Can Ye Drink of the Cup? (1893-1895)

Never since that October day in 1889, when the thoughts had come to Taylor that found expression in his pamphlet To Every Creature, had the subject of a widespread evangelistic campaign throughout the whole of China been absent from his heart. Despite the many grave difficulties that had attended missionary work in China since then, as though the appeal of the Shanghai Conference for 1,000 missionaries had aroused all the opposition of the powers of evil, he was assured that the purpose was of God, and had lost none of his first sense of responsibility to do all that in him lay to carry it into effect. Travelling, thinking, speaking, planning new premises to replace the long inadequate quarters at Pyrland Road, encouraging his fellow-workers by visits to the Continent, he quietly kept in view the larger reinforcements that would be needed for a Forward Movement to carry the Gospel to ‘every creature’ in China.

With a diminishing income in England and responsibilities already heavy in China, it might have seemed anything but seasonable for fresh advance. But the heart of the Mission was glowing with fresh blessing and Taylor felt the time had come. With the enlarged staff at Pyrland Road, much in the way of development seemed possible. A visit to Germany in April and another in August had convinced him that many valuable workers for China might be added to those who had already gone out from Barmen as associates of the Mission. He saw his way to organise a thorough campaign throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland, specially with a view to calling forth young men for missionary service. The newly published Story of the C.ILM. was being widely read; funds were encouraging, no less than £10,000 having been received in little over a month for new undertakings; and with the exception of a brief visit to America for the second Student Volunteer Conference, Taylor was looking forward to a steady spell of work at home such as he had not had since the days of the Hundred.

Just at that time a little cloud no bigger than a man’s hand warned him that he was needed in China. It concerned the welfare and usefulness of one or more valued members of the Mission; and Taylor’s warm love for them personally, as well as his sense of responsibility for the work, decided him to go on from America to Shanghai to deal with the matter. While regretting the break in his programme at home, it seemed that only a brief absence would be necessary, and he allowed his name to stand as one of the _ speakers at Keswick for the following summer.°°

The Student Conference at Detroit was memorable, when John R. Mott, Robert E. Speer, and other leaders fresh from college gave evidence of the gifts which were so remarkably developed in worldwide work for God.

‘Our chief and only burden,’ John Mott had written to Taylor in urging him to come over, ‘is that it may be a markedly spiritual convention. God has been with you in other gatherings, as well as in your regular work, and we have faith to believe that you would be a channel of great spiritual blessing in this continent and through it to the world, if you are at Detroit. Have we not a right to expect that God will do mighty things during these days, if we comply with His conditions?’

And He did do mighty things, through various instrumentalities. Never to be forgotten was one early morning hour when the great hall was filled with students only, who had come together because they were hungry for definite, —abiding blessing. The message was the same that had brought help to many in Shanghai two years previously; and as then, heart after heart discovered God’s provision to meet all depths of failure and need. Years of devoted service on many a mission field were to bear witness to the spiritual transactions of that hour.

A few weeks later, the matter having been prospered that had brought Taylor to Shanghai, he was about to leave again for home, eager to help in calling out men for the Forward Movement, when all unexpectedly he found himself claimed in quite another direction. Far away in the north of China complications had arisen which threatened the recall of all Scandinavian missionaries to the coast. A little band, unconnected with the C.I.M., had recently commenced work in a devoted spirit, but on lines so foreign to Chinese ideas of propriety that grave and growing danger was the result. The workers themselves were too inexperienced to realise the state of affairs, but passing travellers had carried the tidings to Peking and the Swedish Foreign Office was on the point of taking action. Of this, warning was received by Taylor, and though he had nothing to do with the missionaries in question he could not but see how seriously the Scandinavian associates of the C.I.M. might be affected. To those who knew of the situation it seemed providential that the Director of the Mission was in China, as no one could have greater influence in the matter, or be more likely to command the confidence of the authorities in Peking.

But how, even if he gave up his return to England, could he reach those far-off stations in time to be of use save by travelling through the entire summer? It was already the end of April. In a few weeks the hot season would begin, and the journey was one that involved three or four months of overland travel. Railways there were none at that time in the inland provinces, and after the wheelbarrow stage must come even rougher travelling on spring-less carts. Exposure to the burning sun and tropical rains of midsummer were serious indeed, not to speak of the difficulty of obtaining food when villages are deserted during the harvest season.

‘It may cost your life,’ he was warned.

“Yes,’ was the reply, ‘and let us not forget—‘‘We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”

After this there was nothing more to be said, but he did not travel alone. Jennie would not be left out, his doctor son with his bride accompanied them, and with J. J. Coulthard, Taylor’s son-in-law, the family party numbered five.

They left Hankow in May, and traversing five provinces visited all the mission stations along the route. For the rest, excepting Sundays, it was fourteen hours daily on the road, all through the blazing heat, everywhere meeting crowds of accessible; friendly people. The long weeks of the cart journey were specially painful for Taylor, who had a sensitive back from concussion of the spine. But it was all well worth it from his point of view as he saw the signs of progress in all regions, in the work nearest to his heart—especially on the vast and populous Sian plain. When he had crossed it eight years previously, travelling with Montagu Beauchamp from Pastor Hsi’s district to Hanchung, no light-centres had broken the darkness all around them for hundreds of miles. Now, station after station had been opened, and in the capital—long one of the most antiforeign cities in China—the Scandinavian workers were gathered whom he had come so far to meet.

It was a wonderful change, all due under God to the devoted lives of a little group of pioneers, long homeless, scorned, and persecuted, for Christ’s sake and the Gospel’s. When Thomas Botham first went over from Hanchung, things were so hard that even he was discouraged. Yet he could not give up the task to which he felt himself called.

‘T am willing to walk in the dark with God,’ he said to his Superintendent, himself one of the first pioneers in the province.

‘In the dark with God,’ replied Easton; ‘why, dear Brother, in Him, with Him is “no darkness at all.””’

It was a good word with which to begin work on the Sian plain, and much he and his companions had need of it! The young men naturally took it for granted that they must obtain a settled dwelling. Not so, however, the people of the plain. No one would rent them a house, and every effort in that direction aroused intense opposition. At last it came to them—‘the command is “Preach the gospel”. Let us go everywhere and do that, and leave the rest with God. If He wants us to have a house He will give it, and give it in such a way as not to hinder His work.’

Twenty-two governing cities, sixty market towns and innumerable villages formed their parish—a district extending over 12,000 square miles, in which they were the only missionaries—and from end to end of it they were met with little but opposition. All they could do was to move from place to place, staying as long as possible in any inn willing to receive them, preaching on the streets, and seeking by Christ-like humility and love to recommend the Gospel. It was work that told, and they were willing for the cost.

When Botham married, his bride, herself a missionary, had already been two years in China, and gladly shared with him in the hardships of his life.

‘I never feel so happy as when with all my worldly goods on one donkey, and my wife on another, I set out to carry the Gospel to some new place on the Sian plain,’ he wrote.

So liable were they to riots and disturbances that the little company had to divide, and scarcely ever dared to be more than two in a city at the same time.

But their wanderings were not aimless. They were literally carrying out the Master’s word, ‘When they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another’; but they took good care, as Botham put it, to ‘flee in a circle,’ so that coming back from time to time to the same places, the people became used to seeing them.

To this district the leaders of the Scandinavian Fifty had been sent, and arriving just as these devoted lives were beginning to bear fruit, they were ready to take advantage of the changed conditions. Station after station was opened with little difficulty, and the new workers, being men of faith and prayer, were enabled to hold their own even in the capital itself. Many a missionary had sought to obtain footing in that important city, but it was reserved for Holman and his guitar to win the day. Surrounded by a crowd bent on mischief that had invaded his premises, he pleasantly asked the people if they would like to hear him sing. Taken by surprise they listened, as with musical voice and instrument he poured forth Swedish melodies. He was so quiet and friendly that they began to feel ashamed; and finally, as he went on singing—crying to God in his heart for deliverance—the crowd gradually melted away.

It was to the city thus opened that Taylor’s party came for the conference where definite arrangements were entered into with regard to the Swedish associates. A district, including the capital and extending north-west into the province of Kansu, was set apart for them under the general supervision of Botham, one of their own leaders being appointed missionary-in-charge. It was a great joy to Taylor to see how those in Sian-fu had grown and developed during the short time, little more than three years, that they had been in China, and to find that though he had to suggest restrictions that might have seemed irksome, the ties were but drawn the closer that united the Scandinavian Alliance workers with the C.I.M.

In the neighbouring province it was encouraging to meet Folke and his fellow-workers of the Swedish Mission in China. Beyond this point the travelling was by moonlight, to escape the intense heat (120° in the carts) which had almost cost Taylor’s life in coming from Sian. Setting out towards evening, it was a comfort to feel that before the sun rose again a good stage would have been accomplished, though dangerous characters other than wolves were to be met with in the mountains or in the shelter afforded by tall-growing crops. Stopped one night in the shadow of an arch or shrine, they found that two men had accosted the foremost cart.

‘Do you carry foreign travellers?’ was the question which startled them.

A moment later, however, the situation was explained by the enquiry in a cultured English voice, ‘Is this Mr. Taylor’s party?’

Pastor Hsi and D. E. Hoste! Miles had they walked out together to meet the expected visitors, and warm indeed was the welcome with which they received Taylor once again, just where Hoste had parted from him eight years previously.

It was a week later when, the Pingyang-fu Conference being over, Taylor was free to accept Pastor Hsi’s hospitality and spend a day or two in his home. Having been there before, what was his surprise on arrival to be driven in through courtyard after courtyard, past house and farm buildings, till an open space was reached that looked like a threshing floor. There stood an ample table covered with a clean white cloth and other preparations for a ‘foreign’ meal. Overhead a brown awning, supported on a dozen or more wooden masts, formed a sheltering roof, and in the background a building (could it be a barn?) stood with open doors. To this Taylor and his party were led—and lo, a royal pavilion, a whole suite of apartments, beautifully arranged, clean, cool, and ready for use!

With growing astonishment they explored its resources, touched by evidences of loving thoughtfulness on every hand. The central dining-room gave access to a large sleeping apartment on one side, and to a couple of smaller chambers on the other. All were comfortably furnished and most inviting. Lamps were ready on the tables, fresh straw mats completely covered the floors, new bamboo curtains as well as coloured hangings protected doors and windows, new white felt rugs were laid over fine white matting on each of the beds. The tables were spread with red covers, and neatly laid in the centre of each was a square of green oil-silk, beautifully rich in colour. Brass basins, shining like mirrors, were placed upon little stands ready for use, with clean white towels and new cakes of the best Pears’ soap! The whole place, in a word, was so clean and attractive, so polished and radiant, that they could hardly believe their eyes.

And there stood Pastor and Mrs. Hsi eager to see if they were pleased, but disclaiming gratitude or remonstrance.

‘It is nothing. It is altogether unworthy. Gladly would we have arranged far better for our Venerable Chief Pastor and his family.’

Nothing could exceed the love and joy of that welcome, in which the whole household took part. Pastor Hsi himself brought hot water for washing, and kept the cups filled with tea. He hastened the midday meal, covering the table with good things, and insisted on waiting in person, lest his helpers should not be quick enough to anticipate every wish. His eyes filled with tears as Taylor tried to thank him, and he said,

‘Sir, what have you suffered and endured that we might have the Gospel! This is my joy and privilege. How could I do less?’

Harvest days had come in southern Shansi, of which Taylor had seen the promise, and the outlook was full of encouragement. Far away from the Western Chang village events were transpiring, however, that were to have an important bearing on Taylor’s movements. Hastening to complete the matter he had in hand, the leader of the Mission was anticipating a speedy return to England to take up the Forward Movement he had reluctantly left in February. But there is an unseen Leader whose great ends are served by all happenings and in ways we should least devise. The very day Hudson Taylor spent in the delightful hospitality of Pastor Hsi’s home, July 25th, witnessed the outbreak of war between China and Japan, and by the time he reached Shanghai it was evident that he could not absent himself from the scene of danger. All thought of leaving for England now had to be abandoned, and the visit to China that had already lengthened out from weeks to months was prolonged indefinitely.

With the close of the Japanese War in April 1895 came - the close also of the period in which the thousand missionaries were looked for in response to the appeal sent out by the Shanghai Conference of 1890. As, chairman of the committee to report results, Taylor was able to state that not 1,000 only but 1,153 new workers had been added to the missionary staff in China during that time. And yet, as he pointed out, it was far from final, in the sense of having attained the end in view. A great step forward had been taken, but it left the primary duty—that of making known the Gospel ‘to every creature’ in China, in obedience to the Master’s great command—still unfulfilled. Out of the eleven to twelve hundred new missionaries, only 480 were men; and this number, divided among the forty-five societies which had sent them, would give only an average of ten to each. Clearly, as many of these societies were working in provinces on or near the coast, the addition of even this large number hardly affected the situation in the great waiting world of inland China. It was for these unreached millions that he still pleaded with renewed urgency.

“An important crisis in China’s history has been reached,’ he wrote on behalf of the committee. “The war just terminated does not leave her where she was. It will inevitably lead to a still wider opening of the empire and to.many new developments. If the Church of Christ does not enter the opening doors, others will, and they may become closed against her. Time is passing. If a thousand men were needed five years ago, they are much more needed now.’

But the effect upon missionary work of the tragic events which had transpired was to be serious and far-reaching. Five years yet remained of Taylor’s active service, years which raised unparalleled difficulties in the way of carrying out the project so much upon his heart. China had entered at last upon the troubled period of transition from her exclusive policy of centuries to the reluctant but inevitable acceptance of her place in the great family of nations. The change was not one that could take place easily; and the weakening, through loss of prestige, of the Imperial Government at Peking let loose forces of disorder in many parts of the country. Shortly after the above letter was written Taylor began to hear of riots, persecutions, and rebellion, from the coast right out to the borders of Tibet. Sitting quietly at breakfast on Sunday, June Ist, a telegram was put into his hands which brought the startling tidings:

Riot in Chengtu (capital of Szechwan). All missions destroyed: friends in yamen.

This was followed by another and another, until within ten days he learned of destruction in all but one of the central stations of the Mission in that province. At the same time bitter persecution broke out against the Christians in the Wenchow district, one of the oldest and most fruitful in the Mission. Tidings kept coming of homes attacked and pillaged, families fleeing for refuge to the Mission compound, and a work that had taken long years to build up threatened with complete devastation.

Nor were these the most serious issues. They were symptomatic of general excitement and unrest and loss of confidence in the ruling powers. Secret societies were everywhere active, and a great Muhammadan uprising was - reported from the north-west, where C.I.M. missionaries were the only foreigners. The disbanded soldiers—still armed and with arrears of pay due in many cases—were a serious menace, and with hundreds of fellow-workers in inland stations, Taylor had evident cause for concern.!

Over 1,000 miles from Szechwan and kept in suspense for weeks until letters could reach him, Taylor was specially exercised about the Church of England district in which the work ‘had been full of promise. No lives were actually lost in Szechwan, however, and not a few of the missionaries who had taken refuge with the local Mandarins were allowed to return before long to their dismantled dwellings. To their great joy they found in some places that the converts had been witnessing so faithfully that new enquirers had enrolled their names and were coming regularly for instruction. In Paoning the Christians had braved all danger, and coming to the wall of the yamen, had sought to reassure their missionary friends by calling out fearlessly: ‘We are all here! Not one of us has gone back.’

In a lonely station among the hills the house where the women missionaries lived was guarded night after night by Christian men who, unknown to them, volunteered for the task; and a woman of position in the district was so concerned for their safety that she came twenty miles on her crippled feet to make enquiries, finding far more than she sought, for her heart was drawn to living faith in the Saviour of whom she thus heard for the first time.

Even when the worst came—the tragedy that was to make this summer memorable in the long conflict between light and darkness—it was immediately and wonderfully overruled for good. Hardly could any missionary then in China forget the awe with which the news was received of the cold-blooded murder of the Rev. Robert Stewart with his wife and child and eight fellow-workers of the Church Missionary Society. Taylor was at Chefoo when it happened, engaged upon buildings for the growing schools, and was not slow to realise the full significance of the event. Never before had the protecting hand of God been so far withdrawn as to permit of such a sacrifice. Instances had occurred in which Protestant missionaries had laid down their lives one or two at a time, but they had been few and far between, and no women had hitherto been among the number. Now mother and children had alike been attacked, and most of the sufferers were | young, unmarried women. Gathered at a hill station for rest during the great heat, they had fallen a prey to the plottings of a secret society which apparently hoped to involve the Government in trouble. Whatever the cause or ultimate results, the realisation came home to many a heart that a new era had dawned that day, August Ist, and that a great price might yet have to be paid for the triumph of the Gospel in China.

At that very time, unknown to those who were praying in China, but not to Him who was watching over all, another little band was in utmost peril, far in the heart of that great land. After a preparatory stage of several months the Muhammadan Rebellion had swept down upon the city of Sining on the borders of Tibet, where the Ridleys, their infant child, and Hall were the only foreigners. Ten thousand Muhammadans lived in the suburbs round the city, and it was a terrible night when, contrary to vows and protestations, they turned upon their Chinese neighbours, and amid scenes of fearful carnage threw in their lot with the rebels. Already the city was filled with refugees, and the missionaries were working night and day to'care for the wounded. Led by a beggar who knew the healing virtue of their medicines, they had found in the Confucian temple hundreds of women and children who had made their escape from burning villages and the horrors perpetrated by their enemies. Groans and wailing were heard on every hand, and in the twilight of that summer evening, they saw amass of human suffering that was appalling. Burned from head to foot and gashed with fearful sword-cuts, scores of these poor creatures lay dying with not a hand to help them, for no one would go near even with food and water.

Then the missionaries understood why they had felt so definitely that they ought to stay on in the city, when they might have made good their escape. This was the work for which they were needed, the work that was to open hearts to the Gospel as years of preaching had not done. With heroic courage they gave themselves to the task, and throughout all that followed never ceased their ministrations. Amid scenes passing conception they cared for the wounded of both sides—first in the seven months of Muhammadan frenzy, when the Chinese were falling before them in thousands, then in still more awful months of Chinese retaliation. With no surgical instrument but a pen-knife and hardly any appliances but such as could be obtained on the spot, they performed hundreds of operations, and treated over 1,000 cases of diphtheria, not to speak of the dressing of wounds that occupied them from early morning till late at night. Neither Ridley nor Hall had had medical training, and though Mrs. Ridley was experienced in sickness she was not a qualified nurse. Operations without chloroform that would have daunted many a strong man she bravely took her part in, and they never once lost a life by cutting an artery in the extraction of bullets, etc. Cotton wool and oil for burns, and common needles and silk for sewing up wounds they were able to buy in the city, as also the sulphur with which they treated diphtheritic patients. A foreign razor helped out the pocket-knife in surgical cases.

But for the help of a four-footed friend Mrs. Ridley could never have got through at all. Their servants left them at the beginning of the siege, and with the baby she was nursing and all the household work on her hands, she alone could attend to a large, proportion of their patients, the women and girls. Full gallop her brave little donkey would go through the busy streets, the people gladly making way for the mother whose baby was waiting at home!

Once only her heart failed her—in the midst of an attack upon the city, when it seemed as though all hell were let loose, and that at any moment the defences might fall. She was fully alive by that time to what it meant to be at the mercy of Muhammadan hordes. Had not infants been brought to her, scores of them, mutilated by their savagery? Alone in the house that night, her husband and Hall being out amid the panic-stricken people, a wave of terror swept over her. It was Dora, little Dora she thought of. For themselves it did not matter—but oh, her baby! Her happy, smiling, always contented treasure! How could she bear to see...? But as she knelt beside the sleeping infant and cried to God, the Presence which is salvation so wrapped her round that all else receded and was forgotten.

‘He gave me the assurance then,’ she said, ‘that no harm should come to us.’ And though it was many a long month before fighting and massacre were over, that agonising dread never returned.

To Taylor, far off.in Shanghai, such knowledge as he had of the situation was peculiarly distressing. Neither letters nor money could be sent to these fellow-workers, and for months together no tidings of them were received. A remittance forwarded in the spring had got through before the siege commenced, but it was spring again when the next came to hand. Relief expeditions sent by the Government failed to reach the city, more than 1,000 soldiers losing their lives in the attempt. It was well Taylor did not know that Ridley had almost succumbed to an attack of diphtheria, that smallpox was raging in the city, and that neither bread nor coal was to be purchased at any price. A winter of seven months had to be faced, with the temperature below zero much of the time, and so small was their supply of fuel that they had to eke it out with manure, and even so could only afford a

fire at mealtimes. Had he seen and known it all, Taylor’s solicitude could hardly have been greater, however; and so much was that little group upon his heart that not infrequently he rose two and three times at night to pray for them.

Prayer was answered in their desperate situation. God raised up friends for them, supplied their need when money was useless and kept them strong in faith, so busy helping others that they had little time to think of themselves. An official (the Governor’s Secretary) living in the same street gave nineteen taels towards the medical work, which purchased oil, wadding, and material for bandages; and his wife, knowing that Mrs. Ridley had no time for cooking, invited her to run in whenever she could for meals. Another lady used to send batches of bread from time to time, and when in the straitness of the siege she could no longer do so, she begged that her cook might make bread for the Ridleys from their own flour.

No one guessed how hard up they really were, because Chinese families in their position would always have reserve stores of grain. When the flour was running low therefore, they had to take very literally the promise, “Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.’ Hardly welcome under the circumstances was a visit from one of the city magnates; for, being alone in the house, Ridley had to light the fire and prepare tea, excusing as best he could his poor hospitality.

Too polite to make any comment, the visitor was taken aback by his discovery, and going straight to the head Mandarin informed him that the foreigners who were doing so much to help others were without a servant of any kind. Four soldiers were immediately pressed upon Ridley to attend him and look after his ‘animals,’ with the result that he was obliged to explain his circumstances and that he really could not provide them with food.

Busy among his patients next morning, what was his surprise to see two men enter the courtyard each carrying a large sack of grain. These were set down amid the delighted onlookers, the bearers explaining that the Prefect had sent 200 lb. of wheat as a small recognition of the virtuous labours of the missionaries., Presently two more soldiers came and carried the sacks, to the mill, bringing back the flour. Long before that supply could be exhausted, a procession of six men in uniform appeared, each with his sack of wheat, which was also ground and returned in the shape of 600 Ib. of flour! So that without asking help of any ‘save of God alone, those children of His, so isolated and resourceless, were not only provided for but were enabled to feed many of the starving around them until the siege was over.

Meanwhile Hudson Taylor was making every effort to reach them with supplies. He knew they must be still alive because of the burden of prayer on his heart for them day and night, but for months there was no other encouragement to hope. Not until 1896 dawned did the longed-for message come that Sining was relieved and communication re-established, and even then the reign of terror was prolonged by the Chinese retaliation. Almost two years in all the fearful business lasted, 80,000 people being actually massacred, not to speak of soldiers killed in battle or frozen upon the mountains. But through it all the missionaries stayed at their post, proving themselves the friends of Chinese and Muhammadans alike, and winning love and confidence that brought wonderful opportunities for the Gospel. All the country was open to them. Wherever they went they found known and unknown friends, and the work they could not overtake emphasised afresh the need for large and immediate reinforcements. But that belongs to a later period.

Anxiety about Sining was at its height when, in the middle of October, tidings reached Taylor in Shanghai that added a poignant element to the already full cup of 1895. Troubles and dangers had followed one another in quick succession, but so far without loss to the Mission. Now it was cholera that had visited one of the nearer stations, carrying off a whole group of Chinese Christians and foreign missionaries. Nine deaths in all had taken place in ten days, leaving the bereaved community sorely stricken.

And there were circumstances that made the news peculiarly distressing. Well did Taylor remember the young husband and wife he had welcomed to China only a few months previously, whose record in the Soldiers’ Home at Litchfield proved them to be soul-winners of exceptional value, and the brave Scots workers they had joined in the Wenchow district, who had stood the brunt of the persecution already referred to in this chapter, sheltering in their home scores of the suffering Christians. Could it be that of the four only one was left, and that to her had come the double bereavement of losing husband and child?

Not so long before, it seemed, she had arrived in China, having put off her marriage with the full consent of her fiancé, that they might each give themselves to learning the language and becoming useful as missionaries before beginning life together. The rule of the Mission in this respect had meant, for them, real sacrifice, for they had long been engaged and were everything to each other. But amid the loneliness of those first days in China, she looked as well as lived the message engraved on the simple brooch she wore: “Jesus does satisfy.’

Married after two years to Alexander Menzies, home had been to them a

little bit of heaven, and their joy in one another had deepened with the coming of their baby boy. And now the letter lay before Taylor in which the mother tried to comfort him in her overwhelming grief.

‘It is just possible,’ she wrote from Wenchow, ‘that you may have heard of the honour that my God and Father has put upon me. Yes, He has trusted me to live without my beloved husband and darling child. They are not, for God has taken them.’

Briefly she told the circumstances, sparing Taylor most of the touching details: the father reaching home from a journey to find himself just in time for the funeral of his little son; the short, sharp fight for life after life on the Mission compound; three schoolgirls taken, a man, a woman, and the missionaries caring for them to the last, regardless of their own danger; then her husband the first to go, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Woodman within a few hours of each other.

‘It would have been so easy for me to have joined my treasures,’ she continued, ‘but our Father has willed it otherwise. My treasures are gone-and I am left alone—yet not alone: “Nevertheless, I am continually with thee.”

‘Dear Mr. Taylor, God has taken His workmen, but He will carry on His work. I do not know what He has in store for me, but I do know He will guide the future as He has the past. I long more than ever to do His blessed will. He. has taken my all: now I can only give Him what remains of life. He has indeed emptied me! May it be only to fill with His love, compassion and power.’

So the sweet fragrance went up.to God, and the life more than ever given to the Chinese witnessed, as words never could, to the blessed reality—‘Jesus does satisfy.’ Thus it was all over the field: sorrow worked blessing; trials of faith resulted in deeper confidence the bond of love and unity in the Mission was strengthened, and a spirit of prayer was called forth that prepared the way for more of God’s own working.

It was during this year, while the war with Japan was still going on, that Pastor Wang Lae-djiin came up to Shanghai to see Taylor. In the old home at Hangchow, he and his family had united in making an offering to the Lord. Declining a settled salary that he might be on the same faith basis as the members of the Mission, Wang Lae-djiin had yet been enabled to lay by for his only child a sum which to people in their position was considerable. His daughter’s husband had long been his co-pastor in the Hangchow church, but while his gifts would have brought them affluence in a business career, it was all they could do to educate their large family on the income he received in connection with the C.I.M. But neither Pastor Ren nor his wife would consent to accept the savings of their father’s lifetime.

How large a sum it seemed—$1,000! No: it must not be given to them or their children. The Lord had always provided for their needs, and would still provide. It was far too precious for any but Himself; and to Him they would unitedly give it. The object of Pastor Wang’s visit was that the money which meant so much to him and his was to be used, through the Mission, for sending out evangelists to carry the glad tidings to those who had never heard.

To the old Pastor it was wonderful to see the extensive premises of the Mission in Shanghai, and hear of the progress of the work throughout the far inland provinces, remembering the early beginnings in the little house by the Ningpo canal to which his missionary friend had brought home his bride. Deeply their hearts were still united in - the supreme longing that the Lord Jesus should see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied through the gathering in to Him of the fullness of His redeemed from among the millions of China. And as he looked back over the years with its sorrow and trials, Hudson Taylor observed that a larger number of converts had been baptised in 1895 than in any previous year.