singing as we often do:

‘Waft, waft ye winds the story.’

The winds will never waft the story; but they may waft us.

The Lord Jesus commands us, commands us each one individually— Go,’ He says, ‘Go... into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.’ Will you say:to Him, ‘It is not convenient’? Will you tell Him that you are busy fishing—have bought a piece of land, purchased five yoke of oxen, married a wife, or for other reasons cannot obey? Will He accept such excuses? Have we forgotten that ‘we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,’ that everyone may receive the things done in the body? Oh, remember, pray for, labour for the unevangelised millions .of China, or you will sin against your own soul! Consider again whose Word it is that says:

‘If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?’

So deep was the impression that the meeting broke up almost in silence. Many sought the speaker afterwards, to enquire about the work in which he was engaged and to offer such help as they could give. Far and wide reports were carried, both of the address and that Hudson Taylor was about to return to China. With no denomination at his back, no committee even or promise of supplies, he was taking with him a party of fellow-workers to attempt nothing less than the evangelisation of the inland provinces of that great empire. And he was so calm about it, so sure that God had called them to this seemingly impossible task and would open the way before them! Amazed at his faith and vision, men felt almost as if a prophet had risen up among them, and one of the larger churches was filled with an audience eager to hear more of the projected Mission.

Further openings resulted, adding to those that had been providentially provided as the outcome of something that happened only a week after his visit to Brighton. He had gone to spend Sunday with his sister Amelia and her husband, Benjamin Broomhall. As the hour for public worship drew near, instead of going as usual to the chapel of which he was a member, Taylor sought definite guidance as to where he should worship that morning. Passing down Welbeck Street, it came to him to join the little company of ‘Open Brethren’ who had a meeting there. This he did.

It so happened that among the requests for prayer read out towards the close of the meeting was one that seemed in danger, of being forgotten. Nobody took it up, and Taylor feared the service might close without united remembrance of this special need. The circumstances were quite ordinary—a case of illness, involving longcontinued suffering—but, stranger though he was, he could not let the appeal for spiritual help pass unnoticed.

“Who was that?’ enquired the Dowager Lady Radstock afterwards, deeply impressed by the simplicity of his prayer.

On learning that the visitor was Hudson Taylor, a missionary from China, she desired to see more of him. The outcome was an invitation to breakfast at Portland Place the following morning, and the commencement of a friendship with several members of the Waldegrave family that became fruitful in blessing for China.

All through the summer and autumn he had a succession of engagements that brought him in touch with influential circles. At first it rather took his breath away to speak at luncheons with titled people, or at drawing-room meetings at which everybody appeared in evening dress. It had come about entirely apart from his seeking, however, and in such a way as to leave no doubt that the One who had led him to settle in East London was opening to him also the drawing rooms of the West. a

Those early days were by no means only talk and meetings, either. He was preparing for the outgoing of J. W.

Stevenson who for some months had been with him in London, and of a‘newer candidate from Scotland, George Stott. The branches were spreading out and the roots were striking deep in quiet hours of thought and prayer. With Mr. Berger especially, many were the consultations held upon practical questions, and as responsibilities increased it was an untold comfort to have his help in bearing them.

‘When I decided to go forward,’ said Taylor of this summer, ‘Mr. Berger undertook to represent us at home. The thing grew up gradually. We were much drawn together. The Mission received its name in his drawing-room. Neither of us asked or appointed the other: it just was so.’

And what shall be said of the still more intimate help of the life nearest of all to his own—the tender love, the spiritual inspiration and practical wisdom of the one who shared his every experience? To Maria, necessarily, the new departure meant more than to any other; for, young as she was, not yet thirty, she had to mother the Mission as well as care for a growing family. To take four little children out to China was no light matter, and when the object in view is remembered—nothing less than to plant messengers of the Gospel in every one of the unopened provinces—a mother’s heart alone can realise what hers must often have felt. It was not her husband’s faith, however, upon which she leaned, great as were her joy and confidence in him. From girlhood, orphaned of both parents, she had put to the test for herself the Heavenly Father’s faithfulness. Family burdens and the pressure of need might come, and this immense responsibility be super-added, but her resources did not fail, for she drew moment by moment upon “all the fulness of God.’

The chief work that. claimed Hudson Taylor and Maria after the decision at Brighton was that of completing the manuscript returned by the Baptist Magazine editor. It may have been easy to say, ‘Add to it, let it cover the whole field and be published as an appeal for inland China,’ -butto carry out the suggestion was another matter. Little information was to be had about that great closed land, and to make its needs real and appealing needed a touch other than they could give. The writing meant much study, thought, and prayer. Too busy during the week to obtain quiet, they gave what time they could on Sunday, without neglecting public worship, to this important task. Together in the little sitting-room at 30 Coborn Street (to which they had now moved), they prayed and wrote, wrote and prayed. China’ Spiritual Need and Claims was the outcome.

‘Every sentence was steeped in prayer,’ Taylor recalled. ‘It grew up while we were writing—I walking up and down the room and Maria seated at the table.’

Turning the pages thoughtfully, one feels again the power that touched and moved readers of that book for more than a generation. There is evidence in every paragraph not only of painstaking study, but of the spirit of prayer in which it was written. It is skilfully adapted to its purpose and, what is more, one stands from first to last in the light of God. His word it is that comes to one, His point of view from which there is no escaping. There is no self about it, no turning of the thought to man. The writer scarcely appears in the whole book. Mr. Berger is referred to by name, and so are the members of the Mission already in China or on the way thither, but Hudson Taylor is absent to a remarkable degree.

The overwhelming greatness of the task before the Mission is felt rather than dwelt upon, for yet another Reality shines out from these pages, pre-occupying mind and heart. Than the greatness of the need, one thing only is greater—the fact of God: His resources, purposes, faithfulness, His commands and promises. ‘All power is given unto me... go ye therefore.’ That is enough; that alone could be enough.

Hence it follows that the principles of the new Mission are simply an adjustment of these two considerations—the need to be met and God. The writer has no other resources, absolutely none, and he desires no other. Every problem resolves itself into a fresh appeal to God, for there can be, no need unmet in Him.;

Feeling, on the one hand, the solemn responsibility that rests upon us, and on the other the gracious encouragements that everywhere meet us in the Word of God, we do not hesitate to ask the great Lord of the Harvest to call forth, to thrust forth twenty-four European and twenty-four Chinese evangelists, to plant the standard of the Cross in the eleven unevangelised provinces of China proper and in Chinese Tartary. To those who have never been called to prove the faithfulness of the covenantkeeping God in supplying, in answer to prayer alone, the every need of His servants, it might seem a hazardous experience to send twenty-four European evangelists to a distant heathen land, ‘with only God to look to’; but in one whose privilege it has been through many years to put that God to the test in varied circumstances, at home and abroad, by land and sea, in sickness and health, in dangers, in necessities and at the gates of death, such apprehensions would be wholly inexcusable.

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Instance after instance is given from Hudson Taylor’s experience of direct, unmistakable’ answers to prayer, and the deduction drawn is that with such a God it is safe and wise to go forward in the pathway of obedience—is indeed the only safe and wise thing to do. Hudson Taylor said of this period,

We also had to consider whether it would not be possible for members of various denominations to work together on simple, evangelistic lines, without friction as to conscientious differences of opinion. Prayerfully concluding that it would, we decided to invite the co-operation of fellow-believers-irrespective of denominational views, who fully held the inspiration of God’s Word, and were willing to prove their faith by going to inland China with only the guarantee they carried within the covers of their pocket Bibles.

That Word had said, ‘Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things (food and raiment) shall be added unto you.’ If anyone did not believe that God spoke the truth, it would be better for him not to go to China to propagate the faith. If he did believe it, surely the promise sufficed. Again, ‘No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly: If anyone did not mean to walk uprightly, he had better stay at home; if he did mean to walk uprightly, he had all he needed in the shape of a guarantee fund. God owns all the gold and silver in the world, and the cattle on a thousand hills. We need not be vegetarians.

We might indeed have had a guarantee fund if we had wished it; but we felt it was unneeded and would, do harm. Money wrongly placed and money given from wrong motives are both to be greatly dreaded. We can afford to have as little as the Lord chooses to give, but we cannot afford to have unconsecrated money, or to have money placed in the wrong position. Far better have no money at all, even to buy food with; for there are plenty of ravens in China, and the Lord could send them again with bread and flesh. - Our Father is a very experienced one. He knows very well that His children wake up with a good appetite every morning, and He always provides breakfast for them, and does not send them supperless to bed at night. ‘Thy bread shall be given thee, and thy water shall be sure.’ He sustained three million Israelites in the wilderness for forty years. We do not expect He will send three million missionaries to China; but if He did, He would have ample means to sustain them all. Let us see that we keep God before our eyes; that we walk in His ways and seek to please and glorify Him in everything, great and small. Depend upon it, God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supplies.

It was men and women of faith, therefore, who were needed for the China Inland Mission, prepared to depend on God alone, satisfied with poverty should He deem it best, and confident that His Word cannot be broken.

Much else comes out in these earnest pages, and much that is not said is significant by its absence. There is no mention even of a committee, no reliance upon organization or great names. The entire direction of the Mission was to be in the hands of its founder, himself the most experienced of its members, who like a general on active service would be with his forces in the field. So natural does this arrangement seem that one hardly recognises the greatness of the innovation, or that in this as in other new departures Hudson Taylor was making a contribution of exceeding value to the high politics of missions. He had simply learned from painful experience how much a missionary may have to suffer, and the work be hampered, if not imperilled, by being under the control of those who, however well intentioned, have no firsthand knowledge of its conditions and are, moreover, at the other side of the world.

Another striking absence is that of any pleading for financial help. It is mentioned that an annual expenditure of £5,000 was anticipated and that gifts might be sent to Mr. Berger, Hudson Taylor’s representative in England. And for the rest, the quiet words express a sense of wealth rather than need, ‘although the wants are large, they will not exhaust the resources of our Father.’

Finally, there is not a word about government protection or dependence upon treaty rights. Many instances are given of Divine protection in the dangers inseparable from pioneering work such as the Mission looked forward to. Unarmed, in Chinese dress, and claiming no aid from consular authorities, the writer had found times of peril to be always times of proving the watchful care of One who is a refuge better than foreign flag or gunboat. It is God who looms large, not man.

‘He can raise up, He will raise up “willing, skilful men” for every department of our service,’ was the quiet conclusion. ‘All we are now proposing to do is to lay hold on His faithfulness who has called us into this service, and in obedience to His call and reliance on His power to enlarge the sphere of our operations, for the glory of His name who alone doeth wondrous things. It is upon past Ebenezers we build our Jehovah-Jireh. “They that know thy name will put their trust in thee.”

The manuscript was finished by the middle of October. Mr. Berger undertook to meet the expense of publication, and the pamphlet was distributed among the many hundreds who attended the Mildmay Conference ten days later.

Many were the letters that reached Hudson Taylor during the weeks that followed, showing that the book was doing its quiet work, and that in widely differing circles the China Inland Mission was hailed with thankfulness as a Mission that had to be. Offers of service came from the students’ hall, the business counter, and the mechanics’ shop. Invitations for meetings were numerous, and so —great was the demand for literature that China’ Spiritual Need and Claims had to be reprinted within three weeks.

Meanwhile preparations for a party of ten or twelve were going forward, and in the midst of other engagements proved almost more than Taylor could manage. The house in Coborn Street was now wholly inadequate, and the next door premises falling vacant, they were glad to rent them also, thus doubling their accommodation.

‘The revision is now going on,’ he wrote to his mother in November. ‘We have reprinted the pamphlet, and have missionary boxes on the way. I am preparing a magazine for the Mission, furnishing a house completely, setting up two founts of type for China, teaching four pupils Chinese, receiving applications from candidates and lecturing or attending meetings continually one night only excepted for the last month. I am also preparing a New Year’s address on China, for use in Sunday Schools, and a missionary map of the whole country. Join us in praying for funds and for the right kind of labourers, also that others may be kept back or not accepted, for many are offering.’

Was there a need just then for a reminder that work cannot take the place of prayer? Overwhelmingly busy, it certainly would not have been surprising if that little circle had been tempted to curtail quiet times of waiting upon God. It was in love, in any case, that the closing year was shadowed by an anxiety so acute as to bring them to their knees as never before. In one of the houses, strangely quiet now, Maria lay in a critical condition. Serious illness had so reduced her strength that when an operation became necessary there was little hope that she could live through it.

‘It is very solemn to feel that all our married happiness may be so near its close,’ Taylor wrote to his parents in Barnsley. “She is resting happily in Jesus. Ask grace for me to mean and say, “Thy will be done.”

Three weeks later, his loved one spared to him, he was reviewing the progress made since that memorable Sunday at Brighton with all that it had brought. Besides the eight fellow-workers already in China, twenty or thirty others were desiring to join the Mission.

‘How much we need guidance both for them and for ourselves,’ he wrote to the wider circle of his prayer-helpers. “We have undertaken to work in the interior of China, looking to the Lord for help of all kinds. This we can only do in His strength. And if we are to be much used of Him, we must live very near to Him.’

_ The last day of December was set apart, therefore, as a day of fasting and prayer at Coborn Street, fitly closing the year that had witnessed the inauguration of a Mission so completely dependent upon God.

To understand aright the fruitfulness of this period it should be borne in mind that Hudson Taylor, among others, was reaping the aftermath of the great Revival of 1859.

That wonderful spiritual awakening had not only swept thousands into the Church of Christ; it had prepared the way for new departures in the development of lay agency, and a striking fulfilment might be seen in many directions of the prophecy of Joel: “Also upon the servants and the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.’

The Salvation Army, Young Men’s_ Christian Association, and other well-known organisations had their beginnings in that formative time. But as yet no opening had been found for the employment of a lay agency on the foreign field.

‘When travelling in England, Scotland, and the north of Ireland in 1859 and ’60,’ wrote a Christian leader from the Continent, ‘I repeatedly asked myself, “Where is the channel through which simple-hearted believers brought to Christ through these remarkable Revivals, wishing to devote themselves to missionary work in foreign lands, may reach their object?” But I found no such channel. All the colleges for missionary training require a preliminary education which one would seek in vain in youths of this sort. To raise a missionary agency of a humbler kind seems to be a special design of our Lord at this juncture, for the carrying out of which He has prepared His instruments in different countries, independently of each other.’

Into this prepared soil the seed-thought of the China Inland Mission was providentially cast. Young people in workshop and office heard of it and were encouraged. Perhaps in such a Mission, place might be found for faith and love even without much learning of the schools? So thought Rudland, for example, at his forge in a Cambridgeshire village, when a printed report of Taylor’s address at Perth came to him as a call from God. The pamphlet, China’s Spiritual Need and Claims, enclosed in a letter from a Christian woman inviting him to join her the following Saturday in going to a prayer meeting at Coborn Street, drew him there as a magnet. That prayer meeting—could he ever forget it? The crowded room, the map on the wall, the freedom of spirit, the unceasing flow of prayer and praise to God, all deeply impressed him. But it was the manifest presence of God and earnestness of all concerned that drew to the Mission that day one of its most successful labourers.

Hudson Taylor had now many openings. He was a man with a message, and a message Christian people wanted to hear irrespective of the denomination he or they might represent. The Mission drew its friends and workers from church and chapel alike, and the proposed sphere of its operations was so vast as to call forth unusual interest. It might have been, as Taylor felt from the first, quite possible to rob Peter to pay Paul, or in other words to deflect interest and gifts from previously existing channels. Every effort on behalf of China and other heathen lands was more than needed, and he longed that the new work should, by the blessing of God, be helpful to all and a hindrance to none. But how to avoid trespassing, in this sense, on the preserves of others was a problem not easy of solution.

To cut at the root of the difficulty, he and Mr. Berger, his chief adviser, saw that the faith principles of the Mission must be carried to the point of making no appeals for money and not even taking a collection. If the Mission could be sustained by the faithful care of God in answer to prayer and prayer alone, without subscription lists or solicitation of any kind for funds, then it might grow up among the older societies without the danger of diverting gifts from their accustomed channels. It might even be helpful to other agencies by directing attention to the Great Worker; and affording a practical illustration of its underlying principle that ‘God Himself, God alone, is sufficient for God’s own work.’

Was money after all the chief thing, or was it really true that a walk that pleases God and ensures spiritual blessing is of more importance in His service? But for the quiet years in Beaumont Street in which, like Paul in Arabia or Moses at the backside of the desert, Hudson Taylor had been shut in with God, he might have given a different answer to this and many other questions.

‘In my short-sightedness,’ he wrote of that period largely occupied with work on the Ningpo Testament, ‘I had seen nothing beyond the use that the book with its marginal references would be to the Christians. But I have often realised since that without those months of feeding and feasting on the Word of God I should have been quite unprepared to form, on its present basis, a Mission like the China Inland Mission. In the study of that Divine Word I learned that to obtain successful labourers, not elaborate appeals for help, but first, earnest prayer to God “To thrust forth labourers”, and second the deepening of the spiritual life of the Church, so that men should be unable to stay at home, were what was needed. I saw that the Apostolic plan was not to raise ways and means, but to go and do the work trusting in His promise who has said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”’

The chief need as he saw it was faith in God for such an increase of spiritual life among His people as to produce

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the missionary spirit. Not money, not the collection, was to him the object of a meeting, but to get people under the power of the Word and into fellowship with God.

‘If our hearts are right,’ he often said, ‘we may count upon the Holy Spirit’s working through us to bring others into deeper fellowship with God—the way the work began at Pentecost. We do not need to say much about the C.I.M. Let people see God working, let God be glorified, let believers be made holier, happier, brought nearer to Him, and they will not need to be asked to help.’

They were content with little to begin with in the way of organisation. Essential, spiritual principles were talked over with the candidates, and clearly understood as the basis of the Mission. A few simple arrangements were agreed to in Mr. Berger’s presence, that was all.

“We came outas children of God at God’s command,’ was Taylor’s summing up of the matter, ‘to do God’s work, depending on Him for supplies; to wear Chinese dress and go inland. I was to be the leader in China, and my direction implicitly followed. There was no question as to who was to determine points at issue.’

In the same way Mr. Berger was responsible at home. He would correspond with candidates, receive and forward contributions, publish an Occasional Paper with audited accounts, send out suitable workers as funds permitted, and keep clear of debt. This last was a cardinal principle with all concerned. As Taylor pointed out:

It is just as easy for God to give beforehand; and He much prefers to do so. He is too wise to allow His purposes to be frustrated for lack of a little money; but money wrongly placed or obtained in unspiritual ways is sure to hinder blessing.

And what does going into debt really mean? It means that God has not supplied your need. You trusted Him, but He has not given you the money; so you supply yourself, and borrow. If we can only wait right up to the time, God cannot lie, God cannot forget: He is pledged to supply all our need.

Meanwhile it was hoped that Taylor and his party would sail in May, and much had to be got through in the way of preparation. In answer to all enquiries as to how many would be going with him, the leader of the Mission could only reply:

If the Lord sends money for three or four, three or four will go; but if He provides for sixteen, we shall take it as His indication that sixteen are to sail at this time.

Not that this meant uncertainty in his own mind. He had little doubt .that the larger number would be provided for, and though no solicitation was made for money, the matter was not left to drift. He believed that to deal with God is at least as real as to deal with man; that when we get to prayer we get to work, and work of the most practical kind. £2,000, as nearly as he could tell, would be needed if the whole party were to be sent out; and in preparing the first Occasional Paper of the Mission early in the new year (1866), Taylor mentioned this sum. The manuscript went to press on the 6th February, and that very day a noon prayer meeting was begun at Coborn Street for funds. Faith did not mean inaction. From twelve to one the households gathered for daily united waiting upon God, the would-be missionaries realising that their first work was to obtain-from Him who was so ready to give—whatever would be necessary for as many of their number as He was sending forth.

Hudson Taylor himself was not able to be present on many of these occasions. Invitations for meetings were so pressing that he was giving as much time as possible to deputation work. Day by day he was with the little group at Coborn Street, however, in spirit, and they rejoiced to hear how their prayers for him were being answered.

For in the midst of many responsibilities he was kept wonderfully free from anxiety, and ready to take advantage of every opportunity for deepening interest in China. With little experience in such matters, he was scarcely conscious, perhaps, of the way in which he was gaining the confidence of spiritually minded people wherever he went. He only knew that in answer to prayer many were moved to help; that one opening led to another, and that the Lord seemed to have prepared hearts in all the churches, upon which He was laying the burden of China’s perishing millions.

For example, meeting the young evangelist H. Grattan Guinness in Liverpool, Taylor accepted his invitation to Dublin to address the members of a theological class. Going ahead to make preparations, Guinness had much to tell about the new Mission, and especially its leader who, in faith, was attempting no less a task than the evangelisation _ of inland China. Needless to say, the young men assembled at the hour of Taylor’s arrival were on the tip-toe of expectation. John McCarthy was there, and Charles Fishe and his brother, little thinking they were that night to hear the call of God to their life-work. Tom Barnardo was there also, a bright lad of twenty whose interest in China, dating from that evening, was to bring him to his own among the waifs and strays of East London.”

What a shock of' surprise, not to say disappointment, the members of the class experienced when the door opened and their visitor arrived! Or, had he not come after all? What—that young slender fair-haired man, so small in contrast with their teacher’s familiar figure! Surely there must be some mistake? But no, their leader was undoubtedly introducing Hudson Taylor: and taking it all in in a flash, Barnardo—who was less in stature, even, than the stranger—whispered to McCarthy, ‘Good, there’s a chance for me!’ and was all attention.

Oh, the riveted interest, the burning hearts of that hour, as the young men listened to all the missionary had to tell!

‘I think I see him now,’ wrote John McCarthy after nearly forty years in China, “So quiet, so unassuming in manner and address, but so full of the power of God! I found that night not only the answer to many prayers as to my sphere of service, but the God-given leader in the work to which the Lord had called me.’ Ten or more promising candidates for the Mission resulted from that Irish visit.