Hello, this is Gary Dorman sitting in for Harold Hall, and today on the Radio Reading Circle, we're going to begin a book entitled Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret, published by Discovery House Publishers, affiliated with Radio Bible Class in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret was first published in 1932 by the China Inland Mission, now Overseas Missionary Fellowship. This revision by Greg Lewis is authorized by Overseas Missionary Fellowship. Discovery House books are distributed to the trade by Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee. When the China Inland Mission withdrew from China in 1951 and started work in other Asian countries, its name was changed to the Overseas Missionary Fellowship. Together with many other like-minded mission groups, OMF seeks to witness to the truth so clearly established in this story of Hudson Taylor's life. God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supplies. In our day, when the world closely and curiously watches every political and military development in the great country of China, this is the story of one Westerner who not only understood China, but changed its history. Millions of Christians in China today can trace their spiritual lineage to the life and work of Hudson Taylor. In a day when the spiritual, moral, and financial failures of some of our culture's most visible Christian leaders have embarrassed the church and damaged the cause of faith, Hudson Taylor's story provides a startling, refreshing, and inspiring contrast. For it is a story of a Christian giant who led by serving, who diligently, carefully, protected his integrity, who constantly, purposefully, avoided personal material gain, and who refused even to take offerings in meetings where he spoke about his work because he wanted to depend entirely on God's provision for both his personal needs and the needs of his ministry. In a day when Christian missionary organizations around the world are striving for nationalization of their work, this is the story of a man whose mission organization held those goals more than a century ago. In a day when much of the Christian church still debates the role of women in spiritual leadership, this is the story of a man who so respected the strength, potential, leadership, and faith of women that he ignored the conventions of his time to give unprecedented responsibilities and opportunities to the women of his mission. This is the story of a man who understood the basic principles of cross-cultural communications a century before our communication experts even began using the term. This is also a story of a man in a formal, unemotional age who managed to be a romantic lover and an affectionate father. It's the story of a man who witnessed firsthand and battled against the major crisis of drug addiction and homelessness. It's the story of a man who experienced the frustration of physical suffering and wrestled with the pain of personal grief. It's a story of one man who discovered a faith and a secret that enabled him to accomplish the impossible. Could Hudson Taylor's story be relevant to readers today? I decided that it was. More than a century before Richard Nixon re-established diplomatic ties between the United States and China and opened up Communist China to the Western world, a young Britisher landed in Shanghai. Barely twenty years of age, he had no university degree. He was sent by no government official. He arrived unexpected and unannounced. No one came to meet his ship. No one in China even knew his name. But Hudson Taylor was the man who opened the great country of China to the Western world for the first time. And the legacy of his life and work continues today in the lives of millions of people throughout China and around the world. Hudson Taylor was not some holy hermit. He was a successful professional, a family man. He was a man of common sense, living a life of constant change in the company of many interesting and varied people. He wasn't an imposing man at all, small in stature and far from strong. He had to live with physical limitations. Next to a loving Christian family, the only real advantage he had in his early years was the experience he gained from supporting himself from the time he was about 16. He was a hard worker. a trained medical assistant. He was able to care for a baby, cook a dinner, keep accounts, and comfort the sick and sorrowing. Yet, he was also an innovative leader, an organizer, and a skillful delegator who provided spiritual leadership and inspiration to thoughtful men and women the world over. Above all, he determined to test the promises of God. In doing so, he overcame difficulties few men have ever had to encounter. His life work changed the world he lived in and has had an impact on millions of people. What was the secret of Hudson Taylor's life? What was it that enabled one man to make such a great and lasting impact? That's what we're going to discover in the pages that follow. Chapter 1. The year is 1832 to 1850. James Hudson Taylor never appeared to be an exceptional child. Though his father had the education requirements to be a pharmacist, Hudson's parents decided not to send him to school until he was 11. While he was a sickly child, missing at least one day of school almost every week because of illness, he quickly learned to read and showed a proficiency in math. But at the age of 13, after just two years of formal schooling, Hudson gave it up to help in his father's shop in the town of Barnsley in Yorkshire, England. Born in 1832 to devoutly religious parents, Hudson heard early and often the gospel story of Jesus, the only son of God, who came to earth and died so that people's sins could be forgiven. And with a childlike faith, the young boy accepted what his parents taught him simply because they believed it. As a teenager, however, Hudson began to question the reality of the Bible. And when at the age of 15 he took a junior clerk position in a local bank and became exposed for the first time to the influence and opinions of older and more skeptical friends, Hudson abandoned the Christian faith and the teaching of his family. Even after eyestrain forced him to give up accounting and he again began working with his father, his doubts about Christianity continued. Though he wasn't outwardly rebellious, his parents recognized his spiritual struggle and worried about their son. Then, at age 17, something happened. Hudson later recorded the events of that day. On a day I can never forget, my dear mother being absent from home, visiting relatives some distance away, I had a holiday. and in the afternoon looked through my father's library to find some book with which to while away the unoccupied hours. Nothing attracted me. I turned over a basket of pamphlets and selected from amongst them a gospel tract that looked interesting, saying to myself, There will be a story at the commencement and a sermon or moral at the close. I will take the former and leave the latter for those who like it. I sat down to read the book in an utterly unconcerned state of mind. believing indeed at the time that if there were any salvation it was not for me, and with distinct intention to put away the tract as soon as it should become prosy. I may say that it was not uncommon in those days to call conversion becoming serious, and judging by the faces of some of its professors it appeared to be a very serious matter indeed. Would it not be well if the people of God had always tell-tale faces? evincing the blessing and gladness of salvation so clearly that unconverted people might have to call conversion becoming joyful instead of becoming serious? Little did I know at the time what was going on in the heart of my dear mother 70 or 80 miles away. She rose from the dinner table that afternoon with an intense yearning for the conversion of her boy and feeling that, absent from home and having more leisure than she could otherwise secure, A special opportunity was afforded her of pleading with God on my behalf. She went to her room and turned the key in the door, resolved not to leave that spot until her prayers were answered. Hour after hour that dear mother pleaded until at length she could pray no longer, but was constrained to praise God for that which His Spirit taught her had already been accomplished, the conversion of her only son. I, in the meantime, had been led in the way I have mentioned to take up this little track, and while reading it was struck with the phrase, the finished work of Christ. Why did the author use this expression? Immediately the words, it is finished, suggested themselves to my mind. What was finished? And I at once replied, a full and perfect atonement for sin. The debt was paid for our sins and not ours only. but also the sins of the whole world. Then came the further thought. If the whole work was finished and the whole debt paid, what is there left for me to do? 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 accept this Savior and His salvation. When mother returned a fortnight later, I was first to meet her at the door and to tell her I had Such glad news to give! I can almost feel that dear mother's arms around my neck as she pressed me to her heart and said, I know, my boy. I've been rejoicing for a fortnight in the glad tidings you have to tell, and went on to tell the incident mentioned above. You will agree with me that it would be strange indeed if I were not a believer in the power of prayer. Nor was this all. Some time later, I picked up a pocketbook exactly like my own, and thinking it was mine, opened it. The lines that caught my eye were an entry in a little diary belonging to my sister, who was four years younger, to the effect that she would give herself daily to prayer until God should answer in the conversion of her brother. One month later, the Lord was pleased to turn me from darkness to light. Brought up in such a circle and saved under such circumstances, it was perhaps natural that from the commencement of my Christian life I was led to feel that the promises were very real and that prayer was a sober matter of fact, transacting business with God, whether on one's own behalf or on the behalf of those of whom one sought his blessing. Without ever becoming the kind of serious Christian he thought so appealing, Hudson tried never to take his faith lightly. Like most young Christians, he would sometimes fall to temptation and feel discouraged by his continuing weakness. but he never let himself feel satisfied with an up-and-down spiritual life. He longed for a better, more complete relationship with God, and one particular afternoon he began to pray about that longing. Well do I remember how in the gladness of my heart I poured out my soul before God, again and again confessing my grateful love to Him who had done everything for me, who had saved me when I had given up all hope and even desire for salvation, I besought Him to give me some work to do for Him as an outlet for love and gratitude. Well do I remember as I put myself, my life, my friends, my all upon the altar, the deep solemnity that came over my soul with the assurance that my offering was accepted. The presence of God became unutterably real and blessed, and I remember stretching myself on the ground and lying there before Him with unspeakable awe and unspeakable joy. For what service I was accepted I knew not, but a deep consciousness that I was not my own took possession of me which has never since been effaced." Though he had committed his entire life to God, Husson continued to struggle with times of failure and discouragement. It was in one such experience of defeat and discouragement that he called out to God for help. He so wanted to live a life pleasing to God in every way that he felt he would go anywhere, do anything, suffer however the Lord asked, if only God would give him the assurance of his clear direction. Never shall I forget, he wrote long after, the feeling that came over me then. Words could not describe it. I felt I was in the presence of God, entering into a covenant with the Almighty. I felt as though I wished to withdraw my promise, but could not. Something seemed to say, your prayer is answered. Your conditions are accepted. And from that time, the conviction has never left me that I was called to China. Hudson Taylor's immediate response to what he clearly felt was God's calling for him was simple and practical. From that day, he began to prepare for a life that would call for physical endurance. He took more exercise in the open air, exchanged his feather bed for a hard mattress, and carefully watched his diet. Instead of going to church twice on Sunday, he gave up the evening to visit in the poorest parts of town, distributing tracts and holding cottage meetings. In crowded lodging house kitchens, he became a welcome figure, and even on the race course, his bright face and kindly words opened the way for him to share his faith. The more he talked about God to others, the more he realized he needed to know. So he began devoting even more time to prayer and personal Bible study. And of course, if he planned to go to China, he needed to learn Chinese. But a rare book of Chinese grammar would have cost him more than $20, and the Chinese-English dictionary at least $75. He could afford neither. So he bought a copy of the Gospel of Luke in Chinese. By patiently comparing brief verses with their equivalent in English, he uncovered the meanings of more than 600 characters. And these he learned and made into a dictionary of his own. I have begun to get up at five in the morning, he wrote to his sister at school, and find it necessary to go to bed early. I must study if I am to go to China. I am fully decided to go and am making every preparation I can. I intended to rub up my Latin and learn Greek and the rudiments of Hebrew and get as much general information as possible. I need your prayers. Several years working alongside his father in preparing prescriptions had given Hudson an interest in medicine. So when he heard that a physician in the seaside city of Hall needed an assistant, Hudson applied for the job and was accepted. Though this meant he had to move away from home, he was able to move in for a time with an aunt who lived in Hall and enjoyed all the benefits of home. Hudson's employer, Dr. Hardy, paid him a salary adequate for covering his personal expenses. The young assistant gave 10% of his income to the work of God and devoted his own time on Sunday evenings to evangelistic work in the poorest part of town. And the more exposed he became to the needs of the poor he met, the more seriously he began to think about his own comfortable lifestyle. If he spent less on himself, would he find even greater joy in being able to give more to others? Hudson decided to live out an experiment and try to answer that question. On the outskirts of town, beyond some vacant lots, sat a double row of cottages bordering a narrow canal in a neighborhood referred to as Drainside. The canal was really just a deep ditch into which the people of Drainside tossed their rubbish and sewage to be carried away with the tide. The cottages, like peas in a pod, followed the winding drain for a half mile. Each identical house had one door and two windows. And it was for a rented room in one of these small shacks that Hudson Taylor left his aunt's pleasant home. Mrs. Finch, Hudson's new landlady, was a true Christian and delighted to have the young doctor under her roof. She did her best to make the chamber clean and comfortable, polishing the fireplace opposite the window and making up the bed in the corner farthest from the door. A plain wooden table and a chair or two completed the appointments. The room was only 12 feet square and was situated on the first floor of the bungalow, opening right out into the family kitchen. From Hudson's lone window, he could look across the drain to a pub whose lights were useful on dark nights shining across the mud and water of the drain. In addition to his rather dreary surroundings, Hudson's move to Drainside required him to provide his own meals. This meant that he bought his meager supplies as he returned from surgery, and rarely sat down to a proper supper. His walks were solitary, his evenings spent alone, and Sundays brought long hours of work, either in his new neighborhood or among the crowds who frequented the Humber Dock. Having now the twofold object in view, he recalled, of accustoming myself to endure hardness, and of economizing in order to help those among whom I was laboring in the gospel. I soon found that I could live upon very much less than I had previously thought possible. Butter, milk, and other luxuries I ceased to use, and found that by living mainly on oatmeal and rice, with occasional variations, a very small sum was sufficient for my needs. In this way, I had more than two-thirds of my income available for other purposes. And my experience was that the less I spent on myself, and the more I gave to others, the fuller of happiness and blessing did my soul become. It was during this time at Drainside that Hudson gained a deeper, more painful understanding of the sacrifice that would be required to go to China. For it had been almost two years since he'd made the acquaintance of a talented and beautiful young music teacher from his sister Amelia's school, and Hudson had fallen in love. Though the girl was a Christian, she didn't feel at all called to the mission field. On more than one occasion when they were talking about his plans, she asked Hudson if he couldn't serve God just as well at home as in China. But Hudson was sure of God's call. He was also deeply in love, and since she had never said she wouldn't be willing to go with him, he hoped and prayed that she would soon feel the same call he did. But just weeks after his move to Drainside, he got the final, heart-breaking word. She would not go to China. Hudson confided in a letter to his sister Amelia, For some days I was as wretched as a heart could wish. It seemed as if I had no power in prayer, nor relish for it. And instead of throwing my care on him, I kept it all to myself until I could endure it no longer. Temptation gripped him, asking, Why should you go to China after all? Why toil and suffer all your life for an ideal of duty? Give it up now while you can yet win her. Earn a proper living like everybody else and serve the Lord at home, for you can win her yet." Love pleaded hard. Then, as he told his sister, in the afternoon as I was sitting alone in the surgery, I began to reflect on the love of God. His goodness and my return, the number of blessings He has granted me, and how small my trials are compared with those some are called to endure. He thoroughly softened and humbled me. His love melted my icy frostbound soul, and sincerely did I pray for pardon for my ungrateful conduct and had a wonderful manifestation of the love of God. Yes, He has humbled me and shown me what I am. revealing himself as a present, a very present help in time of trouble. And though he does not deprive me of feeling in my trial, he enables me to sing, yet will I rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. Now I am happy in my Savior's love. I can thank him for all, even the most painful experiences of the past, and trust him without fear for all that is to come. The year 1851. I never made a sacrifice, said Hudson Taylor in later years, looking back over a life that any objective observer would see as filled with self-denial. Yet he meant what he said because his experience had taught him that whenever he made any sacrifice for God, his compensation was so full and overwhelming that giving up seemed more like receiving. And that was a lasting lesson he began to learn through some memorable experiences that winter at Rainside. No matter what sacrifice he made, the reward was greater. Despite the heartbreak of his lost love and an environment marked by bleak poverty, his spirit soared. He said, unspeakable joy all day long and every day was my happy experience. God, even my God, was a living, bright reality. and all I had to do was joyful service." Even the tone of his letters changed, becoming less introspective and more focused on his plans for the future. China once more filled his thoughts. He felt and expressed even deeper concern for the spiritual condition of those who didn't know Christ as he did. Yet, despite his positive spirit, Hudson's mother worried about her son, his living conditions, and his health. especially after receiving reports from others that he looked pale and thin. When she wrote asking about his health, he responded in January, I am sorry you make yourself anxious about me. I think it is because I've begun to wear a larger coat than everybody says. How poorly and thin you look. He went on to assure that he had recovered quickly from a bad cold and was now healthy and taking care of himself. Evidently, his mother wasn't completely satisfied. She even began to worry about the rigors of his planned missionary services to China. So he wrote again in an attempt to allay her concern about his present and his future. Do not let anything unsettle you, dear mother. Missionary work is indeed the noblest any mortal can engage in. We certainly cannot be insensible to the ties of nature, but should we not rejoice when we have anything we can give for the Savior? As to my health, I think I was never so well and hearty in my life. The winds here are extremely searching, but as I always wrap up well, I'm pretty secure. The cold weather gives me a good appetite, and it would be dear economy to stent myself. So I take as much plain, substantial food as I need, but waste nothing on luxuries. I found some brown biscuits which are really as cheap as bread, 18 pence a stone, and much nicer. For breakfast, I have biscuit and herring, which is cheaper than butter. Three for a penny and half of one is enough, with coffee. For dinner, I have at present a prune and an apple pie. Prunes are two or three pence a pound and apples ten pence a peck. I use no sugar, but loaf, which I powder. And at four pence, half penny a pound, I find it is cheaper than a coarser kind. Sometimes I have roast potato and tongue, which is as inexpensive as any other meat. For tea, I have biscuit and apples. I take no supper, or occasionally a little biscuit and apple. Sometimes I have rice pudding, a few peas boiled instead of potatoes, and now and then some fish. By being wide awake, I can get cheese at four pence to six pence a pound that is better than we often have at home for eight pence. Now I see rhubarb and lettuce in the market, so I shall soon have another change. I pickled a penny red cabbage with three half pence worth of vinegar, which made me a large jar full. So you see, at little expense I enjoy many comforts. To these, at a home where every want is anticipated, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding, and if I were not happy and contented, I should deserve to be miserable. In a letter that he is writing to his mother in January of 1851, he writes, Continue to pray for me, dear mother, though comfortable as regards temporal matters and happy, and thankful, I feel I need your prayers. O Mother, I cannot tell you, I cannot describe how I long to be a missionary, to carry the glad tidings to poor perishing sinners, to spend and be spent for him who died for me. Think, Mother, of twelve millions A number so great it is impossible to realize it. Yes, 12 million souls in China. Every year passing without God and without hope into eternity. Oh, let us look with compassion on this multitude. God has been merciful to us. Let us be like Him. I must conclude, would you not give up all for Jesus who died for you? Yes, Mother, I know you would. God be with you and comfort you. Must I leave as soon as I can save money to go? I feel as if I could not live if something is not done for China." Yet even though Hudson longed to go to the Orient and to go at once, he wasn't entirely sure he was ready for the challenge. He wrote more of that winter in the little room at Drainside. To me, it was a very grave matter to contemplate going out to China, far from human aid, there to depend on the living God alone for protection, supplies, and help of every kind. I felt that one's spiritual muscles required strengthening for such an undertaking. There was no doubt that if faith did not fail, God would not fail. But what if one's faith should prove insufficient? I had not at that time learned that even if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself. It was consequently a very serious matter to my mind, not whether he was faithful, but whether I had strong enough faith to warrant my embarking on the enterprise set before me. When I get out to China, I thought to myself, I shall have no claim on anyone for anything. My only claim will be on God. How important to learn before leaving England to move man through prayer, through God, and by prayer alone. Hudson Taylor believed that the Bible said that faith could move mountains. But he wondered if his faith was yet strong enough to do the job. If it needed to grow, he decided he ought to exercise it. So that's what he did. To learn before leaving England to move man through God by prayer alone, that was his goal. And before long, he came to see a simple, natural way to practice this exercise of his faith. He wrote of this lesson. At hall, my kind employer wished me to remind him whenever my salary became due. This I determined not to do directly, but to ask that God would bring the fact to his recollection, and thus encourage me by answering prayer. At one time, as the day drew near for the payment of a porter's salary, I was as usual much in prayer about it. The time arrived, but Dr. Hardy made no allusion to the matter. I continued praying. Days passed on. And he did not remember until at length on settling up my weekly accounts on Saturday night, I found myself possessed of only one remaining coin, a half-crown piece. Still, I had hitherto known no lack, and I continued praying. That Sunday was a very happy one. As usual, my heart was full and brimming over with blessings. After attending divine service in the morning, my afternoons and evenings were taken up with gospel work in the various lodging houses I was accustomed to visit in the lowest part of the town. At such times, it almost seemed to me as if heaven were begun low, and that all that could be looked for was an enlargement of one's capacity for joy, not a truer feeling than I possessed. After concluding my last service about ten o'clock that night, A poor man asked me to go and pray with his wife, saying that she was dying. I readily agreed, and on the way asked him why he had not sent for the priest, as his accent told me he was an Irishman. He had done so, he said, but the priest refused to come without payment of eighteen pence, which the man did not possess as the family was starving. Immediately it occurred to my mind that all the money I had in the world was the solitary half-crown, and that it was in one coin Moreover, that while the basin of watered gruel I usually took for supper was awaiting me, and there was sufficient in the house for breakfast in the morning, I certainly had nothing for dinner the next day. Somehow or other there was once a stoppage in the flow of joy in my heart. But instead of reproving myself, I began to reprove the poor man, telling him that it was very wrong to have allowed matters to get into such a state as he had described, and that he ought to have applied to the retrieving officer. His answer was that he had done so, and was told to come at eleven o'clock the next morning, but that he feared his wife might not live into the night. Ah, thought I, if only I had two shillings and a sixpence instead of this half-crown, how gladly I would give these poor people a shilling. But to part with a half-crown was far from my thoughts. I little dreamed that the truth of the matter simply was that I could trust God plus one and sixpence. but was not prepared to trust him only without any money in all my pockets. My conductor led me into the court, down which I followed him with some degree of nervousness. I had found myself there before, and on my last visit had been roughly handled. Up a miserable flight of stairs into a wretched room he led me. And oh, what a sight there presented itself! Four or five children stood about. their sunken cheeks and temples telling unmistakably the story of slow starvation. And lying on a wretched pallet was a poor, exhausted mother with a tiny infant, thirty-six hours old, moaning rather than crying at her side. Ah, thought I, if I had two shillings and a sixpence instead of a half crown, how gladly should they have one and sixpence of it? But still a wretched unbelief prevented me from obeying the impulse to relieve their distress at the cost of all I possessed. It will scarcely seem strange that I was unable to say much to comfort these poor people. I needed comfort myself. I began to tell them, however, that they must not be cast down, that though their circumstances were very distressing, there was a kind and loving Father in heaven. But something within me cried, You hypocrite! telling these unconverted people about a kind and loving Father in heaven, and not prepared yourself to trust Him without half a crown. I nearly choked. How glad would I have compromised with conscience if I had a florin and a sixpence. I would have given the florin thankfully and kept the rest, but I was not yet prepared to trust in God alone without the sixpence. To talk was impossible under these circumstances. Yet strange to say, I thought I should have no difficulty in praying. Praying was a delightful occupation in those days. Time thus spent never seemed wearisome, and I knew no lack of words. I seemed to think that all I should have to do would be to kneel down and pray, and that relief would come to them and to myself together. You asked me to come and pray with your wife, I said to the man. Let us pray, and I knelt down, but no sooner had I opened my lips with our Father, who art in heaven. Then conscience said within, Dare you mock God? Dare you kneel down and call him Father, with a half-crown in your pocket? Such a time of conflict then came upon me as I had never experienced before. How I got through that form of prayer I know not, and whether the words uttered were connected or disconnected I don't even know. But I arose from my knees in great distress of mind. The poor father turned to me and said, You see what a terrible state we are in, sir. If you can help us, for God's sake, do. At that moment the word flashed into my mind, Give to him that asketh of thee, and in the word of a king there is power. I put my hand into my pocket, and slowly drawing out the half crown, gave it to the man, telling him that it might seem a small matter for me to relieve them. seeing that I was comparatively well off. But in that parting with that coin, I was giving him all. But that way, I had been trying to tell him that it was indeed true. God really was a father and might be trusted. Oh, how the joy came back in full tide to my heart. I could say anything and feel it then, and the hindrance to blessing was gone. Gone, I trust forever. Not only was the poor woman's life saved, but my life as I fully realized that had been saved too. It might have been a wreck, would have been probably as a Christian life, had not grace at that time conquered and the striving of God's Spirit been obeyed. I well remembered that night as I went home to my lodging how my heart was as light as my pocket. The dark, deserted streets resounded with a hymn of praise that I could not restrain. When I took my basin of gruel before retiring, I would not have exchanged it for a prince's feast. Reminding the Lord as I knelt at my bedside of his own word, he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord. I asked him not to let my loan be a long one, or I should have no dinner the next day. And with peace within and peace without, I spent a happy, restful night. Next morning my plate of porridge remained for breakfast. And before it was finished, the postman's knock was heard at the door. I was not in the habit of receiving letters on Monday, as my parents and most of my friends refrained from posting on Saturday, so that I was somewhat surprised when the landlady came in holding a letter or packet in her wet hand, covered by her apron. I looked at the letter, but could not make out the handwriting. It was either a strange hand or a feigned one, and the postmark was blurred. Where it came from, I could not tell. On opening the envelope I found nothing written within, but inside a sheet of blank paper was folded a pair of kid gloves, from which, as I opened them in astonishment, half a sovereign fell to the ground. Praise the Lord! I exclaimed. Four hundred percent for twelve hours' investment! How glad the merchants of Hall would be if they could lend their money at such a rate of interest! Then and there I determined that a bank that could not break should have my savings or earnings as the case might be, a determination I've not yet learned to regret. I cannot tell you how often my mind has recurred to this incident or all the help it has been to me in circumstances of difficulty. If we are faithful to God in little things, we shall gain experience and strength that will be helpful to us in the more serious trials of life. But this was not the end of the story, nor was it the only answer to prayer that was to confirm the strength and readiness of Hudson Taylor's faith at that time. The conclusion of the story is told in his own words. This remarkable and gracious deliverance was a great joy to me as well as a strong confirmation of faith. But of course ten shillings, however economically used, will not go very far, and it was nonetheless necessary to continue in prayer, asking that the larger supply, which was still due, might be remembered and paid. All my petitions, however, appeared to remain unanswered. And before a fortnight elapsed, I found myself pretty much in the same position that I had occupied on the Saturday night earlier, that one that was made so memorable. Meanwhile, I continued pleading with God more and more earnestly that he would himself remind Dr. Hardy that my salary was due. Of course, it was not want of money that distressed me. That could have been had at any time for the asking. The question uppermost in my mind was, can I go to China, or will my want of faith and power with God prove so serious an obstacle as to preclude my entering upon this much-prized service? As the week drew to a close, I felt exceedingly embarrassed. There was not only myself to consider. On Saturday night, a payment would be due to my Christian landlady, which I knew she could not dispense with. Ought I not, for her sake? to speak about the matter of the salary, yet to do so would be, to myself at any rate, the admission that I was not fitted to undertake a missionary enterprise. I gave nearly the whole of Thursday and Friday, all the time not occupied in my necessary employment, to earnest wrestling with God in prayer. But, still on Saturday morning, I was in the same position as before, and now my earnest cry was for guidance as to whether I should still continue to wait the Father's As far as I could judge, I received the assurance that to wait his time was best, and that God, in some way or another, would interpose on my behalf. So I waited, my heart being now at rest and the burden gone. About five o'clock that Saturday afternoon, when Dr. Hardy had finished writing his prescriptions, his last circuit for the day being done, he threw himself back in his armchair as he was wont and began to speak of the things of God. He was a truly Christian man, and many seasons of happy fellowship we had together. I was busily watching at the time a pan in which a decoction was boiling that required a good deal of attention. It was indeed fortunate for me that it was so, for without any obvious connection with what had been going on, all at once he said, By the way, Taylor, is your salary due again? My emotion may be imagined. I had to swallow two or three times before I could answer. With my eye fixed on the pan and my back to the doctor, I told him as quietly as I could that it was overdue some little time. How thankful I felt at that moment. God surely had heard my prayer and caused him in this time of great need to remember the salary without any word or suggestion from me. Oh, I'm so sorry you did not remind me, he replied. You know how busy I am and I wish I had thought of it a little sooner for only this afternoon I sent all the money I had to the bank. Otherwise I would pay you at once. It is impossible to describe the revulsion of feeling caused by this unexpected statement. I knew not what to do. Fortunately for me the pan boiled up and I had a good reason for rushing with it from the room. Glad indeed I was to keep out of sight until Dr. Hardy had returned to his house. and most thankful he had not perceived my emotion. As soon as he was gone, I had to seek my little sanctum and pour out my heart before the Lord before calmness, and more than calmness, thankfulness and joy were restored. I felt that God had his own way and was not going to fail me. I had sought to know his early will in the day, and as far as I could judge, had received guidance to wait patiently. And now God was going to work for me in some other way. That evening was spent, as my Saturday evenings usually were, in reading the word and preparing the subject on which I expected to speak in the various lodging houses on the morrow. I waited, perhaps a little longer than usual. At last, about ten o'clock, I put on my overcoat and was preparing to leave for home, rather thankful to know that by that time I should have to let myself in with the latchkey, as my landlady retired early. There was certainly no help for that night. but perhaps God would interpose for me by Monday and I might be able to pay my landlady early in the week the money I would have given her before had it been possible. Just as I was about to turn down the gas I heard the doctor step in the garden that lay between the dwelling house and surgery. He was laughing to himself heartily as though greatly amused. Entering the surgery he asked for the ledger and told me that strange to say one of his richest patients had just come to him to pay his doctor bill. Was it not an odd thing to do? It never struck me that it might have had some bearing on my case or I might have been embarrassed. Looking at it simply from the position of an uninterested spectator, I also was highly amused that a man rolling in wealth should come after ten o'clock at night to pay a bill which he could any day have met by a check with the greatest ease. It appeared that, somehow or other, he could not rest with this on his mind. and had been constrained to come at that unusual hour to discharge his liability. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. SWRB makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available, free and for sale, in audio, video, and printed formats. Our many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog, Thank you. by phone at 780-450-3730 by fax at 780-468-1096 or by mail at 4710-37A Edmonton, that's E-D-M-O-N-T-O-N Alberta, abbreviated capital A, capital B, Canada, T6L3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Kelvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart. From his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since He condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God. For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle was adopted by the papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying His word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The Prophet's words, then, are very important, when he says that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind, as though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.