He Goeth Before (1877-1880)

Joyful was the reunion just before Christmas when Taylor reached home after this fourth visit to China. He had been away almost sixteen months, and the little ones of two and three years old could not remember him. The elder brothers and sister were fast growing up, and an adopted daughter had been added to the family, the doubly orphaned child of Duncan, the pioneer missionary of Nanking. The Christmas season was full of gladness for Taylor that year.

He had not much time to spend with the children, however, for he had come home deeply impressed with the need for immediate reinforcements. Twenty-four men and at least six women were urgently wanted, and for that number he was praying—thirty new workers to go out if possible in the following year (1878). Among the candidates awaiting his arrival, several were ready to go forward, and Taylor was soon absorbed in farewell meetings, which brought him in contact with many friends.

‘I am praying for an increase of £5,000 a year in our income,’ he wrote to a senior member of the Mission in February, ‘and for £2,000 extra for outfits and passages. Will you daily join in this prayer? We are daily remembering you all by name before the Lord.’

Meanwhile grievous news was coming, mail by mail, of the terrible famine in North China. In January it was estimated that six million people were starving, and the united efforts of the Chinese Government and of the foreign Relief Committee were wholly inadequate to cope with the disaster. In public meetings and through the press, Taylor was making known the facts, with the result that funds were coming to the C.I.M. freely for use in relief work. But more than money was needed. Not only were tens of thousands dying of starvation; thousands more were being sold into slavery—girls and young women literally taken away in droves by cruel traffickers from the south. Children were perishing in multitudes who might be gathered into orphanages and saved for time and eternity, and everywhere the poor suffering women were accessible as never before. Surely the time had come when missionary women, as well as men, should be found at the front in the newly opened provinces of inland China.

But where was the woman who could take the lead? To go to that famine-stricken region, two or three weeks’ journey from the coast, was no easy matter. Someone with experience was needed; someone with a knowledge of the language, fitted to help and care for younger workers. In China there was no one in the C.I.M. circle free and suitable; and at home? Ah, that was where light began to come—but at what a cost!

Yes, there was one who undoubtedly combined the qualifications necessary. Experienced, prayerful, devoted, with a knowledge of the language and the confidence of her fellow workers, Jennie could give just the help required. But how could she be spared from home? How could he let her go so soon after their long parting? And if the sacrifice was great for him, who shall say what it meant to the mother’s heart? At first, indeed she could not see it to be called for. Her husband in poor health and overwhelmed with work surely needed her, to say nothing of the children. Could it be right to leave him, even if the family were provided for? The struggle, if not long, was desperately hard; but for her, as for him, only one issue was possible. A little worn brown notebook tells the rest; and it is the same wonderful story that every truly Christian heart has known, of God’s own Word meeting the inward need, the need so deep as to be voiceless even to Him, but none the less understood.

Point by point all her difficulties were met, her questions answered until she knew beyond a doubt that it was God Himself who had need of her out there in China. And, even then, His tender care went further. He knew the inward shrinking, the hours of testing that must come. She wrote of it later,

I felt like Gideon. I wanted some fleeces to confirm my faith, and as a token for those who would have me remain at home. I asked God to give me, in the first place, money to purchase certain requisites for outfit, as we had none to spare; and further, to give me liberally, as much as £50, so that there might be money in hand when I went away.

The very next afternoon (Thursday) a friend called to see her, and before leaving said:

“Will you accept a little gift for your own use, to get anything you may need for the journey?’

And the sum put into her hand was £10—just the allowance made by the Mission at that time towards the cost of outfit.

No one knew, not even Taylor, about the fleeces; and with a wondering heart she waited. Several days passed without the further answer to her prayer. Perhaps the Lord was withholding it that she might trust Him without so much confirmation?

Somehow I felt He would provide at the right time, and was very happy—trealising that He is my Helper, and that in going I should learn more of Him and find His strength made perfect in my utter weakness.

Glancing next morning over the letters she came on one from Barnsley. Lo, it was from Taylor’s parents enclosing a cheque for £50! Overwhelmed with joy and thankfulness, she ran to his study: but he was not alone.

When I returned, he was reading your letter, and considering how the Lord would have the money applied. He knew we needed it, but never takes anything for ourselves that is left optional.

‘Oh,’ I said, that £50 is mine! I have a claim on it that you do not know of.’ And I told him all the circumstances.

So we accept it with warmest thanks to you, and with _ gratitude to God. I had said to the Lord: ‘£50 just now would be worth more than a fortune to me at another time. It would be a guarantee of all other needs being met.’ I feel it is such tender consideration for my weakness to send it; and you and dear father may be assured, when J am far away, that the memory of this gift will be a continual strength and help to me.

Meanwhile, Amelia Broomhall, when she heard of the proposed step, was deeply moved. With the care of the Mission house and candidates, as well as her own family of four boys and six girls, it would have been easy and true to think that her hands were full. But hers was the love that ‘never faileth,’ and in a busy, practical life she knew the secret of so waiting upon God as to have her strength daily renewed.

‘If Jennie is called to go to China,’ she said without hesitation, ‘I am called to care for her children.’

This provision, which would mean that the little ones could remain with their father, and the home-life be carried on as usual, was even more than Jennie had asked. But there was yet more. The very day before she left England, accompanied by several new workers, a letter came to hand from an old friend expressing warm sympathy with the object she had in view. It contained a gift towards the orphanage she hoped to found; and to her surprise on looking at the cheque, it proved to be for a thousand pounds. ‘Please enter it anonymously,’ he wrote. ‘It does not represent any superabundance of wealth, as my business affairs will miss it. But if you, for Christ’s sake, can separate, I cannot give less than this.’

When Jennie Taylor set out from Shanghai to go to the inland province of Shansi, two younger women accompanied her, travelling under the experienced escort of Mr. Bailer. Never before had foreign women attempted to go so far inland, and with their work in the faminestricken region, a little light began to shine for the women and children of that vast, waiting world—the 180 millions of the far interior. When the news reached Taylor by cablegram he wrote.

I cannot tell you how my heart and prayers go with you all. The Lord be glorified in this movement. | do thank God for giving me such a wife as alone could satisfy my heart—one to whom the Lord Jesus is more than husband; to whom His work is more than love and enjoyment here. I know He is blessing and will bless our dear children; I know He is blessing and will bless you; I know He is blessing and will bless me too, and the work. And I am glad to think I am not selfishly, for my own help or enjoyment, depriving you of the eternal fruit of what you are now sowing. What will not the harvest be!

For himself, meanwhile, the sacrifice involved was very real. As long as Amelia could come in and out freely from her home next door, he did not feel the burden of family care; but when his own children developed whooping cough, calling for the isolation of his household, more responsibility naturally fell to his share. In addition to very full days of work, he had many an anxious night of watching by little bedsides from which the mother was absent.

The answer to the petition for thirty new workers in the current year was at the same time bringing added burdens.

That he was deeply feeling the responsibility of leadership in a mission which had already grown beyond the desires and hopes with which it was founded 1s evident from a letter to Jennie.

I have been praying very much this morning for a wise and understanding spirit, and for largeness of heart, and organising capacity. The Lord make me equal to increasing claims.

That summer he had an unexpected holiday—the first he had taken, apart from sea voyages, during the twelve years since the formation of the Mission. At the invitation of friends, who generously met the expense, he joined their family party in the Engadine for two or three weeks. It was the first time he had been in Switzerland, and many letters tell of the delight with which he drank in the beauty of lake, mountain, and Alpine flowers, and the glacier air which seemed to give him new life. Even there Mission matters followed him—as many as twenty-five letters being received one day, most of which required answers. Comparative leisure enabled him to write freely —to Jennie, whose absence he was specially feeling amid those beautiful scenes.

Every day I look at the little Bible marker you gave me, with the words ‘For Jesus’ sake,’ and I am thankful for the reminder. It is not for your pleasure or mine that we are separated, nor for money-making, nor for our children’s sake. It is not even for China, or the missionaries or the Mission: no—for Jesus’ sake. He is worthy! And He is blessing you, and is making the people I meet so kind to me, one and all.

Many were the problems thought out and prayed over in those mountain solitudes. A critical time had come, he could not help feeling, in the history of the Mission. Prayer had been wonderfully answered, and the whole interior opened up to the work of evangelists; but now the step had to be taken of sending women inland, to follow up what had been begun. In praying for the first twentyfour ‘willing, skilful labourers’ on the sands at Brighton, he had hardly contemplated this. If it had caused an outcry when men were sent to face the loneliness and dangers of life in the far interior, what would happen when he encouraged women, single or married, to do the same? Then there were questions connected with the home organisation of the growing work.

But most of all it was with the Lord Himself those hours of soul-refreshing silence were occupied. To a Swiss member of the Mission he wrote:

May God keep you, and not only keep you—i// you more and more, and keep you running over with the living waters.

The one thing, I judge, to bear in mind is that it has ‘pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell.’ Apart from Him we have nothing, are nothing, cannot bring forth any fruit to God. He will not give some of His riches to you and some to me, to use and live on away from Himself. But in Him ail is ours. With Him there is a constant feast for us. To know Christ as the Bridegroom is most blessed; to be not betrothed and having occasional visits, but married. ‘I am with you alway,’ ‘I will never leave thee,’ ‘I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee’—such are now His messages of love to us.

Upon the many meetings that awaited Taylor’s return to England in September we must not dwell, nor upon the remarkable answers to prayer that facilitated the outgoing of all the thirty asked for and given in 1878. Twenty-eight new missionaries actually sailed before the close. of the year, and several others were accepted to follow shortly. Not one really suitable candidate was declined for lack of funds, though some had to be told that there was not a ~ penny in hand to send them out. But again and again the Lord’s provision came earmarked, so to speak, to meet the special need. The very day one October party sailed, for example, Taylor wrote to two young men of much promise, accepting them for work in Shansi. Although he had nothing, as he frankly told them, towards the expense of passages and outfits, he invited them to come to London with a view to an early departure. These communications were posted at 5.15 p.m. and by nine o’clock delivery that same evening, a letter was received from Lord Radstock enclosing, among other gifts, the sum of £100 to send two new workers to the famine stricken province of Shansi. Thus, even before the young men could set out in faith for London, the money needed was in hand and the way open for them to go forward.

And in matters more perplexing than finance, help was given that cleared the way for Taylor’s own return to China. Benjamin Broomhall was appointed General Secretary. Amelia continued to care for the outgoing and returning missionaries and the seventeen children, and McCarthy, in addition to deputation work, undertook the sub-editing of Chinas Millions..

There was still no lack of difficulties to be met both in England and in China. On the journey out, he became so seriously ill that a Singapore doctor doubted whether he could reach Hong Kong alive. Was it at that time that Jennie, far away in Shansi, had the curiously vivid dream, in which she saw him ill and needing her urgently? The work she had undertaken for the famine orphans was now well established and her companion able to carry on, and with two missionary married couples at the capital, Taiyuanfu, there was no longer the same need for her presence. The dream, fitting in with other elements of guidance, decided her to cross the mountains and return to Shanghai to await his arrival there.

At first, in the joy of reunion, he was full of plans for visiting the stations and helping the new missionaries who had been sent out (thirty-four in number) during his recent visit to England. But the strain of all that had to be attended to was more than he could: bear, and within a fortnight he was so ill that again life itself was hanging in the balance. The physician consulted had little hope, unless he could at once be removed to a more bracing climate. Summer was coming on, and it was useless to attempt to remain anywhere in the Yangtze valley. The northern port of Chefoo, with its freedom and freshness, he recommended as the best available refuge: but how to get there was the difficulty.

It was an anxious journey for Jennie, from the Monday evening when they went on board, through the long hours of Tuesday—moving slowly in a damp sea-mist, while the fog-horn droned its melancholy sound—to Wednesday morning when they arrived and had nowhere to go.

Lying there in the little boat while his companions went in search of quarters,?> Taylor little imagined all that his illness and forlorn arrival were to mean of help and comfort for his fellow-labourers! He had come to China full of hope for extension, especially in the field of women’s work. His wife had proved that the interior of that land was no less accessible to women missionaries than to men; and having sent her first, he felt the more free to encourage others in following her example. It was a great task that lay before him, a great responsibility; and here he was, laid aside, able to do nothing! He did not - know it, but months were to elapse before he would leave that silent shore again.

The silent shore—how much help it was to afford in the practical problem of reaching the far interior with the Gospel! Scattered homes, missionary homes, centres of light and love among the people, were what he longed to see all over inland China. But what about the little children sent in love to such homes? What about the need that must arise in the not distant future for schooling that should not separate them wholly from the influence of parents who must remain in China? What about the needs of those parents and others throughout the Mission, for rest and refreshment from time to time, and for a health resort in cases of illness like his own? All this Taylor could foresee but dimly, nor did he then imagine the extensive and complete equipment of buildings that was to arise on that far sweep of shore—the hospital, sanatorium, schools of the Mission; the bright, breezy centre of young life from which incalculable influences for good were to flow. The Lord knew, foresaw and planned it all.

In the home of a Christian customs house officer, meanwhile, Jennie Taylor had met with a cordial welcome. He and his wife were given to hospitality, and had room for visitors. The missionary party soon found themselves received into a real home, as paying guests.

Few could remember a hotter season in China than the summer that followed. Work such as Taylor had planned down in the Yangtze valley would in all probability have cost his life; and the illness of one and another made him long to share with them the very real benefit he was deriving from Chefoo. Several of the newly arrived young missionaries were sent for first of all, and an unused building known as ‘The Bungalow’ was called into requisition.

Then came the news that far away in Wuchang Mr. and Mrs. Judd were breaking down under the strain of their work and the overpowering heat. ‘Come up here if you can,’ wrote Taylor, telling them how wonderfully Chefoo was answering in his own case. So Judd took his suffering wife and five little boys to the northern port. To see the children playing on the beach was almost as much joy to Taylor as to their own parents, and he longed to bring the same relief to other fellow-workers and their families.

Meanwhile, he was so much better that he felt he must go down to Chinkiang to see about certain rather surprising developments. For while he had been laid aside, unable to do anything in the matter most upon his heart, the Lord Himself had been working. His time had come, indeed, for opening the door of faith to the long-waiting womanhood of the recently entered provinces. It was the pioneers themselves who broke the ice. After repeated journeys, the far interior did not seem to them so very different from inland districts near the coast. They were quite at home among the people, and saw the advantage of having some settled stations. What more natural than that they should wish to be married, and take the first foreign women to those outlying regions as their own homemakers and fellow missionaries? Thus when Taylor came down in August to the Yangtze valley, one young couple had already started for the far north-west, and others were preparing for similar journeys.

A busy month was spent in Shanghai and Chinkiang, with visits to Yangchow, where Taylor was altering the old premises to fit them for more aggressive work.

‘It does seem so homelike,’ he wrote of the latter place. ‘How I should like to settle there for the remainder of my days and be a missionary again!’

In letter after letter to Jennie he spoke of being so thankful he had come; of seeing the Lord’s hand manifestly working in the removal of difficulties and the solution of problems; of his purpose to go on to Hankow, despite the fresh heat-wave that, could not last long, etc. Then came a break in the correspondence, and for the fourth time in as many months it looked as though his work was to be cut short, his earthly service ended. Dysentery returned with the overpowering heat, and very near the spot where his loved ones lay sleeping Hudson Taylor came once more to the borderland.

But the life that had not yet attained its widest usefulness was still prolonged. Nursing him day and night with the utmost devotion, Rudland managed to get the patient down to Shanghai and on board the coasting steamer, not leaving him till he was safely back in Chefoo once more. Once there the bracing air again did wonders, and Taylor was lured into spending much time out of doors by a new project that almost thrust itself upon him.

Delighting day by day in that long sweep of sandy shore, he and his fellow-workers could not but see how much it would mean to the Mission to have a sanatorium there, and some day, perhaps, a school for missionaries’ children. How well it would suit them—that retired hilly spot with its freshwater stream! But, for the time being, they could only pray. They did not often go over there even, knowing how prices might soar if any interest were shown in a possible purchase. But one day Taylor and Judd were walking over the ground when a farmer came up and, to their surprise, asked if they wanted to buy land.

He was offering the very bean-field about which they had just been speaking and at no unreasonable price, as they soon discovered.

“Then and there the bargain was struck,’ recalled Judd. ‘I never knew a piece of business settled so easily. The money was paid and we got the field, with a gully and fresh water running down beside it. Then neighbouring farmers were willing to sell theirs as well; and we bought all we wanted at a remarkably fair price.’

Neither Taylor nor Judd had any experience in house building, but they employed men to quarry stone out of the gully, make bricks from the surface soil and utilise the wrecks of two ships for doors, beams, floors and furniture. A house with some ten rooms was erected, the first simple structure of what was to become the well-known Chefoo School in which the children of C.I.M. missionaries in China received their education from kindergarten until college years; with adjacent hospital and holiday home for parents.

Far in the future, however, were these developments as the year 1879 drew to a close. As soon as health was re-established, Taylor set out for the advance post of the Mission at Wuchang. The young couples who had left for the interior some months previously were now in their distant homes, beginning work for the first time among the women of the western and north-western provinces. Now the time had come to take a step which cast him more than ever in faith upon the living God. What, send women—unmarried women, young and defenceless—into _ all the dangers and privations, the hardship and loneliness of life in the far interior of China? Let them take those perilous journeys of weeks and months:at a time, and condemn them to isolation in crowded cities, hundreds of miles from any other foreigner? The responsibility was great indeed, and’ keenly he felt it. He was but a servant, however, not the Master. And if women were waiting to go at the Master’s call, surely the time had come to help them rather than hinder.

Travelling by mule-litter with Coulthard from Chefoo to the Grand Canal, Taylor had leisure for thought and prayer over the situation. The younger missionary never failed to see, if he woke early enough, the little candle burning that told of the older man’s quiet hour over the Word of God.

When at length Taylor reached Wuchang, a number of C.I.M. people were there for various reasons, with Mr. and Mrs. Bailer in charge. Daily they met for Bible reading and prayer, the needs of the lonely workers at the distant outposts burdening their hearts. A thousand miles up the Yangtze, George Nicoll and his wife had just reached Chungking, where she was the only foreign woman in the great province of Szechwan. Mr. and Mrs. George Clarke had gone on further—another seventeen days’ journey to the capital of Kweichow, where Broumton was holding the fort alone. This latter post was very distant, very isolated and Trench, on his next evangelistic journey, was to call in and see the little party. Yes, he could act as escort, if there were women willing and ready to go. And there were. Mrs. William McCarthy, newly widowed, whose husband had been designated to that very province, only asked to give her life to what was to have been their united task; and Miss Kidd was more than willing to accompany her. So the week of meetings was followed by one of busy preparation.

‘Such a venture of faith as it was!’ said Coulthard, looking back with more understanding than he or any of the young missionaries could have had at the time. “The last meeting to commend them to God was deeply solemn. Mr. Taylor no doubt felt it as we could not. We never thought of danger; but

HE GOETH BEFORE 42]

he realised what might be involved, and his heart was moved accordingly.’

The route decided upon lay across Hunan, turbulent and anti-foreign; and in addition to the Chinese Christian woman who had volunteered to accompany the missionaries, Baller was to be spared to reinforce the party. This practically exhausted the resources of the station, and when a call came for the help of women in quite another direction, no foreign escort was available. Miss Fausset, a young worker with true courage, was ready to go at once to the help of Mrs. King; but it meant a three months’ _ journey by houseboat, without coming to a single place at which there were foreigners, and there was no one save Miss Wilson to accompany her.

Then it was that advancing years and silvery hair came to their own in a new way; for Miss Wilson’s venerable appearance, from the Chinese point of view, made it possible for the ladies to travel without foreign escort, and they were quite prepared to undertake the journey with the Lord alone as their Protector. It is easy to write the words, easier still to read them with passing interest; but only those who have known from experience what such journeys meant in the early days can at all appreciate the _ Situation. Taylor knew; yet he encouraged these brave women, and assumed the responsibility of letting them go.

Not lightly, however, or at little cost did he go through with this matter. No one of experience being left in the Mission house, he engaged the boat himself and made all arrangements, even to packing food-baskets and rolling up their bedding with his own hands. Delayed after they had gone on board, he spent the first night with them among the crowded shipping at the mouth of the Han—sharing the only available cabin with Miss Wilson’s protégé, a leper lad rescued at Yangchow, who had become an earnest Christian and proved invaluable as a helper.

Seeing that the vegetable oil, which was all they had been able to procure for cooking, made their food unpalatable, Taylor went ashore next morning and was gone some time.

‘When he returned,’ wrote Miss Fausset, ‘he was carrying a basket on his arm in which were sweet potatoes, eggs and lard. One never could have thought a little lard capable of doing so much good, or making so enduring an impression!’

When the boatmen really started (March Ist, 1880) Taylor still remained on board till they. got well out on the Han; then after a time of prayer, while the attention of the missionaries was occupied, he slipped into his little sampan and was gone. Never were travellers more faithfully escorted than by his prayers. Day and night he went with them in spirit, as they had the comfort of knowing, and Miss Fausset could never forget the earnestness with which he said on meeting her again:

‘I have prayed for you thousands of times.’

As news began to come from distant stations in which these and other pioneers were winning their way to the homes and hearts of the people, Taylor wrote to his mother,

I cannot tell you how glad my heart is to see the work extending and consolidating in the remote parts of China. It is worth living for and worth dying for.