Jesus Does Satisfy (1869-1871)

To Maria the new life that had come to her husband and many of their fellow-workers was a joy not unmixed with wonder. The experiences they were finding as something new had long been her secret of victory and peace. ‘It was just resting in Jesus,’ as she expressed it, ‘and letting Him do the work’—a little sentence, but one that really lived out, made her life the strength to the Mission that Taylor had often realised it to be. And now husband and wife were one in a new way, and helpers of each other’s faith.

That such blessing should be tested by increasing trials is not to be wondered at. Inwardly and outwardly the period upon which they were entering was to be one of unprecedented distress. In the work they were to experience the power of the adversary as never before, while in personal matters new and deep sorrows awaited them. But for the preparation of heart which unconsciously to themselves had thus been made, things would have gone very differently both with Hudson Taylor and with the Mission.

The shadow of a cross falls deep and broad;

. With Thee I enter, tremblingly, the shade:

Whence this new light which brightens round me, Lord? ‘The fellowship of suffering,’ He said. -

To begin with, the time had come for breaking up that happy family life which meant so much to the Taylors. They dared not risk another summer for their elder children in China, and the delicate health of Samuel, who was only five years old, made it clear that he should go with his brothers and sister. This meant separation from four of their little flock, leaving them with only the baby born after the Yangchow riot. For some time it was a question as to whether the mother should not go herself, but the necessity for this seemed obviated when Emily Blatchley volunteered to take her place in caring for the children. To part from her was almost like giving up a daughter, so devoted had she been in sharing all their experiences. But she truly loved the children, and it meant that Maria might remain in China. Plan as they might, they could not see far ahead, and could only trust the little party to the care of Him whose love was infinitely wiser and more tender than their own. Taylor wrote to his mother,

You can enter somewhat into our feelings as this dark cloud draws near. Sometimes it seems, for a while, to take all one’s strength and heart away, but God does and will help us. It is so _ good of Him to have given us to know more than we ever have known of His heart, His love, His gift, His joy, before calling us to take this step. And there are many mercies connected with this trial. Miss Blatchley’s love and self-sacrifice we can never repay. I am sure you will do what you can to help her and you will specially pray for my dear Maria. When all the bustle of preparation and the, excitement of departure are over, then will come the trying time of reaction. But the Lord, whose work calls for the separation, can and will, support her.

Very painful it was, as the time drew near for the parting, to see the child about whom they were most concerned get worse. Or was it only that his chronic trouble had increased, and that with care the voyage would set him up again? Taking the opportunity of apparent improvement, the family set out from Yangchow, but hardly had they got clear of the city when the little invalid showed signs of a relapse. All night long they watched beside him, doing everything that could be done under the circumstances. But at dawn the following morning he fell into a deep sleep, and passed without pain or fear to the Better Land.

Before a driving storm the parents crossed the river, there more than two miles wide, to lay their treasure in the little cemetery at Chinkiang, and then went on with the others to Shanghai. A few weeks later, after taking them all on board the French mail which was to sail at dawn the following morning, Taylor wrote at midnight to Mr. Berger:

I have seen them awake, for the last time in China. Two of our little ones we have no anxiety about; they rest in Jesus’ bosom. And now, dear Brother, though the tears will not be stayed, I do thank God for permitting one so unworthy to take any part in this great work, and do not regret having engaged and being engaged in it. It is His work, not mine nor yours: and yet it is ours—not because we are engaged in it, but because we are His, and one with Him whose work it is.

This was the reality that sustained, and more than sustained them. Never had there been a more troubled summer in China than that on which they were entering.

‘Politically, we are facing a crisis. If our Government continues their present, I had almost said mad policy, war must result. In the meantime our position is becoming always more embarrassing. You can scarcely judge how intricate our path seems at times.’

And yet in the midst of it all, with a longing for their little ones that was indescribable, they never had had more rest and joy in God.

‘I could not but admire and wonder at the grace that so sustained and comforted the fondest of mothers,’ Taylor wrote as he recalled it afterwards. ‘The secret was that Jesus was satisfying the deep thirst of heart and soul.’

Maria was at her best that summer, borne up, it would seem, on the very tempest of troubles that raged about them. Sickness was rife in the Mission, and before they could reach Chinkiang after parting from the children, news came to them of a young missionary being there at the point of death. After days and nights of nursing, her husband was almost too weary to bear up, when in the courtyard below he heard sounds of an unexpected arrival. Who could it be at that hour of night, and where had they come from? No steamer had passed up-river, and Chinese boats would not be travelling after dark. Besides it was a wheelbarrow that had been trundled in. A long day’s journey on that spring-less vehicle a woman had come alone, and soon he saw the face of all others he could have longed to see. He had thought them far away, but Taylor, who could not leave the boat on account of another patient, had consented to Maria’s pressing on alone to give what help she could.

‘Suffering though she was at the time and worn with hard travelling,’ he recalled, she insisted on my going to bed and that she would undertake the nursing. Nothing would induce her to rest.:

“No,” she said, “you have quite enough to bear, without sitting up any more at night. Go to bed, for I shall stay with your wife whether you do or not.”

Nothing but prayer brought the patient through, just as nothing but prayer saved the situation in many an hour of extremity that summer.

‘We had previously known something of trial in one station or another,’ Taylor wrote to the friends of the Mission, ‘but now in all simultaneously, or nearly so, a widespread excitement shook the very foundations of Chinese society. It is impossible to describe the alarm and consternation of the Chinese, when first they believed that native magicians were bewitching them, or their indignation and anger when told that these insidious foes were the agents of foreigners. It is well known how in Tientsin they rose and barbarously murdered the Romish Sisters of Charity, the priests, and even the French Consul. What then restrained thém in the interior, where our brothers were alone, far from any protecting human power? Nothing but the mighty hand of God, in answer to united, constant prayer, offered in the all-prevailing name of Jesus. And this same power kept us satisfied with Jesus—with His presence, His love, His providence.’

It is easy to read, but only those who have passed through like experiences can have any idea of the strain involved. The heat of the summer was excessive, which added to the unrest of the Chinese population. Women and children had to be removed from several of the stations, and for a time it seemed as though the Chinese Government might insist on their leaving the country altogether. The accommodation of the little house at Chinkiang was taxed to its utmost, and so great was the excitement, even there, that no other premises could be obtained.

Yet the troubles of the time were not allowed to interfere with as much work among the people as was possible. Maria reported in a letter to Emily Blatchley:

We have been holding classes on Sundays and two or three evenings in the week, having two objects specially in view: first, to interest the Chinese, those who can read, in searching the Scriptures, and those who cannot, in learning to do so; and secondly, to set an example to the younger members of the Mission. It may be a practical proof to them of the importance we attach to securing that people learn to read and understand for themselves the Word of God.

As for Taylor, his letters reveal not so much the endless difficulties as the full tide of blessing that carried him through all. To one fellow-worker, for example, he wrote in the middle of June after a careful letter about Yangchow affairs:

And now I have the very passage for you, and God has so blessed it to my own soul! John 7. 37-39: ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.’ Who does not thirst? Who has not mind-thirsts or heart-thirsts, soul-thirsts or body-thirsts? Well, no matter which, or whether I have them all—‘Come unto ME and’ remain thirsty? Ah, no! ‘Come unto ME and drink.’

What, can Jesus meet my need? Yes, and more than meet it. No matter how intricate my path, how difficult my service, no matter how sad my bereavement, how far away my loved ones, no matter how helpless I am, how hopeless I am, how deep are my soul-yearnings—Jesus can meet all, all, and more than meet. He not only promises me drink to alleviate my thirst. No, better than that!

‘He who trusts me in this matter (who believeth on MeE—takes me at my word) out of him shall flow...’

And not mere mountain torrents, full while the rains last, then dry again... but ‘out of his belly shall flow rivers’—rivers like the mighty Yangtze, ever deep, ever full. In times of drought brooks may fail, often do; canals may be pumped dry, often are; but the Yangtze never. Always a mighty stream; always flowing, deep and irresistible!

‘Come unto me and drink’,’ he wrote in another June letter. ‘Not, come and take a hasty draught; not, come. and slightly alleviate, or for a short time remove one’s thirst. No! “drink’, or “be drinking” constantly, habitually. The cause of thirst may be irremediable. One coming, one drinking may refresh and comfort; but we are to be ever coming, ever drinking. No fear of emptying the fountain or exhausting the river!’

How sorely the lesson would be needed by his own heart in days that were drawing near, he little knew when writing; for unknown to him Maria’s strength was failing. It was not easy to be much alone that summer, but prayer became her very life, and in a new sense her refuge.

‘It often comforts me about the children,’ Emily Blatchley wrote some months later, ‘to remember how much she prayed for them. I have seen her at night, when she thought all were sleeping, with head bowed, kneeling for a long, long time on the bare floor. And when I picture her so, I always feel that she was praying most especially for you and the dear children.’

Far away were those little ones now, and she longed with all a mother’s longing to know of their being safely sheltered somewhere in England. With thankfulness amid the trials of that hot season she thought of the Berger home, Saint Hill—the cool green walks and pleasant lake, the lawns around the house and the atmosphere of love within—and pictured the little travellers welcomed there. Her own heart meanwhile was filled with a new love and joy as, on July 7th, her fifth son was born.

But an attack of cholera had greatly prostrated her, and lack of natural nourishment told upon the child. When a Chinese nurse could be found, it was too late to save the little life, and after one brief week he died.

‘Though excessively prostrate in body,’ Taylor wrote, ‘the deep peace of soul, the realisation of the Lord’s own presence, and the joy in His holy will with which she was filled, and in which I was permitted to share, I can find no words to describe.’

She herself chose the hymns to be sung at the little grave.

Weak as she was, however, it had not yet occurred to them that for her too the end was near. The deep mutual love that bound their hearts in one seemed to preclude the thought of separation. She was only thirty-three. There was no pain up to the very last, though she was weary, very weary. A letter from Mrs. Berger had been received two days previously, telling of the safe arrival at Saint Hill of Emily Blatchley and the children. Every detail of the - welcome and arrangements for their well-being filled her heart with joy. She knew not how to be thankful enough, and seemed to have no desire or thought but just to praise the Lord for His goodness. Many and’many a time had Mrs. Berger’s letters reached their destination at the needed moment; many and many a time had her loving heart anticipated the circumstances in which they would be received, but never more so than with this letter.

‘And now farewell, precious Friend,’ she wrote. “The Lord throw around you His everlasting arms.’

It was in those arms she was resting. At daybreak on Saturday, July 23rd, she was sleeping quietly, and Taylor left her for a few moments to prepare some food. While he was doing so she awoke, and serious symptoms called him to her side.

By this time it was dawn, and the sunlight revealed what the candle had hidden—the deathlike hue of her countenance. Even my love could no longer deny, not her danger, but that she was actually dying. As soon as I was sufficiently composed, I said:

‘My darling, do you know that you are dying?’

‘Dying!’ she replied. ‘Do you think so? What makes you think so?’

I said, ‘I can see it, darling. Your strength is giving way.’ ‘Can it be so? I feel no pain, only weariness.’ ‘Yes, you are going Home. You will soon be with Jesus.’

My preciqus wife thought of my being left alone at a time of so much trial, with no companion like herself, with whom I had been wont to bring every difficulty to the Throne of Grace.

‘I am so sorry,’ she said, and paused as if half correcting herself for the feeling.

“You are not sorry to go to be with Jesus?’

Never shall I forget the look with which she answered, ‘Oh, no! It is not that. You know, darling, that for ten years past there has not been a cloud between me and my Saviour. I cannot be sorry to go to Him; but it does grieve me to leave you alone at such a time. Yet... He will be with you and meet all your need.’

But little was said after that. A few loving messages to those at home, a few last words about the children, and she seemed to fall asléep or drift into unconsciousness of earthly things. The summer sun rose higher and higher over the city, the hills, and the river. The busy hum of life came up around them from many a court and street. But within one Chinese dwelling, in an upper room from which the blue of God’s own heaven could be seen, there was the hush of a wonderful peace.

‘I never witnessed such a scene,’ wrote one who was present, a few days later. “As dear Mrs. Taylor was breathing her last, Mr. Taylor knelt down—his heart so full—and committed her to the Lord; thanking Him for having given her, and for the twelve and a half years of happiness they had had together; thanking Him, too, for taking her to His own blessed presence, and solemnly dedicating himself anew to His service.’

It was just after 9 a.m. when the quiet breathing ceased, and they knew she was ‘with Christ, which is far better’.

Now that the joy of life on its human side was gone and there was nothing left but aching loneliness and silence, would the Saviour’s promise prove true now? ‘My thirsty days are all past,’ Hudson Taylor had felt and said and written that very summer, rejoicing as never before in the promise, ‘He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.’ Under the pressure of continued difficulty on every hand, health began to give way, and, sleepless at night, he found himself scarcely able to face the suffering, not to speak of the labours, of each new day. If ever the reality of the power of Christ to meet the heart’s deepest need was put to the test of experience it was in this life, swept clean of all that had been its earthly comfort—wife, children, home, health to a large extent—and left amid the responsibilities of such a Mission and such a crisis, far away in China.

‘How lonesome,’ he recalled, ‘were the weary hours when confined to my room. How I missed my dear wife and the little pattering footsteps of the children far away in England! Then it was I understood why the Lord had made that passage so real to me, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.” Twenty times a day, perhaps, as I felt the heart-thirst coming back, I cried to Him:

“Tord, you promised! You promised me that I should never thirst.”

‘And whether I called by day or night, how quickly He always came and satisfied my sorrowing heart! So much so that I often wondered whether it were possible that my loved one who had been taken could be enjoying more of His presence than I was in my lonely chamber.’

The letters he wrote during those days tell their own story:

I cannot describe to you my feelings; I do not understand them myself. I feel like a person stunned with a blow, or recovering from a faint, and as yet but partially conscious. But I would not have it otherwise, no, not a hair’s breadth, for the world. My Father has ordered it so—therefore I know it is, it must be best, and I thank Him for so ordering it. I feel utterly crushed, and yet ‘strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.’ Oft-times my heart is nigh to breaking but, withal, I had almost said, I never knew what peace and happiness were before—so much have I enjoyed in the very sorrow.

I think I sent you a few weeks ago a copy of some notes on John 7. 37; precious thoughts they have been to me. I now see more and deeper meaning in them than then. And this I know: only a thirsty man knows the value of water, and only a thirsty soul the value of the Living Water.

I could not have believed it possible that He could so have helped and comforted my poor heart.

By the end of August the youngest of Taylor’s children the only one left to him in China, was seriously ill. The only hope of saving him it seemed was to take him to Ningpo.

There the baby must be left, for fellow-missionaries were so ill that he had to accompany them to Hong Kong. It was hard to leave his sick child at such a time, even in the hands of the kindest of friends, but by doing so a missionary’s life was saved, and the journeys between Shanghai and Hong Kong provided the change and comparative rest he himself so greatly needed.

His children in England—the little daughter of three years old, and the boys of eight and nine, were constantly on his heart.

You do not know how often Papa thinks of his darlings, and how often he looks at your photographs, till the tears fill his eyes. Sometimes he almost fears lest he should feel discontented when he thinks how far away you are from him: but then dear Jesus, who never leaves him, says: ‘Don’t be afraid. I will keep your heart satisfied. You know it was your Father in Heaven who took them to England, and who took Mamma to her little Noel, Samuel, and Gracie in the Better Land.’ Then I thank Him, and feel so glad that Jesus will live in my heart and keep it right for me.

I wish you, my precious children, knew what it was to give your hearts to Jesus to keep every day. I used.to try to keep my own heart right, but it would be always going wrong; and so at last I had to give up trying myself, and accept Jesus’ offer to keep it for me. Don’t you think that is the best way? Perhaps sometimes you think: ‘I will try not to be selfish, or unkind, or disobedient.’ And yet, though you really try, you do not always succeed. But Jesus says, ‘You should trust that to Me. I would keep that little heart, tf you could trust Me with it.’ And He would too.;

Once I used to try to think very much and very often about Jesus, but I often forgot Him: now I trust Jesus to keep my heart remembering Him, and He does so. This is the best way.

To keep their confidence and love himself, even at so great a distance, he toiled many an hour long after body and mind craved rest. Returning to Shanghai, for example, amid other letters penned in his comfortless third-class quarters were the following:

My darling Treasures—It is not very long since my last letter, but I want to write again. I wonder if you will try to write to me a little answer? I have been thinking tonight—if Jesus makes me so happy by always keeping near me, and talking to me every minute or two though I cannot see Him, how happy darling Mamma must be! I am so glad for her to be with Him. IJ shall be so glad to go to her when Jesus thinks it best. But I hope He will help me to be’equally willing to live with Him here, so long as He has any work for me to do for Him and for poor China.

Now, my darling children, I want you to love Jesus very much, and to know that He really does love you very much. He likes us to talk to Him. When I am walking alone, I often talk aloud to Him. At other times I talk to Him in my heart. Do not forget, my darling children, that He is always with you. Awake or asleep, at home or elsewhere, He is really with you though you cannot see Him. So I hope you will try not to grieve so constant and kind a Friend.

And to Emily Blatchley:

Try to explain these most sweet and practical yet simple truths to the children, and to draw out their desire for these things.

‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise.’ In all your intercourse with friends of the Mission, seek to deepen their realisation of the value of Christ, and of our union with Him. Should you succeed in interesting them in China or in the Mission, your efforts may end there; but if you minister blessing to their souls, they will the better enter into Christ’s command and purposes towards China, and will be more likely to become helpers in prayer, and not less so pecuniarily. After all, what we want is not money but power. Doubtless it is in answer to many prayers that my own soul has been so sustained under sore trial. Seek prayer for us, and we shall have all things: let it be lacking, and our very blessings may become a snare.

Hastening to Ningpo on his return, in the hope of being able to take his youngest child with him to Chinkiang, he found him desperately ill with croup, and scarcely expected to live. This was a sore trial. But Mission affairs were urgent, and as soon as there was improvement, leaving him in the care of Dr. Parker, Taylor pressed on to Hangchow, where the church was prospering under the faithful ministry of Pastor Wang. Seven evangelists were at work in the surrounding districts. Detained there by medical duty, it was a refreshment to Taylor to see something of old friends, including the McCarthys and Jennie Faulding, who had been almost a member of his own family from the time of their _ sailing for China. Four years of steady work in Hangchow had developed in her rare sweetness of character and depth of spiritual experience. Though still only twenty-seven, she was a most efficient missionary, and her schools were prospering both as regards numbers and results. Several of the boys had committed to memory the entire New Testament, with the exception of two Gospels, and not a few had become earnest Christians, one later marrying the daughter of Wang Lae-djiin and becoming his co-pastor.

Meanwhile there'was no lessening of the pressure of outward difficulties. The Chinese authorities, knowing that Europe was involved in war, took no steps to allay anti-foreign feeling. The long strain of excitement and danger told on the nerves, and even the spiritual life, of lonely missionaries and an inland station was abandoned. The last day of the year was set apart as usual for prayer and fasting, in arranging for which Taylor wrote to the members of the Mission:

The present year (1870) has been in many ways remarkable. Perhaps every one of our number has been more or less face to face with danger, perplexity and distress; but out of it all the Lord has delivered us. Personally, it has been alike the most sorrowful and the most blessed year of my life, and I doubt not that others have to a greater or lesser extent had the same experience. We have put to the proof His faithfulness, His power to support in trouble and to give patience under affliction, as well as to deliver from danger. We have had great cause for thankfulness in one respect: we have been so placed as to show the Chinese Christians that our position as well as theirs has been, and may be again, one of danger... to look from ‘foreign power’ to God Himself for protection.

I trust we are all fully satisfied that we are God’s servants, sent by Him to the various posts we occupy. We did not come to China because missionary work here was either safe or easy, but because He had called us. We did not enter upon our present positions under a guarantee of human protection, but relying on the promise of His presence. The accidents of ease or difficulty, of apparent safety or danger, of man’s approbation or disapproval, in no wise affect our duty. Should circumstances arise involving us in what may seem special danger, I trust we shall have grace to manifest the reality and depth of our trust in Him, and by our faithftilness to our charge prove that we are followers of the Good Shepherd who did, not flee from death itself. But if we would manifest this calmness then, we must seek the needed grace now. It is too late to look for arms and begin to drill when in presence of the foe.

The pressure of work on Taylor at this time was great. He was overwhelmed with correspondence, accounts and all manner of detail in addition to the general direction of the work. But for C. T. Fishe, who had now been twelve months in China, he could not have got through at all, and it was with thankfulness he saw his way at the close of the year to appointing him Secretary to the Mission on the field.

Well was it that such help came when it did, for Taylor had borne all and more than he had strength for physically. Flooded though his soul had been with joy in the Lord, the poor body had suffered, and he had to learn more than ever before of the close and often humbling connection between the one and the other. A badly deranged liver made him sleepless and brought on painful physical depression. This was increased by lung trouble which caused not only pain but serious difficulty in breathing. And time did not lessen the desolation. After the home life in which he had delighted, it was a change indeed to be one of a bachelor household, with one or two young men for his only companions and his youngest child still in Ningpo. His suffering condition made. him the more conscious of outward loneliness, yet in it all he was proving the sustaining power of the Word of God. Passages which already had meant much to him unfolded new depth and meaning, and in the very darkness permitted for a time, he was making more his own treasures which through coming years he was to pour out for others.

He came to see fresh power and beauty in the promises from our Lord’s own lips which had already been made so vital in his experience. ‘Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him,’ stood out in letters of light as he saw the full bearing of the original. The force of continuous habit expressed by the present tense of Greek verbs flooded the passage with new meaning, over against his long-continued and increasing need.

‘Do not let us change the Saviour’s words,’ he often said in later years. ‘It is not “Whosoever has drunk”, but “Whosoever drinketh”. It is not of one isolated draught He speaks, or even of many, but of the continuous habit of the soul. Thus in John 6.35 the full meaning is, “He who is habitually coming to me shall by no means hunger, and he who is believing on me shall by no means thirst.” Where many of us err is in leaving our drinking in the past, while our thirst continues present. What we need is to be drinking—yes, thankful for the occasion which drives us to drink ever more deeply of the Living Water.’