She would keep up the regular weekly prayer meetings at mission headquarters and provide a center there in London for returning missionaries. She would attend the daily business and correspondence while passing along any letters the council needed to handle. The council would be responsible for interviewing candidates, dispensing funds, and keeping friends of the mission appraised of its work through the continuing publication of the occasional paper. Though confident that business at home was again in good hands, As they left once more for China, funds were still low. The mission's bank account was a paltry twenty-one pounds when the tailors set sail, but there was no debt, and Hudson was able to write him a letter to friends of the mission. Now that the work has grown, more helpers are needed at home, as abroad, but the principles of action remain the same. We shall seek pecuniary aid from God by prayer as hithertofore. He will put it into the hearts of those He sees fit to use to act as His channels. When there is money in hand, it will be remitted to China. When there is none, none will be sent, and we shall not draw upon home, so that there can be no going into debt. Should our faith be tried as it has been before, the Lord will prove Himself faithful as He has ever done. Nay, should our faith fail, His faithfulness will not, for it is written, If we believe Yet he abideth faithful. Never had Hudson needed that confidence more than when, after an absence of fifteen months, he once again reached China. Sickness and other problems had discouraged missionaries in several of the older, more established centers. Hudson's old friend, George Duncan, had left Nanking due to illness and was even then on his way back to England to die. Even the little Chinese churches had dwindled. Many stations were undermanned. Some had been closed. So much help and encouragement was needed that Hudson hardly knew where to begin. Instead of planning for an advance to unreached provinces, it looked like a major task just to build up the existing work to its previous level. In wintry weather, the snow deep on the ground, Hudson left his wife to attend to the work in Hangzhou and set off up the Grand Canal to Qingyang. It must have seemed especially lonely to open up the empty mission house that had been such a happy home to his family. From there he wrote his wife to say, I have invited the church members and inquirers to dine with me tomorrow, Sunday. I want them all to meet together. May the Lord give us his blessing. Though things are sadly discouraging, they are not hopeless. They will soon look up, by God's blessing, if they are looked after. That was his attitude everywhere he went. Finally, he was joined by his wife and Nan King, where together they spent three months working in direct evangelism. From there, he reported back home. Every night, we gather a large number by means of pictures and lantern slides and preach to them Jesus. We had fully 500 in the chapel last night. Some did not stay long. Others were there nearly three hours. May the Lord bless our stay here to souls. Every afternoon, women come to see and to hear. Evidence of his great inner strength was seen in a letter he wrote to Emily Blatchley in which he asked, If you are ever drinking at the fountain, with what will your life be running over? Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. It was a full cup of faith that Hudson Taylor carried, and the overflow of that spirit proved to be just what was needed by the mission in China. His visits accomplished their objective of encouragement and were continued until he had been at least once to every station and almost every outstation in the mission. And his concern was not just for his fellow missionaries. Everywhere he went, he sought out the Chinese Christians to help and encourage them as well. When they could be together, his wife's assistance was invaluable. They would work at times far into the night attending to correspondence. On medical journeys, she was often his companion. or she might remain at one station where there was sickness while he went on to another. Repeatedly, they felt grateful for his medical knowledge, for there was no other doctor in the mission or anywhere away from the treaty ports in those years. Of course, his medical expertise often added to his burden of work. For example, Hudson once reached a distance station to find 98 letters awaiting him. Yet, the very next day, he took time to write a full page of medical instructions about Eiling's baby. Now, A-Ling was one of the valued Chinese helpers at Chin-Yang. But whether it meant longer letters or extra journeys, Hudson thanked God for any and every way in which he could help. Because it was, as he said and showed many times, his greatest desire to be servant of all. After being back in China about nine months, Hudson wrote, the Lord is prospering us and the work is steadily growing. especially in that most important department, native help. The helpers themselves need much help, much care and instruction, but they are becoming more efficient as well as more numerous, and the hope of China lies doubtless in them. I look on foreign missionaries as the scaffolding round a rising building. The sooner it can be dispensed with, the better, or the sooner, rather, that it can be transferred to serve the same temporary purpose elsewhere. Winter came again. Yet the season seldom changed the number of demands on Hudson's time. In the coldest of weather, he continued on the road. After 10 out of 12 weeks spent away from his wife, the two of them finally managed to meet at an empty mission house at Fing Hua, where they enjoyed being together alone, truly alone, for the first time since they had been married. Their little honeymoon soon ended with a call for help. It came from the Crombies, whose only remaining children were on the verge of death. So Hudson set off on a two-day journey over mountain passes drifted high with snow. By the time he could return from there, another message arrived from an even more distant station saying an entire family had come down with the smallpox. Waiting only until his coolie arrived with his belongings, Hudson had raced ahead to rejoin his wife. He set out again across the mountains on treacherously icy trails that were sometimes nothing more than steps carved out of rock. In the stress and strain of just keeping the mission going, it would have been easy to forget about his dream of expanding the ministry, especially when funds for the current work were none too plentiful. But Hudson couldn't forget. Traveling from place to place on long journeys between the stations, through populous county, teeming with friendly, accessible people, his heart went out more and more to the unreached, both near and far. He wrote to the council in London, Last week I was in Taiping. My heart was greatly moved by the crowds that literally filled the streets for two or three miles so that we could hardly walk, for it was market day. We did but little preaching, for we were looking for a place for permanent work. But I was constrained to retire to the city wall and cry to God to have mercy on the people, to open their hearts and give us an entrance among them. Without any seeking on our part, we were brought into touch with at least four anxious souls. An old man found us out, I know not how, and followed me to our boat. I asked him in and inquired his name. My name is Zing, he replied, but the question which distresses me and to which I can find no answer is, what am I to do with my sins? Our scholars tell us that there is no future state, but I find it hard to believe them. Oh, sir, I lie on my bed and think. I sit alone in the daytime and think. I think and think and think again, but I cannot tell what is to be done about my sins. I am seventy-two years of age. I cannot expect to finish another decade. Today knows not tomorrow's lot, as the saying is. Can you tell me what to do with my sins?" I can indeed, was my reply. It is to answer this very question that we have come so many thousands of miles. Listen, and I will explain to you what you want and need to know." When my companions returned, he heard again the wonderful story of the cross and left us soothed and comforted, glad to know that we had rented a house and hoped soon to have Chinese Christians distributing Bibles and Christian literature in that city. Something that he put into his Bible that I think we'll find most interesting. It says, Ask God for fifty or a hundred additional native evangelists and as many missionaries as may be needed to open up the four fews and forty-eight sin cities still unoccupied in Qijiang. Also for men to break into the nine occupied provinces. Ask in the name of Jesus. And then here is one of his prayers. I thank thee, Lord Jesus, for the promise whereon thou hast given me to rest. Give me all needed strength of body, wisdom of mind, Grace of soul to do this by so great work. What followed that prayer wasn't renewed strength, but another bout of serious illness. Week after week he lay in bed suffering helplessly with hardly more than enough energy to pray. Funds had been so low for months that he hardly knew how to distribute the little that came in. There certainly was nothing with which to begin expanding the work. Still, we are going on to the interior. he had written to the secretaries in London, I do so hope to see some of the destitute provinces evangelized before long. I long for it by day, and pray for it by night. Can he care less? Never had advance seemed more impossible, but in his Bible was the record of his prayer, and in his heart was the conviction that even for inland China, God's time had almost come. It was then, while he was still in bed recovering, that he received a letter from England written two months before by a woman he had never met. Her trembling hand had written, My dear sir, I bless God, in two months I hope to place, at the disposal of your counsel, for further extension of the China Inland Missionary work, eight hundred pounds. Please remember, for fresh provinces. I think your receipt form beautiful. The Lord Our Banner the Lord will provide. If faith is put before and praise sent up, I am sure that Jehovah of Hosts will honor it." Eight hundred pounds for fresh provinces? Even before he recorded his prayer in his Bible? The letter had been sent, and God had been answering his request. Surely, he thought, the time for advancing the work had come. But Hudson couldn't see the dark days that still lay ahead 1872 to 1876. Hudson was so encouraged by the answer to his prayer that he soon recovered enough to travel back to the Yangtze Valley to find spring weather and a warm new enthusiasm spreading throughout the mission. In Xinjiang, as in almost all the stations, Chinese Christians seemed to be growing rapidly in their faith. New converts came to the churches and Chinese leaders were encouraging and instructing their own people. Recalling as many missionaries as could leave their stations, Hudson convened a special conference in Xinyang. All those who came found inspiration in the good reports of their colleagues' progress, and the group joined together in prayer with Hudson before he and Mr. Judd set out up the Great River in search of a new base city from which he could move on into the westernmost provinces of China. Before he left, Hudson wrote, Is it not good of the Lord to encourage us when we are sorely tried from want of funds?" It certainly wasn't an abundance of supplies that accounted for the heightened enthusiasm within the mission, and it wasn't because everything now seemed to be going Hudson's way, either. While in Chinyang, Hudson had received the surprising and disturbing news that Emily Blatchley had fallen seriously ill back in London. Not only was he saddened to learn that the prospects of her recovery were very slim, but he wondered what was to become of the children to whom she'd been serving as volunteer mother. And then there was the work of the home office, more and more of which had fallen upon her in his absence. She not only operated the mission house, she took over the editing and distribution of the occasional paper, dealt with much correspondence herself, and conducted the regular prayer meeting on behalf of the mission. Hudson confided in a letter to a Christian friend before he left on his longest journey yet of the Yanks, saying, Never has our work entailed such real trial or so much exercise of faith. The sickness of our beloved friend Miss Blatchley, and her strong desire to see me, the needs of our dear children, the state of funds, the changes required in the work to admit of some going home, others coming out, and a further expansion, and many other things not easily expressed in writing, would be crushing burdens if we were to bear them. But the Lord bears us, and them too, and makes our hearts so very glad in Himself. Not Himself plus a blank check, just Himself, and that I have never known greater freedom from care and anxiety. The other week, when I reached Shanghai, we were in great and immediate need. The mails were both in, but no remittance, and the folios showed no balance at home. I cast the burden on the Lord. Next morning, on waking, I felt inclined to trouble, but the Lord gave me a word. I know their sorrows, and am come down to deliver. Certainly I will be with thee. And before six a.m. I was assured that help was at hand, when near noon I received a letter from Mr. Mueller, which had been to Ningpo, and thus delayed in reaching me, and which continued more than three hundred pounds. My need now is great and urgent, but God is greater and more near. And because He is what He is, all must be, all is, all will be well. Oh, my dear brother, the joy of knowing the living God, of seeing the living God, of resting on the living God, and in our very special and peculiar circumstances. I am but His agent. He will have to look after His own honor, provide for His own servants, and supply all our need according to his own riches, you helping by your prayers and work of faith and labor of love." In a note to his wife that spring, Hudson included a sobering report. The balance in hand yesterday was 87 cents, but to that he added, the Lord reigns, herein is our joy and rest. And to Mr. Baller he added, when the balance was still lower, we have this and all the promises of God. Twenty-five cents, Baller recalled later, plus all the promises of God? Why, one felt as rich as Croesus. Hudson challenged everyone to trust in God's provision, and he wrote numerous letters with the same warning that he gave to a council member in the following letter. I am truly sorry that you should be distressed at not having funds to send me. May I not say, be careful for nothing. We should use all care to economize what God does send us. But when that is done, bear no care about real or apparent lack. After living on God's faithfulness for many years, I can testify that times of want have ever been times of special blessing or have led to them. I do beg that never any appeal for funds be put forward, save to God only in prayer. When our work becomes a begging work, it will die. God is faithful, must be so. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He didn't want anyone connected with the mission to be tempted to help by making financial appeals in meetings or to individuals. So he had chosen the theme of the Xinjiang Conference that sprang from a hymn, In some way or another, the Lord will provide. It was with this same theme in mind that Hudson wrote a letter of support and encouragement to Emily Blatchley to let her know that he would be heading back to England as soon as possible. In the letter he said, I am sure that if we but wait, the Lord will provide. We go shortly, that is, Mr. Judd and myself, to see if we can procure headquarters at Wuzhang, from which to open up western China as the Lord may enable us. We are urged on to make this effort now, though so weak-handed, both by the need of the unreached provinces and by our having funds in hand for work in them, while we have none for general purposes. I cannot conceive how we shall be helped through next month, though I fully expect that we shall be. The Lord cannot and will not fail us." Things didn't look much better financially by the time Hudson had returned from Wachung after getting his friend, Mr. Judd, established in a new station there. So the tailors set out once again to England to see about their friend, Emily Blatchley, and to do what they could for the mission work at home. But this homecoming turned out to be a sad one. Emily Blatchley, faithful friend to the end, had died while they were en route. The tailors found the house at Pireland Road empty, the children scattered among various friends and relatives, the homework of the mission at a standstill, even the weekly prayer meetings discontinued. Mission business seemed in as much disarray at home as it had been in China the last time that they arrived there. To Hudson it must have seemed a new all-time low point in the life of his mission, and yet things were about to sink even lower. On his trip up the Yanks to reach Wachung, Hudson had slipped on the gangway of a small cargo boat and fallen hard, spraining an ankle and wrenching his back. Though he was disabled a few days at the time, he was eventually able to walk and endure the resulting pain. But now, within a week or two of his return to London, he began to feel a numbness in his limbs. His doctor diagnosed the problem as a concussion of the spine and ordered absolute and complete bed rest. Even then he offered only faint hope that Hudson would ever be able to stand or walk again. Hudson had no choice but to lie in his upstairs room, conscious of all there was to be done for the mission, all that could not be attended to. He had been halfway around the world and back three times, and seen more of China than any European since Marco Polo, and was still clinging to the vision that God wanted him to take the gospel to all the unreached provinces of that land. Yet, here he lay, his personal realm suddenly limited to a narrow four-poster bed. But on the wall at the foot of his bed, where he could see it always between the posts, hung Hudson's big map of China. Years later, a church leader from Scotland said to Hudson, You must sometimes be tempted to be proud because of the wonderful way God has used you. I doubt if any man living has had greater honor. On the contrary, Hudson replied, I often think that God must have been looking for someone small enough and weak enough for him to use. And then he found me. For it was indeed in Hudson's weakness that God began to work in a mighty way. The outlook did not brighten as the year drew to a close. Hudson's paralysis progressed. He was less and less able to move and could only turn in bed with the help of a rope fixed above him. At first he had managed to write a little, but now he could not even hold a pen. It was then, with the dawn of 1875, that the Christian press printed a little paper he had written titled, Appeal for Prayer on behalf of more than 150 million of Chinese. Briefly it stated the facts with regard to the nine un-evangelized provinces and the aims of the mission. Four thousand pounds, it said, had recently been given for the special purpose of sending the gospel to these distant regions. Chinese Christians were ready to take part in the work. The urgent need was for more missionaries, young men willing to face any hardship in leading the way. Will each of your Christian readers, the article requested, at once rise and raise his heart to God, spending one minute in earnest prayer that God will raise up this year 18 suitable men to devote themselves to this work? The article didn't say that the leader of the mission was, to all appearances, a hopeless It did not refer to the fact that the 4,000 pounds had come from Hudson and his wife. It was part of their capital from her recent inheritance. They were already donating all the interest from the capital to the work of the mission anyway. Neither did the article mention the covenant of two or three years previously, when Hudson and a few friends determined to pray daily in faith for the 18 evangelists until they should be given. And yet, many who read the article were moved by its challenge. Before long, Hudson's correspondence began to increase. So did his joy and confidence in dealing with it, or rather, seeing how the Lord dealt with it. He wrote of this time, the mission had no paid helpers, but God led volunteers without prearrangement to come in from day to day to write from dictation. If one who called in the morning could not stay long enough to answer all letters, another was sure to come, and perhaps one or two might look in in the afternoon. Occasionally, a young friend employed in the city would come in after business hours and do needful bookkeeping or finish letters not already dealt with. So it was, day by day. One of the happiest periods of my life was that period of inactivity when one could do nothing but rejoice in the Lord and wait patiently for Him and see Him meeting all one's needs. Never were my letters before or since kept so regularly and promptly answered. And the eighteen asked of God began to come. There was some first correspondence, then they came to see me in my room. Soon I had a class studying Chinese at my bedside. In due time the Lord sent them all forth, and then dear friends at Mid-May, the nearby Christian Conference Center, began to pray for my restoration. The Lord blessed that means also, and I was risen up. One reason for my being laid aside was gone. Had I been well and able to move about, Some might have thought that my urgent appeals, rather than God's working, had sent the 18 men to China. But utterly laid aside, able only to dictate a request for prayer, the answer to our prayers was the more apparent. One of those who came during this time was the Reverend C. G. Moore, a candidate in eventually a number of the mission serving in China. He wrote this about his first meeting with Hudson Taylor at Peril and Road. His study was the back room on the ground floor and could be entered from the front sitting room by large folding doors. Shall I say I was shocked or surprised or both? At any rate, I had an absolutely novel experience. The room was largely occupied with packing cases and some rough shelves set along one of the walls. Near the window, which looked out on the dreary back gardens, was a writing table littered with papers. In front of the fireplace, where a fender is usually found for a low, narrow iron bedstead neatly covered with a rug, Mr. Taylor's chief resting place by night and by day. I hardly think there was a scrap of carpet on the floor, and certainly not a single piece of furniture that suggested the slightest regard for comfort or appearance. Mr. Taylor offered no word of apology or explanation, but lay down on his iron bedstead and eagerly plunged into a conversation which was, for me, one of life's golden moments. Every idea I had hitherto cherished of a great man was completely shattered. The high, imposing airs and all the trappings were conspicuously absent, but Christ's ideal of greatness was then and there so securely set in my heart that it has remained through all the years up to this moment. I strongly suspect that by his unconscious influence, Mr. Hudson Taylor did more than any other man of his day to compel Christian people to revise their ideas of greatness. I mention these details because they show light upon some of the important principles upon which Mr. Taylor based his life and service. He profoundly realized that if the millions of China were to be evangelized, they would have to be a vast increase in self-denial and self-sacrifice upon the part of Christians at home. But how could he ask and urge others to do what he was not practicing himself? So he deliberately stripped his life on all sides of every appearance of self-consideration and self-indulgence. And it was just the same in China. But there an additional principle came into action. He would not ask those who worked with him to face hardships he himself was not willing to endure. He never used his position as director of the mission to purchase himself the least advantage or ease. He made it his, under all circumstances, to live in that spirit and practice of self-sacrifice which he expected to find in his brethren on the field. However hard his lot might be in China, every missionary knew that Mr. Taylor had suffered in the same way and was ready to do so again. No man could suspect at any time that while he himself was bearing the cross, his leader, under more favorable circumstances, was shirking it. Herein was one explanation of the remarkable and affectionate attachment to Mr. Taylor on the part of so many in the mission. But just as the friends and candidates of the mission were challenged by Hudson Taylor's example, they also learned to trust the power of prayer. The monthly remittance to be cabled to China on one occasion was very small, nearly 235 pounds less than the average expenditures to be covered. So when the household gathered for noon prayers, Hudson suggested, let us bring the matter to the Lord in prayer. That very evening, The postman brought a letter which was found to contain a check to be entered. From the sale of a plate it said, do you know what the sum was? Just over two hundred and thirty-five pounds. Once after he was able to be up and about again, Hudson was returning from a meeting when he happened to take a seat on a train beside a Russian nobleman who had heard him speak at the meeting. As they traveled to London together, Count Bobrinsky took out his pocketbook. Allow me to give you a trifle, he said. toward your work in China." But the banknote he handed to Mr. Taylor was a large sum. Hudson realized that there must have been some mistake. Did you not mean to give me five pounds, he asked? Please let me return this note. It is for fifty. I cannot take it back, replied the Count, who was just as surprised as Hudson. Five pounds was what I meant to give. But God must have intended you to have fifty. I cannot take it back. Impressed with what had just taken place, Hudson reached Pireland Road to find family and friends gathered for special prayer. A China remittance was to be sent out, and the money in hand was short by 49 pounds, 11 shillings. There on the table, Hudson laid his banknote for 50 pounds. But even after all the answers to prayer of those years, enormous barriers still remained. In fact, In the months immediately after the eighteen pioneer missionaries sailed from England for China, the two countries again came to the brink of war. A British official traveling into far western China was murdered. And when the government in London lodged a protest, the Chinese government ignored the demands. The British ambassador, having exhausted all diplomatic channels, left Peking for the coast to sail home. War looked inevitable at the very time Hudson was preparing to follow the eighteen new missionaries to China. accompanied by yet another eight new workers. Many friends of the mission tried to talk Hudson out of going. You will all have to return, they said, and as to sending off pioneers to the more distant provinces, it is simply out of the question. But Hudson felt certain that there had been no mistake. The men and money were finally available. Certainly the time had come to take the gospel where it had never been before. Was inland China going to remain closed? Hudson spent many long hours on his knees in the third-class cabin of the French steamer that carried the tailors and their eight new young colleagues toward China. Two years before he had written, my soul yearns, oh, how intensely, for the evangelization of the hundred and eighty millions of these unoccupied provinces, oh, that I had a hundred lives to give or spend for their good. In the meantime he did everything in his power and more to keep that vision alive. He and the mission had gone through so much, and now? At the last moment, the Chinese government relented. The viceroy, Li Hengzhao, rushed to the coast, overtaking the British minister at Caifu. And it was there that the memorable convention was signed, which finally promised complete access to every part of China. When Hudson reached Shanghai, the good news awaited him. The agreement had been signed the week after he sailed from England. And three parties of the 18 had already set out and were well on their way into the interior. Just as our brethren were ready, Hudson wrote, not too soon, not too late. The long closed door opened to them of its own accord. 1876, 1881. While the doors to inland China were technically open for some years, they were only open a crack. But the Zaivu convention, in effect, flung wide the doors. The agreement not only stated that foreigners were at liberty to travel anywhere in the emperor's dominions, earlier agreements had promised that, but this time foreign travelers went with the guarantee of the emperor's own protection and were to be received with respect and in no way hindered in their journey. Imperial proclamations declaring the policy were to be posted in every city. And for a period of two years, British officials could be sent anywhere in China to make sure that all these provisions were carried out. The China Inland Mission representatives were the first, and in many parts of China, the only foreigners to make use of this opportunity. And on more than one occasion, alarmed local government officials would welcome the unexpected missionaries to a new city with elaborate hospitality, while their minions hurriedly tacked up the official documents they were supposed to have already posted. Far and wide, the pioneer missionaries traveled, crossing and recrossing all the provinces of the interior, and penetrating even into Tibet. Over 30,000 miles these men journeyed in the first 18 months. The way, however, wasn't at all easy. For while the Chinese government approved their travel, many leaders still resented the presence of Westerners, and the rigors of travel, mostly on foot or by wheelbarrow, remained as difficult as ever. Hudson himself was able to accomplish little of what he had planned in the first few months back in China. A fever he caught while sailing up the China Sea led to a serious illness that confined him for some time in Xinjiang, where he could do little except pray and help with mission correspondence. It is difficult to realize that I cannot run about as I once did, he wrote to his wife, She had stayed in England to care for the Taylor children, the older four, two little ones born to her, and the adopted orphan daughter of George Duncan. And in a later letter he added, The weakness that prevents overwork may be the greatest blessing to me. But overwork could hardly be avoided. In addition to his responsibility as director of the work in China, and the editing of China's Millions, a new illustrated magazine the mission published and sold back in England, Hudson soon took over the office duties of the mission secretary, whose health forced him to go on furlough. Whenever work permitted, Hudson liked to take a break to play the harmonium and sing hymns. His favorite contained the words, Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what thou art. I'm finding out the greatness of thy loving heart. One of the 18 missionary evangelists, Mr. George Nichols, was with Hudson on one occasion when the mail arrived in the office with the disturbing news of serious rioting around two of the older stations of the mission. Thinking Hudson might wish to be alone, the younger man was about to withdraw when, to his surprise, Hudson began to whistle that same refrain, Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what thou art. Turning in surprise, George Nichols explained, How can you whistle when our friends are in so much danger? Would you have me anxious and troubled?" Hudson responded. That would not help them, and would certainly incapacitate me for work. I have just to roll the burden on the Lord. Day and night that was exactly what he did. Frequently anyone awake in the little mission house of Shenyang might hear at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. the soft refrain of Hudson's favorite hymn, which spelled out his strategy for handling all the pressures and problems that the mission faced. Hudson regained strength enough to travel. He knew he would need to stay longer in China than the 40 weeks he'd originally planned. Sometimes it does seem hard, he wrote Jenny, to be away from you. But when I think of the one who spent 33 years away from his heaven and finished them on Calvary, I feel ashamed of my own selfishness. Though Hudson and Jenny enjoyed a wonderful reunion when he returned after 16 months in China, their time together was short. For Hudson brought with him the dreadful news of a famine in North China where six million Chinese faced starvation after several straight years of lost crops. The two pioneer missionaries recently sent to that region reported that children were dying by the thousands and young girls were being sold into slavery and taken away in large numbers to be resold in southern Chinese cities. Hudson felt so burdened by the conditions in North China that he devoted most of his energy to telling Christians throughout Britain about the needed relief work. But when funds began coming in for the rescue of starving children, the next problem became obvious. Where was the woman who could go to that province to head up the relief work among the women and children? No European woman had ever been beyond the mountains that separated Chauncey from the coast. Just to get there meant a journey of two weeks by mule litter over dangerous roads with miserable ends at night. Experienced, devoted with the knowledge of the language, and having already earned the confidence of fellow missionaries, both men and women, Jenny Taylor couldn't help thinking she was the person who needed to go. But how could she? She and Hudson had just been separated for more than a year. He, as usual, had worn himself out in China and could use her help with mission business at home. And who would care for the seven children? As she struggled with the decision, Jenny prayed that God would give her a sign. I felt like Gideon, she wrote, that my strength in China would be, have not I commanded thee? And I wanted some fleeces to confirm my faith, and as a token for those who would have me remain at home, I asked God to give me in the first place money to purchase certain requisites for outfit, as we had none to spare, and further, to give me liberally as much as fifty pounds, so that there might be money in hand when I went away. The very next day a friend called to see her, saying, Will you accept a little gift for your own use or get anything you need for the journey?" And the gift was 10 pounds, exactly the allowance the mission made for outfitting a missionary for the trip to China. A few days later, she received another unexpected check for exactly 50 pounds. Her fleeces so precisely answered, she knew what she must do. And finally, the solution To her great concern was also provided when Hudson's sister, Amelia Broomhall, who lived next door to the Powerland Road headquarters, announced, If Ginny is called to go to China, I am called to care for her children. So for another year, Hudson and Ginny were separated. While she ministered to the needs of starving women and children in North China, he oversaw the training of yet another thirty new missionaries and began to see a new complication resulting from the expansion of the mission. The pioneer missionaries naturally sought headquarters where they could establish their own homes. And just as naturally, many decided to get married. That meant sending women into the vast interior of China, something no other mission had ever done. And immediately prompted a new wave of criticism about the China Inland Mission's policies. Married couples would soon have children, and single women would have need to be sent to help take care of some of the busy mother's duties of evangelism. and teaching among the Chinese women. And if he thought the criticism for sending married women out into pioneer missionary work was severe, it was nothing compared to the outcry over allowing single women to be exposed to the dangers and hardships of life in inland China. But Hudson, having seen the great effectiveness of Maria during his early days in China, and now having sent Jenny on her unprecedented assignment into Chauncey, had great confidence in the courage, strength and resourcefulness of women missionaries. So, by the time he and Jenny were reunited in Shanghai in 1879 for an extended tour of the mission centers around China, the decision to open up women's work was already made, and it soon turned out to be one of the most significant decisions Hudson ever made. Stranded for a time in the young's gorges The first women who went to the far west spent a strange Christmas amid their belongings spread out to dry upon the rocks. And what crowds overwhelmed them when they reached their destinations? For nearly two months, Mrs. Nichols wrote from Shung King, I have seen some hundreds of women daily. Our house has been like a fair. More than once, she fainted from exhaustion in the midst of crowds of guests who came to sit and listen to the gospel story told by the only white woman in a province of some sixty million people. And when she returned to consciousness, she would find the woman fanning her, full of affection and concern. One lady, who cared for her like a mother, would send round her own sedan chair with an urgent request for Mrs. Nichols to return in it immediately. The most comfortable bed in her apartment was waiting. And after sending out all of the younger women, she would sit down herself to fan the weary visitor till she fell asleep. Then an inviting dinner was prepared, and on no account was Mrs. Nichols allowed to leave until she ate a healthy meal. Everywhere those first women went, they were surprised at how glad the people were to see them, how eager they were to hear the message, and not just out of curiosity, but with genuine interest in the Bible and in this man, Jesus. So that by the end of the second year after missionary women came on the scene, the pioneers were rejoicing in 60 or 70 converts gathered into little churches in the far inland provinces. But no one knew the cost and the danger of such work any better than Hudson Taylor. Having lost his beloved Maria to the demands and disease of China, he prayed every day for the health and safety of every woman in the mission. But as he wrote his mother, I cannot tell you how glad my heart is to see the work extending and consolidating in the remotest parts of China. It is worth living for, and yes, worth dying for. Indeed, he almost did die. It was a great blessing that Jenny was with him in China because his life was threatened by illness three times during 1879. Her supportive, inspiring attitude can be seen in a letter written at that time, which she said, Don't you think that if we set ourselves not to allow any pressure to rob us of communion with the Lord, we may live lives of hourly triumph, the echo for which will come back to us from every part of the mission? I have been feeling that these last months, that all of our work, the most important is that unseen, upon the Mount of Intercession. Our faith must gain the victory for the fellow workers God has given us. They fight the seen, and we must fight the unseen battle. And dare we claim less than constant victory when it is for him and we come in his name?" Though Hudson did pull through and began to regain his strength, his trial regarding finances continued. Funds seemed to be dropping lower and lower. We need much prayer, but God cannot fail us. Let us trust and not be afraid, he wrote to a fellow missionary. And when another friend noted how much of his convalescence seemed to be sent in prayer, Hudson asked, What would you do if you had a large family and nothing to give them to eat? That is almost my situation at present. When word reached China that both of their mothers had died within a few weeks of each other, Hudson and Jenny decided she was needed at home. He would follow as soon as possible. His wife had only been gone ten days when he wrote, I am sure you have been longing for me as I have for you. At the right time, by the right way, the Lord will bring us together again. Let us seek to live all the more with him, to find him a satisfying portion." And a month later, as he journeyed up the Yanks, he wrote, You are plowing the Mediterranean and will soon see Naples. I am waiting for a steamer to Wachung. 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 at SWRB at SWRB.com, by phone at 780-450-3730, by fax at 780-468-1096, or by mail at 4710-37A Avenue, 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 Calvin, 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.