4.12.13 HUDSON TAYLOR AND MARIA

this little volume by john pollock really shows the beautiful relationship of two people..totally given to God...brought together by God. excepts below..

speaking of the conversion of hudson taylor..
one sentence in the tract broke open his mind to a sudden certainty that Christ
by His death upon the cross
had already discharged this debt of sins.
'and with this dawned the joyful conviction,
as light was flashed into my soul by the Holy Spirit,
that there was nothing in the world to be done but to fall down on one's knees
and accepting this savior and His salvation,
to praise Him for evermore...
in 1849 at the age of 17

several days passed before he shyly told amelia (his sister)
under seal of secrecy.
at the return of his mother ten days afterwards he ran to the door
'to tell her i had such glad news to give'.
she replied as she hugged him,
'i know, my boy.
i have been rejoicing for a fortnight in the glad tidings you have to tell me.
hudson was amazed.
had amelia blabbed?
his mother denied it.
she said that 80 miles away, on the very day of the incident in the barn.,
she had felt such an overwhelming desire to pray for hudson
that she spent hours on her knees,
and had arisen with the unshakable conviction that her prayers were answered.
'it was perhaps natural, taylor wrote years later,
that from the commencement of my christian life
 i was led to feel that prayer was in sober matter of fact
transacting business with God.'

early on he sought to gain a knowledge of medicine..useful for mission work
..hudson existed on a loaf of bread and a pound of apples a day
and walked 4 miles between soho and the london hospital on mile end waste,
past eating houses redolent of roast beef and onions,
and with gingerbread sellers and muffin men
actively tempting him in the crowded lanes.
this exquisite torture braced him.
indeed, he feared lest too much cheerfulness was unchristian.
'how difficult it often is, he wrote to amelia,
to avoid being light and trifling when you feel well and in good spirits.'

now in china...
on one journey taylor returned to his boat hungry after a day's preaching and doctoring,
for a meal of ducks' eggs and rice fried in oil.
his black trousers and jacked were dusty,
his leather boots, source of constant surprise to the local inhabitants,
showed how far he walked.

teacher and assistants crowded round as he attacked his bowl.
'having acquired an honourable sufficiency in the use of chop sticks,
to the infinite delight of my companions the chinamen,
who recommended me to get my head shaved tomorrow and change my dress,
until one suggested that i could not change my eyes and nose.

a few tours later he came to an unvisited town.
he wore as usual a double breasted frock coat exactly like that of every other respectable european professional man, at home or abroad, complete with the slits, pleats and buttons back and front which saville row had imposed upon the world.
after innumerable patient replies to satisfy the crowd's curiosity
about the function, form and origin of each,
he started preaching.

one man close beside him stood transfixed, rapt.
he was that dream of an open air speaker,
the patently smitten soul to whom questions may be put,
the whole audience profiting from hearing him drawn step by step
toward personal conviction of the truth.
at length taylor addressed him personally.

yes yes, replied the man,
'what you say is doubtless very true.
but honourable foreign teacher,
may i ask you one question?

taylor purred. matters moved fast. he listened carefully.
'i have been pondering all thee while you have been preaching.
but the subject is no clearer to my mind.
the honourable garment you are wearing, foreign teacher,
has upon one edge of it a number of circular objects that might do duty as buttons,
and on the opposite edge, certain slits in the material probably intended for button holes?

yes, that is so, agreed taylor, deflated.
the crowd were all attention,
text and sermon forgotten.

''the purpose of that strange device i can understand, continued the man fervently.
'it must be to attach the honourable garment in cold or windy weather.
but, foreign teacher, this is what i cannot understand:
\what can be the meaning of those buttons in the middle of the honourable back?

why, yet, chorused the crowd,
in the middle of the back!
hudson had not the lightest idea.

in the middle of the honourable back.
the words echoed to his footsteps as he walked.
they jumped at him as he took off the offending garments
and saw those three useless buttons.
they summed up the waste and annoyance of western dress in an oriental setting
and reminded him of that conversation over the ducks eggs and rice.
another incident clinched his growing realization
 that if he wanted to evangelise beyond the ports he must cease to appear a foreign teacher.
towards the end of july he was summoned before the british consul,
having been cited by the chinese authoritites.
the consul 'said very little, not more than he was obliged top do,
but told me if i continued to violate the treaty his position admitted no respecting of persons,
he must punish me as he would do a merchant. '

taylor knew that if he transformed himself into a chinese, pigtails and all,
he might pass unnoticed.
almost on leaving the consul he ordered a teacher's satin robes and shoes. 

he argued to himself that he had a legal right to travel the interior
because foreign roman catholic priests did so with the tacit consent of the french consul,
even flying the french flag over their stations,
and by the 'most favoured nation' clause of the treaty
the british had a claim to any concession obtained by another signatory government.
not that consular approval eased the lot of the roman catholics.
ten years later taylor described them with a turn of phrase almost churchillian:
'entering by stealth, living in concealment,
pursuing their labours under the greatest disadvantages,
ever and anon meeting with imprisonment, sufferings, tortures and death itself,
they have presented a remarkable instance of fidelity to their calling.'
he did not see why protestants should be found wanting.

native dress involved a black pigtail.
taylor's sandy hair was most unchinese,
and he prepared to concoct a dye.
he took a large bottle of ammonia, and as it was half used and the day was very hot,
loosened the stopper gingerly.
it blew out.
he clamped his hand over the mouth despite the pain
and tried to pick up the stopper to save the expensive liquid.
ammonia spurted out with such force that
'the stream flew into my eyes,
up my nose,
between my lips,
among my hair
and on to my clothes.
the contest was useless. i had to run.'

blinded, in agony, gasping,
he lurched across the courtyard and through the kitchen,
tearing off his spectacles.
'i felt as if on f9ire.
though i staggered about i fortunately got in
and outside the door was a large water jar full of water.
i ducked head and shoulders  and arms into it and it saved me.'
the butt had just received the weekly refill-
a day earlier the level would have been too low to wash off the alkali,
and he would have suffocated....

at 11 pm on 23rd august 1855, the night before setting out to escort parker
most of the way overland to ningpo..
taylor 'resigned my locks to the barber, dyed my hair,
and in the morning had some false hair plaited in with my own,
and a quantity of silk cord according to the chinese custom'.
he now had an entirely bald pate
except for a long tail hanging from the occiput.(back part of the head or skull)
the curly haired fair young man had disappeared.
even eyebrows were black.

..summer 1856...'THE GOOD LORD HAS HITHERTO LED ME BLINDFOLD AS IT WERE
-SHOWN ME STEP BY STEP
AND NOT ONE IN ADVANCE.
His way of getting me out of difficulties has ever proved
far better than any i could devise.'


...burns (an older missionary with whom taylor joined forces) could not secure a preaching hall in swatow but believed an informal medical mission would provide an opening
-a cured mandarin had told them as much.
taylor found the southern heat trying
and since two chinese christian assistants from amoy had appeared
and a captain brown offered a free passage up the coast, he came  north in july 1856 to fetch his medicines.

the voyage made him a new man
-until he saw the charred ruins of the london mission (the mission under whose support taylor went to china) go down. most of his precious instruments and all medical stores in ashes,
thirty thousand of the mission's new testaments too,
but taylor's personal loss vexed and dismayed him,
and shook his confidence in an omnipotent beneficent God.
'my disappointment and trial were very great.'

...taylor set off for ningpo by the canals in the last days of july,
a leisurely journey which renewed his spirit;
part holiday, part evangelistic tour,
delightful because places that had refused his previous ministrations
welcomed him.
'i am very well, as well as ever i was in my life,
i think,
and find my boat as cool and airy as any place can be in hot weather,
and in the evenings i get a bathe,
swimming about with my swimming belt on and enjoy it famously.'

his stock of tracts ran out after a fortnight, at a town called shihmenwan,
where the level of the grand canal precluded further travelling by boat;
in the drought the peasants had siphoned water on to their fields.
a day's journey, 16 miles, would bring him to haining on hangchow bay,
where he could take a junk for ningpo.

the march went wrong from the start.
before sunrise on august 4 taylor hobbled away by himself
in his cramping, blistering chinese shoes,
leaving his new servant, yoh-hsi, to bring on the coolies.
as the first halt, shihmen, after a tedious wait in a teashop,
he saw them straggle in.
their exhaustion was induced by opium.
yoh-hsi wanted to stop at the place all day to visit friends.
taylor refused and walked on.
the coolies threw down the loads before reaching
the south gate to the open countryside.
yoh-shi promised to engage substitutes.

unwisely taylor again went ahead.
at the next stage, chang-wan, he waited.
hour after hour, sipping endless cups of tea,
while vendors shouted their wares outside,
countrymen trudged past loaded from market
and mules kicked and coolies swore.
'i felt somewhat annoyed and but that my feet were blistered
and the afternoon very hot,  
i should have gone back to meet them and urge them on.
at last i concluded that my servant must have gone to his friend's
and would not appear until evening.
but evening came and still there was no sign of them.'

he made enquiries. he secured reasonably convincing evidence
that his party had passed through towards the sea
and he had missed them.
darkness and fatigue precluded hurrying after them that night.
he must find a bed and no one would lodge a foreigner.
he tried the far end of the town
where news of his arrival might not have penetrated,
where the darkness would disguise his features
and he would no be denounced and arrested.

at a miserable low class inn he asked what food they offered
and  was told cold rice and snakes fried in lamp oil.
he did not want awkwardness;
he ordered this horrible collation.
the rice was burnt
and his stomach rebelled before he had emptied half the bowl.

'i suppose i can spend the night here?

the landlord said yes, and produced a large register,
mumbling about unsettled times, authorities' regulations.
'may i ask your respected name?'

my unworthy family name is tai'.

'and your honourable second name?'

my humble name is ia-koh' (the nearest resemblance to james;
hudson was untranslatable).

'ia-koh? what an extraordinary name!
i never heard it before. how do you write it?'

taylor explained the characters and added with a poker face,
'it is a common name in the district i come from.'

the landlord asked questions of his route and then,
'what may be your honourable trade?'

'i do not trade. i exhort people to repentance
and heal the sick without a charge.'

'oh, write down "doctor".'
he closed the book, to taylor's relief.
the landlord's wife spoke up:
we had a daughter with leprosy.
'if you will cure her, you shall have your supper and bed for nothing!'
the total cost was less than the equivalent of a penny-halfpenny.

in declining to attempt an instant cure for leprosy he let slip
that he was a foreigner.
the landlord said in alarm,
'if you must stop here, don't tell me you are a foreigner,
lest i get into trouble.
i shall put down in the book,
'from shanghai, going to ningpo'.'

that night taylor slept in a fetid, airless, ground floor dormitory,
eleven 'beds' of plank laid across stools on the bare earth.
half were already occupied, and the rest filled before midnight,
by snoring chinese;  a close packed, odoriferous nest of
homeless coolies, mean wayfarers, and the heavy smell of opium.
hudson could not undress for fear of theft.
he arranged his paper umbrella as pillow.
despite the close air he soon felt cold.
'the boards were very hard and the mosquitoes very troublesome,
added to which my pillow was too low and the stiff paper was sharp.
to obviate that, i took one of my shoes off
and put in on the umbrella for a pillow
and found it an improvement'.

he rose next morning feeling sick.
nausea worsened during the tedious wait for breakfast.
next he had to haggle wearily because his one coin,
a comparatively high value dollar, had a chip and
they would not give full change.
he lost nearly twenty five per cent,
carrying away 900 little copper 'cash'
tied up in a handkerchief.
after further fruitless enquiries
taylor set out for haining, no more than eight miles,
but most of it under a pitiless sun,
after a bad night's rest, without proper food.

'i got there walking and resting,
wearied and footsore,
and carrying such a heavy load of cash,
it took most of the day.'
his spirit sagged.
when a sharp shower delayed him at the halfway tea shop,
it was only by forced effort he managed
'to speak a little to the people about the truths of the gospel.'

he dragged himself into the northern suburb of haining,
was questioned closely by yamen runners,
tried to follow up a rumour that his bamboo box and bed had been seen.
long after dark, worn out,
he engaged a man to search while he bought food in a cookshop.
'the rice i could not eat so got some rice gruel
and managed a bowl of that.'
a crowd gathered  to watch this unusual foreigner who was actually dressed like a civilised man.
dead tired, taylor preached.

when the searcher returned empty,
they combed the streets for a bed.
two taverns refused because a yamen runner shadowed them.
a third took him and taylor paid off his guide.
the 'police' arrived and once more taylor found himself in the street.

a young man shamed the landlord for his heartless behaviour, and said,
'if we cannot get better lodgings for you, you shall sleep at my house'.
taylor had not noticed his shifty eye.
they went to a tavern which agreed to give a bed.
they brought tea and he threw off his gown,
grateful for shelter at last.

even as he drank, a face, eerie in the miserable candlelight,
peered round the open door.
a cry and a clatter of wooden shoes and bare feet;
before taylor was aware, a crowd had collected to stare and comment.
the landlord hurried forward and begged him to withdraw:
'go and sit in a tea shop until all is quiet'.
the young man led him to a tea shop where they waited until midnight.
once more he followed the fellow,
whose candle lantern could not give adequate warning
of the stones and jagged breaks of the darkened streets and who,
to cap it all, announced that he could not find the tavern.
'he led me about, i feeling every moment i should drop into the earth.'
in a distant part of the town, at about 1 am the man said roughly
that the foreign doctor must fend for himself,
and disappeared into the night.

i minatory dragon scowled dimly from the curved rood of a temple across the road.
taylor staggered towards it and sand down on the steps beneath.
'it was very cold and damp but i could go no further.
i put my money under my head for a pillow,
and for a time could not sleep for exhaustion.
i was just dozing when i was suddenly awakened
by a person by me feeling about and wanting evidently to take my little all
-when i spoke he mad off.
i saw my money would not do there,
so put it in my sleeve and pocket
(the latter could not hold more than a third of it"
and made a pillow of a stone coping
and should have soon been asleep had not the rascal made his appearance again.'

hudson lay still, nerves taut, heart thumping.
the man groped gently. hudson silently
'sought protection from Him who alone was my stay'.

what are you doing?
spoke hudson almost in a whisper.

the man moved back and sat at taylor's feet.
'finding somewhere to sleep, like you, he answered.

'please go to the other side. there is plenty of room.
\you will get more fresh air than by stopping close to me.'

a second beggar crept near.
hudson sat up with his back against the wall.

'you had better lie down and sleep,'the beggars fawned,
'or you will be unable to walk tomorrow.
do not be afraid, we shall not leave you.
we will see no one hurts you'.

listen to me.
i do not want your protection.
i am not a chinese.
i do not rely on stupid idols.
i worship God,.
He is my Father.
i trust in Him.
i know well what you are and what you want,
and i'll keep my eye on you, and i won't sleep.'

one of them went away and returned with a third.
hudson could hear their heavy breathing,
see and smell them in the dark.
he used to say of this period
that he 'fully expected to be murdered in the interior'.
death was very near now:
a quick leap by the three,
a dagger thrust and no questions would be asked.
for an eternity they played cat and mouse grimly in the bitter cold.
if hudson's head nodded, one would rise softly.
hudson would speak and they sit back.
he was not a naturally brave man;
this situation required conscious, deliberate facing if his nerve was not to snap.
'as the night slowly passed on, i felt very weary;
and to keep myself awake, as well as to cheer my mind
i sang several hymns, repeated aloud some portions of scripture,
and engaged in prayer in english,
to the great annoyance of my companions,
who seemed as if they would have given anything to get me to desist.'

this nice piece of poetic justice won the battle.
they left him shortly before dawn and he fell asleep.

he was shaken awake at sunrise by the deceitful young man.
'he was very rude and insisted on my getting up and
paying him for his trouble, and even went so far as to
try to accomplish by force what he wanted.'
it was too much.
the jaded, exhausted hudson taylor lost his temper.
'i seized his arm with such a grasp as he little expected i was capable of,
and dared him to lay a finger upon me again or to annoy me further.'
he did not.
hudson lay still, and angry, until he heard the gun
that signalled the opening of the gates,
when he rose, and the man begged money to buy opium.
after argument hudson consented to give
'him the price of two candles that he said he had burnt while with me.'

two or three hours later he no longer doubted his servant had stolen the baggage and deserted.
gone was the travelling bed;
that could be replaced.
gone were all hudson's spare clothes, his two watches, the surgical instruments which had survived the fire, his concertina, amelia's photograph, two hymn books ('very sorry for the loss') and a bible given by his mother ten years ago. it would appear that the box also contained money.

betrayed, indigent, perplexed and hurt,
taylor realized that he must abandon hope of ningpo
and find his way back to shanhai.
he had reached the end of his tether.
anyone who told him the worst was over would have had his head snapped off.

'it was very hot and my feet were so sore,
each foot having several large blisters,
and i was quite weak and weary to begin with.'
the eight miles to changwan 'seemed very long and took me a long time to walk,
and when i got there i was ready to faint.
i bought some cakes and two eggs and went into a small tea shop
at the very extremity of the long town,
go some hot water, washed myself and bathed my inflamed feet,
had the eggs boiled and made a very nice meal,
the only comfortable one i had had since sunday',
over forty eight hours.

he slept till four and took the road much refreshed.
tension began to ease.
before he had done a mile hudson taylor's anger and pain
dissolved in a realization that he had denied his Lord.
HE HAD NOT PRAYED for guidance or provision
before that awful night in the open on the temple steps.
his loss of temper with the lying young man
was thoroughly unChristlike.
'i felt condemned, too, that i should have been so anxious for my few things,
while the many precious souls around me had caused so little emotion.
i came as a sinner and pleaded the blood of Jesus,
realizing that i was accepted in Him pardoned, cleansed, sanctified
-and oh the love of Jesus, how great i felt it to be!'

he thought the Son of Man who had nowhere to lay His head;
hudson now knew something of that.
he thought of Him at jacob's well,
weary, hungry and thirsty,
yet doing His Father's will;
at calvary, 'and i felt more than ever
i had done before the greatness of that love

which induced Him to leave His home in glory and suffer thus for me.
i contrasted it with the littleness of my love
and was melted in tears'.

floodwaters of emotion surged in. he bathed in the love of Jesus.
four miles flitted by as he sought forgiveness,
confessing that he had resented disasters,
had expected God to order affairs at dictation;
he begged grace to recognize all circumstances
'as necessarily the kindest, wisest, best
because either ordered or permitted by Him'.
prayer poured out, for himself, his friends, his colleague, his wicked servant,
'and before i was aware of it i had WITH A LIGHT HEART
reached my destination...
took a cup of tea, asked about my lost luggage
and spoke of the love of God'.

'at home, he wrote a few weeks later, 'you can never know
what it is to be alone
-absolutely alone,
amidst thousands, as you can in a chinese city,
without one friend, one companion,
everyone looking on you with curiosity,
with contempt, with suspicion or with dislike.
thus to learn what it is to be despised and rejected of men
-of those you wish to benefit,
your motives not understood but suspected
-thus to learn what it is to have nowhere to lay your head,
and then to have the love of Jesus applied to your heart by the Holy Spirit...
 

..he came out to china like any other missionary.
'they promised me a fixed salary before i left england,
a sum was named for my private use;
if it proved insufficient they promised an increase.
they gave me power to draw money,
but for two years my almost monthly repeated question
as to the amount of private salary has been disregarded
and only noticed once, and that as a complaint
that i seemed to be thinking too much about money.
since september '54 i have received nothing from then till this mail, 25 pounds.
that was written from ningpo in december 1856
(a further 25 was said to have gone to swatow and astray;
the agreed sum had been 70 a quarter.)
he would have been destitute had not his expenses fallen sharply
when he adopted chinese dress
and learned to live on a level of bare subsistence;
and had not berger sent continual unsolicited gifts.

the (mission) was in debt. taylor believed no christian,
certainly no christian mission,
should live and work on borrowed money...

during the winter of 1856-7 taylor knew he must resign.
he worried over the future.
'i often wish now i was connected with
some older agonized body than the CES....
'is it right for me to allow my best years to pass over
without some attempt to improve my position
which might leave me at any moment penniless on a foreign shore,
without means to go home and without
any trade or profession to turn to?
...neither a minister nor a doctor, to what society can i look
in case of my own failing me?
...i almost suspect i shall have to come home..

the arrival of berger's 40 by the next mail after the robbery,
(taylor had had the worth of 40 stolen and promptly berger's comes)
however, had planted a seed in his mind which slowly germinated.
in march or april 1857 taylor received another windfall
-from george muller, his hero  of the bristol orphanage
who 'lived by faith'.
(muller had heard of the robbery and the refusal to prosecute
and had promptly, also, sent 40)
muller's gift, what he new of muller's outlook and experiences,
brought to bud the germinating thought.
muller had given spontaneously
because he had learned facts which prompted action
by a man of faith and prayer....

taylor resigned from the CES. he did so in fear and trembling.
'i was not at all sure,
he wrote years later ..
what God would have me to do
or whether He would so meet my need as to
enable me to continue working as before.'
..he wanted 'to give up all my time to the service of evangelization'
and could live on a pittance;
if God did not supply his gifts,
he was ready to undertake 'whatever work might be necessary
to supply myself',
using all spare time for 'more distinctly missionary efforts'.

...one speaking of taylor..'a mystic absorbed in religious dreams,
waiting to have his work revealed'..
not idle, but aimless.
when he had money he spent it on charity to needy chinese,
and then was reduced to sore straits himself.
when the vocation found him
it made him a new man, with iron will and untiring energy'.

..early experience with maria 
he did not escape infection, which induced a high fever
but without a legacy of permanent pox.
miserably ill, he slept fitfully.
in the early hours of october 20th, 'at 3 am i heard a noise
which awoke me and caused me to get up very much alarmed.
you will judge of the state of my nervous system
when i tell you i could not bear the sound of my watch
lying at the other end of the room and had to have it wrapped up.
well i could not get to sleep again and read a little in my bible
and then laid down with my eyes shut but my heart fluttering
like a frightened bird and my mind too excited to sleep;.
all at once i became conscious of the presence of dear maria.
she came in noiselessly as a breath of air
and i felt such tranquillity steal over me -i knew she must be there.
i felt spellbound for a short time but at length
without opening my eyes i put out my hand and
she took it so tenderly and with such a soft warm grasp
that i could not refrain from a look of gratitude.
she motioned me not to speak and put her other hand on my forehead
and i felt the headache which was distracting and the fever, retire
before it, and sink as through the pillow.
whe whispered softly to me not to fear nor be uneasy,
she was my maria and i her dear hudson...'
he slipped from half awake dream into deepest sleep,
to awaken in broad daylight soothed in mind,
the fever broken:
'all my fear in the fever had been that our love would be in vain'.

..a fortnight before the wedding date
the money bag dropped to a single coin; and no mail due.
after a scrappy breakfast they faced starvation.
'we (taylor and his partner) could only betake ourselves to Him
who is a real father
and cannot forget His children's needs...
credit to any extent we might have had,
but that would not have been in accordance
with our principles in the matter of debt.'
they took a clock to a chinese merchant, who promised to buy
-if he could watch it work satisfactorily for a week.
they carried their portable stove to sell as scrap iron
to the foundry across the river, but the bridge of boats
had been swept away and the ferry fare was double their fortune.

famished and disconsolate, they search their house from top to bottom,
unearth a packet of cocoa and brewed it.
they refused an urgent offer of a loan from one of their servants,
telling him, 'our Father will not forget us'.
'though (jones, the partner) spoke with confidence,
our faith was not a little tried as we went into his study and
...cried indeed unto the Lord in our trouble.'
they were yet on their knees when the servant ran in.
'teacher, teacher! here are letters!
days before schedule an unexpected mail brought another gift from berger.

that night hudson held maria's hand specially tight and offered her freedom:
'i cannot hold you to your promise if you would rather draw back.
you see how difficult our life may be at times.'

'have you forgotten? she replied,
i was left an orphan in a far off land.
God has been my Father all thee years.
do you think i shall be afraid to trust Him now?'

...the decision never to employ paid chinese church workers
-those that served, served voluntarily from the same motive as missionaries
who received no fixed salaries;
the tireless emphasis on the supreme importance,
in God's sight. of the 'one wheep' to be sought;
the refusal to baptize except on irrefutable evidence
of genuine, life transforming belief,
thus restricting numbers but minimising the risk of
cluttering the church with 'rice christians'.....

..the influence of maria upon her husband.
her religious development had been more orderly;
she served to steady hudson's faith while he deepened hers.
she came from a pioneering background and never held him back. 
..maria tempered without quenching his zeal,
was largely responsible for the common sense
and balance characteristic of taylor
at the height of his posers.
she made him take holidays.
under the influence of her less mercurial yet gay temperament
he shed those moods of melancholy;
he could discuss every matter with her and forget to be introspective.
he became more assured, grew up;
taylor at 28, forthright as at 22 or 3,
no longer was on the defensive, no more a prig.
(fussiness over trivialities)

...prolonged embarrassments puzzled taylor until it occurred to him that
if God promises to meet all needs,
'the trial of faith is on of the needs which He ministers to and supplies'.
the london years brought tests more sever than any that followed in china.
in conversation thirty years later taylor said,
'as a rule prayer is answered and funds come in,
but if we are kept waiting
the spiritual blessing that is the outcome
is far more precious than
exemption from the trial.'

...he viewed an empire, 'its vast extent, its teeming population,
its spiritual destitution and overwhelming need'
-400 million..and all but a few thousand
ignorant of the name of Christ.
inland china weighed on him.
..'prayer was often the only resources by which
(my)burdened heart could gain any relief'.

organizing the mission-
..searching for working class recruits...
taylor would not mind if his people lacked  formal education.
and he cared not at all what churches they sprang from
if they shared basic evangelical beliefs.
..the problem of financial support rose like an impassable barrier.
an appeal for funds would run counter to taylor's determination
not to deflect support from other missions.
as an alternative he considered Christ's words to his itinerating 70.
'provide neither gold, or silver, nor brass in your purses
and into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter,
enquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go hence'.
HE REALISED THAT THIS, laid down for a limited circumstance,
WOULD LEAD TO DISASTER IF FOLLOWED IN CHINA.
(note: what?! Jesus had the wrong idea of how to fulfill His
commission? is the author really understanding taylor or
superadding his own?)

the other alternative would be to apply the method by which he had financed his
personal endeavours since resignation from the CES to the finance of a mission:
to act in the spirit of our Lord's words in the sixth chapter of matthew:
'seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you
(note: this is the doctrine side of the practice Jesus laid out for His send outs..
an exact match)

..looking back in 1894, at the age of 62, on nearly 30 years of proving
that 'God is sufficient for God's work',
the leader of more than 600 missionaries then active in china said:
'God chose me because i was weak enough.
God does not do His great works by large committees.
He trains somebody to be
quiet enough
and little enough
and then He uses him.'

(reaction to and rationale for the first group of missionaries in what would become the
china inland mission)
..the international settlement erupted in a spate of ridicule,
blended with protests at taylor's 'cruelty'
in taking unmarried ladies inland:
all china had only 14 other european single women,
and they were in hong kong or the treaty ports.
taylor proposed to divorce his ladies from
the refinements of western civilisation
and to sacrifice their safety and their modesty
in the appalling uncertainties of the interior.
\on the altar of his ridiculous ambition.

shanghai missionaries, admiring faith and courage,
did not conceal conviction that
the misguided taylor's china inland mission
would have a life solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
the americans..were more friendly..

the newspapers echoed the opinion of merchants, consular officials, opium traders.
'mr. taylor must be either a madman or a knave,
and there is no reason to believe him a madman.
taylor appeared unruffled.
..'nothing said about it!
no reference to any unfriendliness.
he did pass over things so graciously-let them drop.

..taylor...recognized that 'merely to put on their dress
and to act regardless of their thought and feelings,
is to make a burlesque of the whole matter',
but to become chinese to the chinese was essential.
taylor said...'the foreign dress and carriage of missionaries
(to a certain extent affected by some of their pupils and converts),
the foreign appearance of chapels
and indeed the foreign air imparted to everything connected
with their work has seriously hindered the
rapid dissemination of the Truth among the chinese.
and why should a foreign aspect be given to christianity?...
it is not the denationalisation but the christianisation
of these people we seek.
we wish to see...men and women truly christian but
truly chinese in every right sense.
we wish to see churches of such believers
presided over by pastors and officers of their own countrymen,
worshipping God in their own tongue,
in edifices of a thoroughly native style'.

maria taylor schooled the women missionaries
as to the behavior that need to match the outward appearance..
'the nearer we come to the chinese in outward appearance,
the more severely will any breach of priority according
to their standards be criticized.
i must never be guilty, for example,
of taking my husband's arm out of doors!
and in fifty or a hundred ways we may, without great watchfulness,
shock the chinese by what would seem to them
grossly immodest and unfeminine conduct.'

...a young recruit in yangchow..saw taylor as a
'toiling, burdened' christian.
taylor knew it.
he confessed to his mother,
'i cannot tell you how i am buffeted sometimes by temptation.
i never knew how bad a heart i had.
..maria managed to endure the summer heat
by taking frequent cool baths during the night.
on july 5th hudson said goodnight and went to sleep...
maria had a bath in the alcove of her room.
coming out she threw herself on the bed unclothed
to rest a few moments, and fell asleep.
had the curtain been down, louise might have seen maria's danger,
for the temperature suddenly changed.
'it became very cold and windy,
and my darling awoke conscious that she had taken a chill.'

a sharp attack of cholera supervened.
she said afterwards,
'the  pains of labour would be a relief compared with what i
suffered then. '
she did not rouse hudson or louise, who would have fetched him.

in the morning hudson was shocked at the change.

'my darling, how could you be so thoughtless, so unkind,
as to let me sleep when you were suffering so?'

'don't say so. i couldn't bear to diminish, even by an hour,
your little chance to sleep.'

..at 4 am on this saturday july 23rd 1870, he found maria sleeping.
he crept into the next room to prepare her food.
she awoke and was sick.
'this alarmed me. i found the head very hot again,
and with the cold well water affused it.
i soon stayed the sickness so that by 4:30 am she was able to
take part of her food.

'by this time it was dawn, and the sunlight revealed what the
candle had hidden, the death like hue of her countenance.
even my love could not deny, not her danger,
but that she was actually dying.
as soon as i felt sufficiently composed i said to her,
-'my darling, are you conscious that you are dying?
 she replied with evident surprise, dying?
do you thing so? what makes you think so?
-i can see it, darling.
what is making me die?
-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.
i am so sorry.
-you are not sorry to go to be with Jesus?
oh, no! (i shall never forget the look she gave me,
as looking right into my eyes, she said)
it's not that. you know, darling, that for ten years past
there has not been a cloud between me and my saviour.
(i know that what she said was perfectly true.)
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.

she gave him many kisses and more for the children.
she remembered that freddie had no bible
and told hudson to get him one as her last present.
the household silently gathered.
they brought little charley and she kissed him.

she got weaker. hudson asked her if she had any pain,
and she said no.

at about 7:30 she sank into unconsciousness.
a short spasm shook her at 7:45 and she lay still again,
breathing gently.
...soon after nine the breathing sank lower.
hudson knelt down.
with full heart..he '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.

the breathing stopped at 9:20.
'when she was really gone, he just went out into another room
-some time before he returned.
it seemed that as though the victory had been won
-alone with God.
he seemed calmer then..

the great heat compelled that she should be buried that evening.
hudson went himself to buy the coffin.
as they coffined her he spoke the words,
'the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away.
blessed be the name of the Lord.'

at the very last when she was in her coffin
taking the last long look.
he had to rush away again upstairs
to be alone for a time.'

his baby. his wife.
'my heart WELLS UP with joy and gratitude for their unutterable bliss,
though nigh to breaking.
our Jesus hath done all things well.'

end