We have had another typhoon, so to speak, not as prolonged as the literal one nearly two years ago, but at least equally dangerous to our lives and more terrible while it lasted. I believe God will bring his own glory out of this experience, and I hope it will tend to the furtherance of the gospel." The negotiations were long and difficult before the Yangzhou house was repaired and the missionaries permitted to return. But when they did, they received quite a reception. and it was with thankfulness that Hudson was able to write. The results of this case will in all probability greatly facilitate work in the interior, but it may have been the family life and friendly spirit of the missionaries that gradually disarmed suspicion. Actions speak louder than words, and neighbors had something to think over when the children were brought back after all that had happened and when they learned that Maria was about to give birth again. Despite the terror of their earlier exit from the city, she wrote to Mrs. Berger on their return to Yangzhou, saying, In this again God has given me the desire of my heart, for I thought that if safety to my infant permitted it, I would rather it were born in this city, in this house, in this very room than in any other place. Your own beautiful home not accepted in which I have been so tenderly cared for, and the comforts and luxuries of which I know so well how to appreciate. The arrival of a fourth son to Maria and Hudson indeed was a testimony to their Yangzhou neighbors. So was the speedy recovery of all who had been injured in the riot. As a result, the innkeeper who had first received them in the city, and two others who had dared much to befriend them during the riot, soon confessed belief in Christ and became candidates for baptism. With great relief, Hudson and Maria assumed that the Yangzhou incident was over and done with. But that assumption, too, turned out to be wrong. 1868-69 During the turbulent summer in Yangzhou, Hudson sent a verbal message to the British Consul to inform him of the danger the missionaries faced. And shortly after that he sent a short note about his fears for the group's safety and the threats to their lives. Though he called for no protection and expected none, word of the mistreatment of the China Inland Mission staff at Yangzhou triggered an international brouhaha that was to bring the two nations to the verge of war and severely threaten the ministry of the China Inland Mission. Despite the recent treaty between the two countries that supposedly allowed anyone with a British passport to travel freely throughout China and take up residence anywhere in the country, British government officials and British merchants, as well as missionaries, regularly met with local opposition and sometimes outright hostility. when they ventured beyond the original five treaty ports. Ever since the treaty had been signed, there had been a steady stream of complaints to the British Council that in many parts of the country the Chinese were abiding by neither the letter nor the spirit of the treaty. At word of the unrest and threat to British missionaries in Yangzhou, the Council, evidently waiting for just such an excuse, decided that the time had come to settle the issue once and for all. Citing the reprehensible treatment of their nation's subjects in Yangzhou, British officials in China, on instruction from the Foreign Office in London, seized that occasion to demand that China abide by the treaty. To back their demands made on the Chinese government in Peking, the British fleet made a show of force. By the time, though, that reports of British demands and accounts of the accompanying sabre-rattling reached London, A new government in England had replaced the one which had encouraged the aggressive policies in China. The new leaders in Parliament denounced the former government's China policy, and the loyal British press, half a world away and unable to check its facts, launched a bitter public attack on the missionaries who'd brought this nation to the brink of war. The press accused the mission of demanding the protection of British gunboats in their campaigns to get the Chinese people to change their religion at the mouth of the cannon and point of the bayonet. For months the China controversy raged in Parliament and on the front pages of British newspapers. Quite naturally, Mr. Burger of the Home Office of the China Inland Mission was pressed for an official response. But as he had heard nothing from the tailors about an appeals made to the British Council for help, he could give no defense on behalf of the mission. He had to send inquiries to China asking for details and then wait months for an answer to return. Meanwhile, public criticism of the mission and Hudson Taylor's leadership spread throughout England. This most recent news from China caused some financial supporters to stop giving to the China Inland Mission. Maria Taylor, writing to relieve her husband, sent a long letter to the Bruggers explaining all that had happened in Yangzhou. Concluding that letter, she said, As to the harsh judging of the world or the poor painful misunderstandings of Christian brethren, we generally feel that the best plan is to go on with our work and leave it to God to vindicate our cause. But it is right that you should know intimately how we have acted and why. I would suggest, however, that it would be undesirable to print the fact that Mr. Medhurst, the Consul General, and through him Sir Rutherford Alcock, took the matter up with application from us. The new ministry at home censors those out here for the policy which the late ministry enjoined upon them. It would be ungenerous and ungrateful were we to render their position still more difficult by throwing all the onus, so to speak, on them." By this time, Hudson, through his own negotiations, had managed to resettle the mission at Yangzhou. As to the storm that continued back in England, there was nothing to do but pray and wait for the criticism to die down. In the march of Yang In March, the exile matter stirred passionate debate in the House of Lords, where the Duke of Somerset went so far as to propose that all British missionaries be brought back from China before they cause any more trouble. And the concerned Mr. Berger wrote to tell Hudson, You can scarcely imagine what an effect it is producing in the country. Thank God I can say none of these things have moved me. I believe he has called us to this work, and it is not for us to run away from or allow difficulties to overcome us. Be of good courage. The battle is the Lord's." At the same time, this storm of criticism sprang up at home. Another long brewing crisis came to a head within the mission in China. The small group of missionaries who complained of Hudson's leadership and policies from the beginning had recently created more trouble by giving up their Chinese dress and subsequently getting expelled from that city where they were stationed. Hudson and Marie had graciously accepted them back at their own station, but when they still refused to take up Chinese dress and continued to oppose Hudson's leadership, he finally, with sadness, asked for their resignations. Though all but that handful of dissenters backed Hudson's decision, the malcontents accounted the problem when it reached England, only added to the controversy and prompted even more supporters to reconsider their giving. This thrust the small mission into a state of crisis both at home and in China. Hudson felt the strain and wrote home asking his friends, pray for us. We need much grace. You cannot conceive the daily calls there are for patience, for forbearance, for tact in dealing with the many difficulties and misunderstandings that arise among so many persons of different nationality, language, and temperament. Pray the Lord ever to give me the single eye, the clear judgment, the wisdom and gentleness, the patient spirit, the unwavering purpose, the unshaken faith, the Christlike love needed for the efficient discharge of my duties. And ask him to send us sufficient means and suitable helpers for the great work which we have yet barely commenced. Despite the conflict and turmoil, the mission staff in China continued its pioneer evangelism in new territory. Even before the Yangzhou matters were settled and the mission returned there, Hudson had taken an important journey up the Grand Canal to a city from which he hoped to reach the northern provinces. And James Meadows had left his work at Ningpo to others that he might lead in advance into the first inland province westward from Qingyang, Anhui, where there lived 20 million Chinese people without a single Protestant missionary. But instead of the increasing number of missionaries and the additional finances that they'd been praying for to expand their work, the controversy at home drastically cut the financial resources the Home Office was able to send. Their prayers had to be answered in another totally unexpected way. There lived a penniless man in England at the time, a man literally with no more resources than the birds of the air or lilies of the field, who was already supporting a family or of 2,000 orphaned children without a cent of endowment, without an appeal of any kind for help, without even letting their wants be known to anyone but the Father in Heaven. George Mueller and his faith had for years been an inspiration to Hudson Taylor and to many others. In addition to the demands of his own great work in Bristol, George Mueller had always contributed to direct missionary work overseas. He regularly prayed for funds which he could use to help support the work of various missions in China and elsewhere. He'd been contributing regularly and generously to Hudson Taylor's work for several years. But no sooner had the Yangtze Riot taken place, long before the news could have ever reached England, than George Mueller felt led to send extra money to the China Inland Mission. Within a day or two of the riot, he wrote to Mr. Berger asking for the names of other additional members of the mission whom he might add to his list for ministry and prayer. Mr. Berger sent him six names from which to choose, and his choice was to take them all. And that next year, when the shortness of funds in China were being most seriously felt, Mr. Mueller wrote again, increasing his support. While that letter was still on its way, Hudson wrote to one of the mission workers Over a thousand pounds less has been contributed during the first half of this financial year than last. I do not keep a cook now. I find it cheaper to have cooked food brought in from an eating house at a dollar a head per month. Let us pray in faith for funds that we may not have to diminish our work. Always more than willing to diminish his own comforts, Hudson intended never to diminish our work. Within days he received George Mueller's letter which said, My dear brother, The work of the Lord in China is more and more laid on my heart, and hence I have been longing and praying to be able to assist it more and more with means as well as with prayer. Of late I have especially had a desire to help all the dear brethren and sisters with you and with pecuniary means. This I desired especially that they might see that I was interested in them personally. This my desire the Lord has now fulfilled. The eleven checks enclosed were for all the members of the mission. Mr. Mueller had not previously been supporting. Another letter from Mr. Berger arrived in the same mail. Mr. Mueller, after due consideration, has requested the names of all the brethren and sisters connected with the C.I.M. as he thinks it well to send help as he is able to each one unless we know of anything to hinder. Surely the Lord knew that our funds were sinking and thus put it into the heart of his honored servant to help. It wasn't just the money George Mueller sent that encouraged them, Though Mr. Mueller's donations to the China Inland Mission over the next several years amounted to $10,000 annually, exactly the amount the mission's income had declined in the wake of the Yang Tsao controversy. It was knowing that this great man of faith was praying for their needs that made his gifts all the more encouraging. His words had bolstered the missionaries when he told them in the letter he sent with the first checks, My chief objective is to tell you that I love you in the Lord and that I feel deeply interested about the Lord's work in China and that I pray daily for you. I thought it might be a little encouragement to you in your difficulties and your trials and hardships and disappointments to hear of one more who feels for you and who remembers you before the Lord. But were it otherwise, had you even no one to care for you? Or did you at least seem to be in a position as if no one did care for you? You will always have the Lord to be with you. Remember Paul's case at Rome, 2 Timothy 4, verses 16 to 18. On him, then reckon. To him look, to him depend, and be assured that if you walk with him, look to him, and expect help from him, he will never fail you. An older brother who has known the Lord for 44 years who writes this, says for your encouragement that he has never failed him. In the greatest difficulties, in the heaviest trials, in the deepest poverty and necessities, he has never failed me. But because I was enabled by his grace to trust him, he has always appeared for my help. I delete delight in speaking well of his name." Such words were greatly needed by Hudson Taylor himself. While outwardly he appeared a solid rock, an inspiration to faith for all his young colleagues, the strain of responsibility grew heavier and heavier. Though reports of wonderful progress at new station after station heartened him, the burden of the growing work weighed on his mind and heart. He couldn't seem to shake the deep inner depression that deprived him of any sense of peace. Early in 1869, he exposed his heart and his hurt in a letter to his parents. I have often asked you to remember me in prayer, and when I have done so, there has been much need of it. The need has never been greater than at present. Envied by some, despised by many, hated by others, often blamed for things I never heard of or had nothing to do with, an innovator on what have become established rules of missionary practice an opponent of mighty systems of heathen error and superstition, working without precedent in many respects and with few experienced helpers, often sick in body and embarrassed by circumstances, had not the Lord been specially gracious to me, had not my mind been sustained by the conviction that the work is His and that He is with me in what so no empty figure to call the thick of the conflict, I must have fainted or broken down. But the battle is the Lord's, and He will conquer. We may fail, do fail continually, but He never fails. Still, I need your prayers more than ever. My position becomes continually more and more responsible, and my need greater of special grace to fill it. But I have continually to mourn that I follow at such a distance and learn so slowly to imitate my precious Master. I cannot tell you how I am buffeted sometimes by temptation. I never knew how bad a heart I have. Yet I do know that I love God and love His work and desire to serve Him only and in all things. And I value above all else that precious Savior in whom alone I can be accepted. Often I am tempted to think that one so full of sin cannot be a child of God at all. But I try to throw it back and rejoice all the more in the preciousness of Jesus. and the riches of the grace that has made us accepted in the Beloved. Beloved, He is of God. Beloved, He ought to be of us, but oh, how short I fall again. May God help me to love Him more and serve Him better. Do pray for me. Pray that the Lord will keep me from sin, will sanctify me wholly, will use me more largely in His service. Despite a faith that had brought him around the world to lead a mission into China, Hudson Taylor had never felt so inadequate, and he never desired God's help more. 1869. Months passed. Hudson kept constantly on the move, his time divided mostly between the mission's two semi-official headquarters in Chinyang, where the mission's printing press was located, and Yangzhou, with his rapidly growing Chinese church. Summer yet brought another bout of serious illness that weakened Hudson for over a month. He hadn't even regained his strength before he embarked on yet another strenuous journey up the canal to provide medical help for Mr. Judd, who was dangerously ill himself. The Gordons, who were stationed at Zazuhtu, came to consult with him about problems in their work, and the Duncans were on their way from Nanking for a special strategy session with the leader of the mission. Hudson had never felt so worn out, pressured, or discouraged. He clung desperately to the end of his physical, emotional, and spiritual rope. Amid a pile of mail on Hudson's desk, when he finally got back to Shingtang, was a letter from his young friend and colleague, John McCarthy, written from the old home in Hangzhou. He knew something of Hudson's inner struggles because the two of them had talked about them the last time they were together. Since then, he had made a spiritual discovery that he wanted to share with this friend and mentor. In his letter to Hudson, he wrote the following, I do wish I could have a talk with you now about the way of holiness. At the time you were speaking to me about it, it was the subject of all others occupying my thoughts, not from anything I read, so much as from a consciousness of failure, a constant falling short of that which I felt should be aimed at, an unrest a perpetual striving to find some way by which one might continually enjoy that communion, that fellowship, a time so real, but more often so visionary, so far off. Do you know I now think that this striving, longing, hoping for better days to come is not the true way to holiness, happiness, or usefulness. It is better, no doubt, far better than being satisfied with poor attainments, but not the best way after all. I have been struck with a passage from a book entitled Christ is All. It says, The Lord Jesus received is holiness begun. The Lord Jesus cherished is holiness advancing. The Lord Jesus counted upon is never absent would be holiness complete. He is most holy who has most of Christ within, enjoys most fully in the finished work. It is defective faith which clogs the feet and causes many a fall." This last sentence, I think, I now fully endorse. To let my loving Savior work in me His will, my sanctification, is what I would live for by His grace. Abiding, not striving or struggling, looking oft unto Him, trusting Him for present power, Resting in the love of an almighty Savior, in the joy of a complete salvation from all sin, this is not new. And yet, tis new to me. I feel as though the dawning of a glorious day had risen upon me. I hail it with trembling, yet with trust. I seem to have got to the edge only, but out of a boundless sea to have sipped only, but of that which fully satisfies. Christ literally all seems to me. Now the power, the only power for service, the only ground for unchanging joy. How then to have our faith increased? Only by thinking of all that Jesus is and all that he is for us. His life, his death, his work. He himself as revealed to us in the word. To be the subject of our constant thoughts. Not a striving to have faith, but a looking off to the faithful one seems all we need. arresting in the loved one entirely for time and eternity." Hudson wrote afterwards about the impact of these words, saying, as I read, I saw it all. I looked to Jesus, and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed. And on his next trip to Yangzhou, he heartily greeted his friend there before he began pacing back and forth across the room with his hands behind his back, excitedly explaining what had happened to him. Oh, Mr. Judd, God has made me a new man. God has made me a new man." And so it seemed to everyone who knew him. His friend Judd wrote, he was a joyous man now, a bright, happy Christian. He had been a toiling, burdened one before, with latterly not much rest of soul. It was rested in Jesus now, and letting him do the work, which makes all the difference. Whenever he spoke in meetings after that, a new power seemed to flow from him. Troubles did not worry him as before. He cast everything on God in a new way and gave more time to prayer. Instead of working late at night, he began to go to bed earlier, rising at 5 a.m. to give time to Bible study and prayer, often two hours, before the work of the day began. Only six months earlier, Hudson had lamented his spiritual weakness, saying, I have continued to mourn that I follow with such a distance and learn so slowly to imitate my precious master. But this was no longer an imitation. He now experienced the truth the Apostle Paul described when he wrote that Christ liveth in me. Instead of bondage, Hudson felt an exciting new freedom within. Instead of failure, he sensed victory. Instead of fear and weakness, he knew beyond doubt that his Lord would be sufficient. The difference seemed so amazing and so simple that Hudson wanted to share the secret with anyone and everyone he knew, starting with friends and loved ones. To his sister, Amelia Broomhall, whom he knew to be burdened by the cares and responsibility of a family that grew to ten children, he wrote, So many thanks for your dear long letter. I do not think you've written me such a letter since our return to China. I know it is with you as with me. You cannot, not you will not. Mind and body will not bear more than a certain amount of strain, or do more than a certain amount of work. As to work, mine was never so plentiful, so responsible, or so difficult. But the weight and strain are all gone. The last month or more has been perhaps the happiest of my life, and I long to tell you a little of what the Lord has done for my soul. I do not know how far I may be able to make myself intelligible about it, For there is nothing new or strange or wonderful, and yet all is new. Perhaps I may make myself more clear if I go back a little. Well, dearie, my mind has been greatly exercised for six or eight months past, feeling the need personally and for our mission of more holiness, life, power in our souls. But personal needs stood first and was the greatest. I felt the ingratitude, the danger, the sin of not living nearer to God. I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the word more diligently, sought more time for meditation, but all with no avail. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me. I knew that if only I could abide in Christ, all would be well. But I could not. I would begin the day with prayer, determined not to take my eye off Him for a moment. But pressure of duties, sometimes very trying, and constant interruptions after being so wearing, caused me to forget him. Then one's nerves get so fretted in this climate that temptations to irritability, hard thoughts, and sometimes unkind words are all the more difficult to control. Each day brought its register of sin and failure, of lack of power. To will was indeed present with me, but how to perform I found not. Then came the question, is there no rescue? Must it be thus to the end, constant conflict and too often defeat? How could I preach with sincerity that to those who received Jesus, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, that means to be godlike, when it was not so in my own experience? Instead of growing stronger, I seem to be getting weaker, and to have less power against sin, and no wonder for faith and even hope for getting low. I hated myself. I hated my sin, yet gained no strength against it. I felt I was a child of God. His spirit in my heart would cry in spite of all, Abba Father, but to rise to my privileges as a child, I was utterly powerless. I thought that holiness, practical holiness, was to be gradually attained by a diligent use of the means of grace. There was nothing I so much desired as holiness, nothing I so much needed, but far from in any measure attaining it, the more I strove after it, the more it eluded my grasp, till hope itself almost died out, and I began to think that perhaps to make heaven the sweeter, God would not give it down here. I do not think that I was striving to attain it on my own strength. I knew I was powerless. I told the Lord so. and asked him to give me help and strength. Sometimes I almost believed that he would keep and uphold me, but on looking back in the evening, alas, there was but sin and failure to confess and mourn before God. I would not give you the impression that this was the only experience of these long weary months. It was a too frequent state of soul, and that towards which I was tending, which almost ended in despair. Never did Christ seem more precious, a Savior who could and would save such a sinner. And sometimes there were seasons not only of peace, but of joy in the Lord. But they were transitory, and at best there was a sad lack of power. Oh, how good the Lord has been in bringing this conflict to an end. All the time I felt assured that there was in Christ all I needed, but the practical question was how to get it out. He was rich, truly. But I was poor. He was strong, but I weak. I knew full well that there was in the root the stem and abundant fatness, but how to get it into my puny branch was the question. As gradually light dawned, I saw that faith was the only requisite, was the hand to lay hold on his fullness and to make it mine. But I had not this faith. I strove for faith, but it would not come. I tried to exercise it, but in vain. Seeing more and more the wondrous supply of grace laid up in Jesus, the fullness of our precious Jesus, the fullness of our precious Savior, my guilt and helplessness seemed to increase. Sins committed appeared but as trifles compared with the sin of unbelief which was their cause, which could not or would not take God at His word, but rather made Him a liar. Unbelief was, I felt, the damning sin of this world, yet I indulged in it. I prayed for faith, but it came not. What was I to do? When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed to me the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I have never known it before. McCarthy, who had been much exercised by the same sense of failure, but saw the light before I did, wrote, and I quote from memory, But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the faithful one. As I read, I saw it all. If we believe not, he abideth faithful. I looked to Jesus and saw. And when I saw, oh joy flowed that he had said, I will never leave thee. Ah, there is the rest, I thought. I have striven in vain to rest in him. I'll strive no more. For has not he promised to abide with me, never to leave me, never to fail me? And, dearie, he never will. Nor was this all that he showed me, nor one half. As I thought of the vine and the branches, what light the Blessed Spirit poured direct into my soul! How great seemed my mistake in wishing to get the sap, the fullness out of him. I saw not only that Jesus will never leave me, but thought I am a member of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. The vine is not the root merely, but all, roots, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit. And Jesus is not that alone. He is soil and sunshine, air and showers, and ten thousand times more than we've ever dreamed, wished for, or needed. Oh, the joy of seeing this truth! I do pray that the eyes of your understanding, too, may be enlightened. that you may know and enjoy the riches freely given us in Christ. Oh, my dear sister, it is a wonderful thing to be really one with the risen and exalted Savior, to be a member of Christ. Just think what it involves. Can Christ be rich and I poor? Can your right hand be rich and your left one poor? Or your head be well fed while your body stars? Again, think of it as bearing on prayer. Could a bank clerk say to a customer, it was only your hand, not you that wrote the check, or I cannot pay this sum to your hand, but only to yourself. No more can your prayers or mine be discredited if offered in the name of Jesus, that is, not for the sake of Jesus merely, but on the ground that we are his, his members, so long as we keep within the limits of Christ's credit, a tolerably wide limit. If we ask for anything unscriptural or not in accordance with the will of God, Christ himself could not do that. But if we ask anything according to his will, we know that we have the petitions that we desire of him. The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than another, is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything as I realize this. For he, I know, is able to carry out his will, and his will is mine. It makes no matter where he places me or how. That is rather for him to consider than for me. For in the easiest position, he must give me his grace, and in the most difficult, his grace is sufficient. It little matters to my servant whether I send him to buy a few cash worth of things or the most expensive articles. In either case, he looks to me for the money, and he brings me his purchases. So, if God should place me in serious perplexity, must he not give me such guidance? In positions of great difficulty, much grace. In circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength. No fear that resources will prove unequal to the emergency. And his resources are mine, for he is mine, and is with me, and dwells in me. And since Christ has thus dwelt in my heart by faith, how happy I have been. I wish I could tell you about it instead of writing. I am no better than before. In a sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be. But I am dead and buried with Christ. I am risen too. And now Christ lives in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. And now I must close. I have not said half I would, nor as I would had I more time. May God give you to lay hold on these blessed truths. Do not let us continue to say and effect Who shall ascend into heaven? That is to bring Christ down from above. In other words, do not let us consider Him as far off, when God has made us one with Him, members of His very own body. Nor should we look upon this experience, these truths, as for the few. They are the birthright of every child of God, and no one can dispense with them without dishonoring our Lord. The only power for deliverance from sin, or for true service, is Christ. It all seems so simple and practical as Hudson's sister discovered for herself. But are you always conscious of abiding in Christ? Someone asked Hudson many years later. While sleeping last night he replied, did I cease to abide in your home because I was unconscious of that fact? We should never be conscious of not abiding in Christ. The discovery of this simple secret soon changed Hudson Taylor's life and ministry in ways that he could never even have imagined before. 1869-1870 Hudson had written, I am no longer anxious about anything for he I know is able to carry out his will and his will is mine. But that declaration of renewed faith was tested to its limits in the following few months as his duties piled up and storms of conflict again batted the little mission and its work. A sampling of his correspondence hints at the load of responsibility he carried that fall. To one of the missionaries at Nanking he wrote on October 8, 1869, Business is very pressing, but it does not hinder my joy in the Lord. I enclose the first six pages of your valuable little book and am buying Chinese type to print it. Later that day to another member of the mission he wrote, The mission funds are lower than they were before. From Yang Zhao, on October 27th, he reported, our work here is very encouraging at present. We cannot too much thank God for this. Five persons have been baptized, eight others are about ready to be received, and several more will, I trust, follow after a little time. It is the provincial examination at present, and the daily congregations are large and attentive. To another missionary, at Tai Dzau Phou on October 30th. I would ask you to remember funds in prayer. They are lower than they have ever been. Yet we are not and have not been forsaken or lacking ever really, and we assuredly shall not be if we have faith as a mustard seed. And in a letter to the new mission station at An Khing the next day, it occurs to me to add that some of the members of the mission may be unaware of the amount of labor involved in serving them. It is a real pleasure but it is nonetheless onerous. For instance, I have to write to Mr. Mueller to thank him for your check, to Mr. Lord asking him kindly to sell as he gets a better price than the Shanghai banks will give, then to enter it into his account, and in my cash account, then to send the amount to Mr. Hart with a note requesting him kindly to forward it. Of course, I must also advise you of it, but this may not involve special writing. I thank God for permitting me to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water in his glorious work, and to do cheerfully what little I can do to help, only regretting the impossibility of doing all that all wishes. Just now I have seven different portions of Old and New Testament, and Long Track sent me in several dialects with requests to revise them. This, if possible of all, is the work of weeks, if not months. Yet I am praying for guidance as to whether I may not have to leave tonight for one of our most distant stations on account of a case of sickness. Political unrest in China continually fanned the flames of fear, resentment, and hatred toward all Europeans, including missionaries. In November, word of a riot in Anqing brought with it rumor that all of the foreigners in that city had been killed. and even after anxiety was eased by reliable reports that all the China Inland Mission missionaries and their small children had escaped, and King without injury. Concerned remained that about this incident, like the Yanzhou riot, would stir up even greater criticism at home. To his mother, Hudson wrote, I am more happy in the Lord than I have ever been, and enjoy more leisure of soul, casting more fully every burden on Him who alone is able to bear all. To be content with God's will and way is rest. Things may not be in many respects as I would wish them, but if God permits them to be so, or so orders them, I may well be content. Mine is to obey, His to direct. Hence I am not only able to bear up against the new trial of Anne King, but to be fully and satisfied about it. Not to wish it otherwise, but to thank God for it. Even so, father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. Still, you will pray much for us all, will you not?" Hudson and Maria spent a particularly happy Christmas that year together with their children in Yangzhou. But their celebration didn't include the traditional English roast beef and plum pudding, according to a report by one of the new missionaries. Mr. C.T. Fish wrote, they lived exclusively on Chinese food. And I well remember the difficulty we had in hunting up a knife, fork, and spoon when a foreigner, unskilled in the use of chopsticks, came to Young's Owl. Condensed milk was not yet on the market, and they used few, if any, foreign items. There was one luxury, however, a big barrel of treckle, a form of molasses, that had recently come out on the Lammermuir. This was eaten with rice, and much appreciated. That season, as they had many times before, Hudson and Maria script on their own personal expenses so that they could share from their own accounts with the other missionaries under their leadership. And it wasn't just their money that they were generous with, but also their time, attention, and concern. As Mr. Fish indicated in writing, I was much touched by Mr. Taylor's amiability. He was very kind to me. I helped him in his dispensary and medical work, and was with him a good deal whenever he was in Yangzhou. He guided my studies. He was, of course, exceedingly busy and appeared quite young and a lively man. He loved playing with his children and did not seem burdened with care. He was fond of music and singing and used to play the harmonium for the Chinese on Sunday evenings for an hour at a time and have them sing hymns. Despite the pressures, Hudson and Maria seemed happier that fall and winter than ever before. Yangzhou had become a more of a home for the entire Taylor family than in the other city where they had lived in China. When duties called both parents away from home for a time, the children were left in the able and loving care of Hudson's secretary, Miss Emily Blatchley, who came out on the lammermuir with the tailors and had since become Hudson's personal secretary. But when the traveling parents would return, there were many warm and wonderful family reunions in the Yangzhou home. Despite their great love for their children, and also because of their When spring came in 1870, Hudson and Maria made what was perhaps the most difficult decision in their married lives. There wasn't any school in China where the children could get an adequate education, and they dared not risk the heat and disease of another Chinese summer for their older children. They felt especially concerned about the deteriorating health of their five-year-old son, Samuel. For a time, the Taylors talked with Maria about her returning with the children to England. But Emily Blatchley volunteered to go for the children in England so that Maria could stay and help Hudson continuing the work. Though that seemed the wisest decision, the thought of separation from their four oldest children, the infant son born in the wake of the Yangtze Riot, would be the only one staying with them. It seemed a painful prospect for both parents. But as the day for their parting approached, Hudson shared his emotions in a letter to his mother. God will provide. Oh, he is a father. My precious mother, you can enter somewhat into our feelings as this dark cloud draws near. Sometimes it seems for a while to take all one's strength and heart away, but God does and will help us. It is so good of him to have given us to know more than we ever have known of his heart, his love, his gift, his joy, before calling us to take this step. He knows, as we did not know, that we can do all things through Christ, our Strengthener, and would not faint nor be ungrateful. And there are many mercies connected with this trial. Dear Miss Blatchley's love and self-sacrifice we can never repay. Next to ourselves, the children love her and she them. She knows just what our wishes are regarding them, in sickness and in health. I am sure you will do what you can to help her. And you will especially pray for my dear Maria. With all the bustle of preparation and the excitement of departure are over, then will come the trying time of reaction. But the Lord, whose work calls for the separation, can and will support. 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, containing thousands of classic and contemporary Puritan and Reform books, tapes, and videos at great discounts, is on the web at www.swrb.com. We can also be reached by email by phone at 780-450-3730 by fax at 780-468-1096 or by mail at 4710-37A Edmonton 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.