Days of Blessing (1885-1886)

As he neared Shanghai some weeks later, Hudson Taylor was very conscious of the responsibilities that lay before him. He hoped to give effect, on this sixth visit, to the plans for organisation that had been maturing in his mind, by appointing someone who could be associated with himself as Deputy Director, as well as Superintendents to help recruits. Any delegation of his authority was apt to be regarded with misgivings, however. The family feeling in the Mission had been very precious to its early workers, who were accustomed to dealing with him direct about every matter in which advice and help were needed. Much more difficulty lay in the way of associating others with himself in these responsibilities than he had anticipated; but the appointment of Superintendents for a number of provinces, and the better ordering of business and financial matters, were part of the outcome of his labours in 1885.

It was not until the close of the year that he saw who could be his Deputy. Then, with an exceptional record of varied and useful service behind him, Stevenson returned to China, landing on Christmas Eve after an absence of ten and a half years in Burma and elsewhere.

“The Rev. J. W. Stevenson has, I am thankful to say, accepted the position of Director’s Deputy,’ Taylor wrote in March (1886) to the members of the Mission. ‘He will assist, D.V., by visiting for me many places I cannot reach; will represent me in my absence from China, and deal with all questions brought before him by the Superintendents requiring immediate determination. I feel sure you will all share with me in thankfulness to God for this appointment, and feel that it is one of the most important steps in advance that we have recently been able to make.’

Shortly after sending out this letter he set off to visit a centre in Chekiang, and decided to cross the watershed into the neighbouring province of Kiangsi and return by the Poyang Lake. Hoping that the complete change of boat life would help to restore strength to one of the Yangchow missionaries who had been dangerously ill, he arranged for her and several younger women workers to accompany him.

Thus, then, the months of May and June (1886) brought to that long-waiting district the loving hearts and earnest, prayerful lives that were to become its channels of Divine blessing. Six years had passed since Taylor on his previous visit had met the converts gathered in through the labours of Captain Yui in the neighbourhood of Yiishan. The - little out-stations he had visited then among the hills and down the river were out-stations still, and had rarely seen even a passing missionary. Recently, however, a young worker, a girl of only twenty, had come to spend a few days’ holiday in that beautiful region. She stayed with the evangelist and his wife, sleeping in an attic to which she climbed by a ladder-like stair. But neither this nor any other consideration could keep visitors away, and from morning till night her room was besieged by women and children. Warm-hearted Agnes Gibson welcomed them all, and spent her much needed ‘holiday’ in telling the old, old story.

The result was that Taylor found a marked change in the Sunday services. On his previous visit the Christians had been all and only men; and so bitter was the opposition of their women-folk that they had even rented a room for themselves, where they might read and pray undisturbed. Now, however, the women were as much in evidence as the men, and a deputation of the latter waited upon him to point the moral.

“We want a missionary of our own,’ they said, ‘and we want a woman. If one visit of a week could bring about such a change, what might not be accomplished if we had a lady teacher all the time?’

This was unanswerable. As he navelled down the Kwangsin river and saw the welcome with which the women missionaries travelling with him were received everywhere, he realised that the time had come, and that the Lord had sent His own messengers. Going forward, therefore in faith, he arranged for three of them to return with an older worker, and settle down among the Chinese Christians, making the evangelisation of this populous region their life-work. Within the first year of women’s work on the Kwangsin river forty-two additional converts were baptised, and eventually in a complete chain of ten central stations and sixty out-stations, women were the only foreign missionaries.

Returning to Shanghai after six weeks’ absence, Taylor arrived on the very last day of an option obtained upon a building site in the Settlement, admirably situated for the purposes of the Mission. The price, however, was almost £2,500, and he had not money in hand to justify the purchase. If lost, the opportunity would never recur; yet what was to be done?

One thing at any rate was possible: the whole matter could be laid before the Lord in definite, united prayer, with the assurance that He would deal with it in the way that was best. This then they did at the noon prayer meeting (June 14th) when no outsiders were present; and then and there the answer was given.

Among the party just arrived from home was one who had been interested in China through John McCarthy’s meetings in Scotland two years previously. Large business responsibilities rested upon him at that time, and it was not until he could see how these were to be cared for that he felt free to join the China Inland Mission. Unexpected delays in his coming out had coincided with delays in Taylor’s northern journey, so that the two met in Shanghai on the very day in question, met one might almost say in that prayer meeting.

The outcome was a gift sufficient to cover the purchase of the entire property, followed (though that was a later thought) by the still larger gift of all the buildings necessary to make it the most complete and serviceable of headquarters. It was a wonderful provision, a wonderful answer to prayer, and a wonderful anticipation of the enlargement in the Mission that was at hand.

For seven years Taylor had been planning to visit Shansi. Once he had even set out, only to be recalled by claims at the coast. But now.the better organisation of the Mission permitting an absence of several months from Shanghai, he hoped to strengthen ‘the work in regions lying farther inland. Each station to be visited had its problems, but greatest of all was the question how to evangelise the vast population to which the missionaries now had access. To bring help and encouragement to these lonely toilers was his chief object, and to confer with them about the organisation of the Chinese Church, which in some places was growing rapidly. It was also his hope to establish a Church of England district in the great western province of Szechwan, a matter which had long been under consideration. In the Rev. W. W. Cassels the Mission had for the first time one qualified to take the lead in such an enterprise, and Szechwan with its sixty-eight millions had as yet only two centres in which Protestant missionaries were to be found. Cassels with four others of the Cambridge party had been gaining experience in Shansi and they went up to Tatyuan-fu, the capital, to meet Taylor for a few days of conference from their centres, full of the problems that press upon young missionaries in the midst of a large and growing work.

Some echoes of the conference may be gathered from suggestions made by Taylor as to the relation of the missionary to his work:

How can we secure the development of strong, healthy, Christlike native Christians unless we are living strong, healthy, Christ-like lives ourselves?

What the spiritual children will be depends on what the spiritual father is. The stream will never rise higher than its source, but it will not fall far short of it, circumstances permitting. The hardness of heart which is a hindrance to the Gospel is not that of the hearers; it is the hardness of this heart of mine.

On the need for contact, close and real, not only with the Lord Himself but with those whose good we seek, he dwelt with insistence.

There is power in drawing near to this people. A poor woman in Chengtu, when she heard of Mrs. Riley’s death, said: “What a loss to us! She used to take hold of my hand and comfort me so.’ If you put your hand on the shoulder of a man, there is power in it. Any Christian, full of the Holy Ghost, may often impart blessing thus. Contact is a real power that we may use for God.

It is not preaching only that will do what needs to be done. Our life must be one of visible self-sacrifice. There is much sacrifice in our lives of which the Chinese cannot know. That will not suffice. They. must see self-sacrifice in things they cannot but understand.

It was in that city (Taiyuan-fu) where the blood of martyrs was to be so freely shed that Taylor dwelt much upon the necessity for sacrifice, and the certainty not only that persecution must come, but that it would be overruled for blessing.:

There is no better way of proving to the world that the devil’s power is not so great after all than by letting. him have his fling, and showing in the midst of it what a triumph over him the believer has in Christ. Just as Jesus, by dying, conquered him who had the power of death, so frail, feeble martyrs, many of them women, were able to show that all the power of pagan Rome could do nothing against those who were filled with Christ. Hence there were many conversions in the very arena, and the blood of the martyrs proved itself to be indeed the seed of the Church. Their foes thought they had succeeded; it was even announced in their edicts that Christianity was defunct; but it was paganism that tottered.

We need not to be afraid of persecution. Jt is coming; it is sure to come. Only let us have such success as to make the people fear the abolition of their customs, and we shall see severe persecution. But are we to fear lest the Gospel should triumph sufficiently to bring such results about?

With all his desire that the gifts of the Chinese Church should be developed, Taylor was keenly conscious of the danger of allowing education, medical work or any other auxiliary to usurp the foremost place.

To substitute medicine for the preaching of the Gospel would be a profound mistake. If we get the idea that people are going to be converted by some educational process, instead of by a regenerative recreation, it will be a profound mistake. Let all our auxiliaries be auxiliaries—means of bringing Christ and the soul into contact—then we may be truly thankful for them all. Let us exalt the glorious Gospel in our hearts, and believe that it is the power of God unto salvation.

In its practical influence on Christian character, Taylor felt that the truth of the Second Coming—the personal return of the Lord Himself to reign upon earth—was of paramount importance.

You will often read in missionary reports that the people have turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, but not in one out of ten do you hear anything about their waiting for His Son from Heaven (1 Thess. 1.9).

Well do I remember the effect, when God was pleased to open my own heart to this great truth that the Lord Jesus was coming again, and that He might come at any time. I had not many books, but it sent me to see if I could give a good account of all I had, and also of the contents of my little wardrobe. The result was that some of the books disappeared before long, and some of the clothing too. It was.an immense spiritual blessing to me.

Very practical, too, was his attitude as to the fullness laid up for us in Christ.

God is willing to give us all we need, as we need it. He does not equip for life-service all at once.... And whatever the sufficiency of Christ is for us, there is the same sufficiency in Him for our converts.

Refreshed in spirit, the workers from the south of the province hastened back to their stations after this week of meetings, Taylor and his companions following a few weeks later. They arrived in Hungtung on July 30" to find the Hungtung Christians assembled in force for the conference at which Mr. Hsi, the ex-Confucian scholar, was to be ordained, while others were appointed deacons and elders. These men, full of their first love and zeal, had been sounding out the message of salvation far and wide. What it was to Taylor to meet them and see for himself the inspiring work of which he had heard, may be better imagined than described. It was a wonderful meeting, that first day of the conference, when he and Mr. Hsi took the Sunday morning service between them.

‘There cannot have been fewer than 300 listeners in the court,’ wrote Stanley Smith. ‘It made our hearts glad to think of Mr. Taylor’s joy as he saw those earnest worshippers, and in that sight some outcome of years of prayer that has known no ceasing, and labour that has known no respite; above all, it raised our hearts to Him who in that gathering was seeing further of the travail of His soul and being satisfied.’

It was not easy to get Mr. Hsi to accept the position to which the leader of the Mission wished to appoint him, so deep was his sense of unworthiness. But when it was pointed out that Taylor was but confirming what was manifestly a Divine appointment, he could no longer demur. From that Saturday until the Ordination Service of the following Monday he gave himself to fasting and prayer, literally touching no food; and the sense of the presence of God with him was deeply solemnising.

‘Mr. Hudson Taylor, inviting the brethren working in the district to unite with him in the laying on of hands,’ Stanley Smith recorded, ‘after a few words of fervent prayer, set him apart to be a watcher over and feeder of the sheep of God. Mr. Hsi was ordained pastor of no particular district. He has done such an extensive work and been so owned of God, that it was thought best that he should be free to go anywhere for the work of God in these parts, knowing well how he would be welcomed by all the churches. Mr. Song was then set apart as Chinese pastor of the Pingyang church.’

The appointment of two elders and of sixteen deacons followed, after which over seventy baptised believers united in the Communion Service led by Pastor Hsi.

One day’s journey farther south—at Pingyang-fu—another conference was held, with the ordination of Ch’i, the fervent and scholarly evangelist of the Ta-ning district, and the appointment of five deacons. After that Taylor had to turn his face westward for the long journey to Hanchung-fu.

A brief visit first to Pastor Hsi’s home, ten miles across the plain, gave him the opportunity of seeing more of this remarkable man and the Opium Refuge work for which he was responsible. Accompanied by quite a party, Taylor arrived in the cool of the day.** Everything was beautifully arranged for their coming, the guest hall being fitted up as a state chamber, and the courtyard on which it opened covered with an awning that it might do duty as a chapel. Here the principal meetings were held, the joy on all faces reflecting the golden characters of welcome above the guest hall, shining out from their crimson background—‘Ta Hsi Nien,’ or “Year of Great Happiness’.

Perhaps the most moving part of the visit to Taylor was the account he heard of the opening of a Refuge in one of the cities he had passed on his journey through the province. The place had long been on Pastor Hsi’s heart, though he little anticipated the way in which his desire to commence work there was to be granted. Having no means in hand that he could use for the purpose, he prayed the more earnestly day by day at family worship that the - Gospel might be given to the Christless population of Hwochow.

‘We have prayed very often for that city,’ his wife said at length, ‘is it not time to do something there?’

‘Gladly would I,’ responded her husband, “but money is lacking. I have nothing to use for the purpose, and renting houses is expensive.’

‘How much would it require?’ was her next question.

And on hearing his reply she went away and said no more about it.

But she too could not forget Hwochow; and next morning it was an unadorned little figure that came up and laid some packages on the table after family worship.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that God has answered our prayers about that city.’

Missing something in her appearance as well as being surprised at her words, Pastor Hsi opened one of the packets, to find nothing less than all her jewellery—the gold and silver ornaments, bracelets, rings, and even hairpins so indispensable to a Chinese lady and that form her marriage dower.

“You cannot surely mean,’ he began, ‘you cannot do without—’.

“Yes, I can,’ she said joyfully. ‘I can do without these: let Hwochow have the Gospel.’

And with the money they had brought, the Refuge had been opened and a good work begun.

It was hard to leave such fruitful fields ready for the reaper and go on to where there was no sign of harvest. Studd and Beauchamp were going on with Taylor to take part in opening up the Church of England district he hoped to arrange for in Szechwan, and Cassels was to follow shortly. During twenty-four travelling days not a single Mission station was passed, because in all that populous region there was none.

Taylor’s cheerfulness and power of endurance greatly impressed his fellow-travellers. Hearing him singing on, one occasion when they were very hungry, and catching the words ‘We thank Thee, Lord, for this our food,’

Beauchamp could not but enquire where the food was.

‘It cannot be far away,’ was the smiling reply. ‘Our Father knows we are hungry and will send our breakfast soon: but you will have to wait and say your grace when it comes, while I shall be ready to begin at once!’

And so it proved; for just ahead they met a man with ready-cooked rice to sell, which made an excellent meal.

But the soul never went hungry. A box of matches, a foreign candle, and his Bible in four small volumes were included in Taylor’s travelling kit whatever else had to be left behind.

‘He would invariably get his quiet time an hour before dawn,’ Beauchamp wrote, ‘and then possibly sleep again. When I woke to feed the animals I always found him reading the Bible by the light of his candle. No matter what the surroundings or the noise in those dirty inns, he never neglected this. He used to pray on such journeys lying down, for he usually spent long times in prayer, and to kneel would have been too exhausting.’

With regard to the denominational position of the Mission, Taylor had written as early as 1866 (a few weeks only after the arrival of the Lammermuir party), in reply to an enquiry from the Rev. W. Muirhead of the L.M.S., Shanghai:

Those already associated with me represent all the leading denominations of our native land—Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregational, Methodist, Baptist and Paedobaptist. Besides these, two are or have been connected with the ‘Brethren’ so-called. It is intended that those whose view of discipline corresponds shall work together, and thus all difficulty on that score will be avoided. Each one is perfectly at liberty to teach his own views on these minor points to his own converts; the one great object we have in view being to bring heathen from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God. We all hold alike the great fundamentals of our faith, and in the presence of heathenism can leave the discussion of discipline while together, and act as before God when in separate stations.

For the moment, the outlook was not encouraging. The travellers had reached Hanchung when they learned that a serious riot had taken place at Chungking—one of the only two centres in Szechwan at which Protestant missionaries were working. At the same time tidings received from the coast made it clear that he must return to Shanghai as soon as possible. Mission affairs required his presence, and he was still a month’s journey from civilisation in the shape of a foreign steamer. But though he had to leave the actual pioneering in Szechwan to others, a day was set apart for fasting and prayer, when Taylor united with the Hanchung circle in Seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit and a fresh baptism of love and power upon those who were to go forward and who did, in fact, occupy eastern Szechwan before the end of the year.