“Our wisdom is kneel as children kneel,
Placing our hands in His, come woe or weal:
To wait with patient heart and reverent eyes
On One who understands His children’s cries.”
— Nettie Rooker.
YANG-CHOW proved to Mr. and Mrs. Taylor to be more like home than any of the other stations at which they had been. There they left their children under the care of Miss Blatchley, while they were busy on long journeys, which enabled them to reach a great number of people in a short time. Never idle, they were able in spite of the heavy responsibilities which the work involved, not only to maintain a spirit of calm confidence and restfulness which was a great comfort and cheer to their companions, but by many acts of thoughtfulness provide help and succor for some of their number who stood in need of it.
One such instance is worth recording. Mr. Judd was suffering in health, and it was necessary he should get more exercise. Mr. Taylor arranged with another of his helpers to procure a small horse for riding. The animal was left in Mr. Judd’s care, which necessitated his exercising it, and in the exercise of the animal he found the means of restoration to health. Mr. Taylor meanwhile encouraging him to keep on “doing good deeds.”
Those in most intimate touch with the devoted couple bore testimony to the sweetness of their lives. Yet humanly speaking, many with but a tithe of their cares and responsibilities would have been disturbed and have disturbed others too with complaints and murmurs. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor cast all on Christ and so were at rest.
The delicacy of their children and the sanitary dangers of China now compelled the fond parents to part with them. The baby could not be spared, but the other children, to save their lives, went to England under the care of the faithful and loving Miss Blatchley. On the point of starting one of them died.
A fifth son was born, but after a week only of this world he left it for the place where there is no death, and joined the holy, happy band around the throne. Tidings came that Miss Blatchley and her charge were safe in England, and then Mrs. Taylor, who had cholera, passed to her rest. To her heart-wrung husband she said: “You now, darling, that for ten years past there has not been a cloud between me and my Saviour. I cannot be sorry to go to Him, but it does grieve me to leave you alone at such a time. Yet He will be with you and meet all your need.” Her translation took place on 23rd July, 1870.
Her husband mourned for her as love must, but faith sustained him. Said he: “With the weakness of a child I have the rest of a child. I know my Father reigns.”
Then came a series of tubules, each serious, and all hurtling along in rapid succession. No wonder is it that lung-trouble and a badly deranged liver prostrated the over-worked man, and after six years of intense and incessant labor in China, Hudson came home in 1872. He could, however, as he reviewed the past, raise an Ebenezer, for the C. L M. had now 30 foreign and 50 native workers engaged in China, with 30 stations spread over a hundred miles. This meant the expenditure of 900 per month.
November 28th, Mr. Taylor married the bright-faced Miss Faulding, and once more had a home at 6 Pyrland Road, Stoke Newington. Numbers 4 and 2 were also afterward required, and the little block of buildings were not too much for the growing work.
In 1872 Mr. Taylor attended Mildmay, then the gathering place of all the most spiritual in the land and gave the opening address. He held fast to his desire to evangelize China, and asked for eighteen new workers to go two and two together to the heathen districts. Nothing was done without prayer. The lives of Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were lived in utmost simplicity, and they truly prayed, “Give us this day our daily bread.” After eighteen months’ absence Mr. Taylor and his wife returned to China, but before doing so were able to form a small council of four worthy Christians who would look after the affairs of the Mission at home.
When he reached the land of his adoption he found some of his best workers laid aside by illness, the spiritual life of the churches, too, was ebbing out, and a lethargy ems creeping over the most active Christians. Aggression is always an essential of spiritual health; no individual can keep well before God, and no church pleases Him that does not seek to do as Jesus did, and labor to rescue the perishing and care for the dying.
Hudson at once set out to rally the discouraged and stir up the more alert to greater efforts to reach the unsaved. From station to station he passed, meeting not only the leaders, but all the lesser workers of the Mission: In addition to this personal inspection and encouragement, he wrote many letters, and controlled all the forces in the field. Thus at one station 89 letters lay awaiting him. These were dealt with and then off he started for another visitation, for he was doctor as well as bishop of his flock.
Then from London news came that Miss Blatchley’s health had failed. She had mothered his children, kept house, led the weekly prayer meeting, dealt with the correspondence, and edited as well as sent out the occasional papers. Her loss was therefore a very great trial. This and shortage of funds kept him cast daily upon God.
An interesting account of his reception of two new arrivals on the field is too long to relate. Mr. Taylor took the two young men to a room about twelve feet square, fully furnished with a food basket, a small box, and a square, table. A little platform ran along one side of this apartment, and on this they sat down. They read and prayed, and with characteristic thoughtfulness, Mr. Taylor asked their opinion as to the Meaning of one of the verses read. Then he sent a man out with a wooden basin, which he brought back filled with hot water. Dipping a rag with a wide mesh into the water, he wrung it out, and Mr. Taylor passed the damp cloth over face and hands, cleansing and polishing them. After this they were taken to a cook-shop, where they breakfasted on rice, hot vegetables, and chunks of fat pork. These last were considered a delicacy, but after, a helping the newcomers declined to have more of the greasy dainty.
During this period, while itinerating, an old man followed Mr. Taylor to his boat. He came to ask what he could do with his sins. When he heard the tale of God’s free grace given—to those who accept the Lord Jesus Christ as a Savior, he wondered what he could do to recompense such goodness. He received the free grace offered to those who accept the Lord Jesus Christ as a Savior, who died for our sins at Calvary; he was soothed and comforted, and went away to rejoice over what he had heard and received.
Frequently the balance in hand fell very low, and on one of these occasions Hudson wrote home: “We have this and all the promises of God” (the balance was twenty-five cents). The fear that friends at home would appeal for funds caused the missionary more concern than the apparent shortage. All this time Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were themselves giving to the work in various ways―Mrs. Taylor setting apart a property yielding ₤400 a year to the work of the Mission. A considerable portion of what they received for their own use was also passed on to fellow-workers. A gift of ₤800 was a great cheer, and enabled the missionaries to extend their work to other provinces. Following the river Yangtse to its tributary Han, six hundred miles from the coast, the missionaries entered into new territory to possess it for Christ.
News of the death of Miss Blatchley necessitated his return to England, and when he returned he found his family scattered, and the prayer meeting at Stoke Newington discontinued. An accident which had occurred in China now disabled him. While voyaging up the Yangtse, Mr. Taylor slipped on one of the steps of the ladder between decks, sprained his ankle, and injured his spine, so that concussion of the spine and paralysis followed., He came home to lie upon a bed, all the while busy praying, thinking, planning for the work, and encouraging others to trust God.
With tree humility Mr. Taylor declined the honors of earth. To one who spoke of the honor him had been put upon him by the amazing success of the C. I. M., Mr. Taylor quietly said: “I don’t look upon it in this way. Do you know, I sometimes think that God must have been looking for someone small enough and weak enough for Him to use, so that the glory might be His, and He found me.”
Later on a chairman referred to Mr. Taylor as “our illustrious guest.” Mr. Taylor commenced his speech thus: “Dear friends, I am the little servant of an illustrious Master.” The humility is not more evident than the desire to magnify Christ.
Mr. and Mrs. Broomhall, his sister, now decided to live at No. 2 Pyrland Road, and before long they were absorbed in the Mission to which they had been thus led; Mr. Soltau became secretary, and thus gradually the mission developed its organization. In 1875 the first number of China’s Millions, the organ of the Mission, was published.
Mr. Taylor’s return to health was very slow, and for long the affairs of the Mission were conducted from a sickbed; but strength gradually returned, and with it a renewal of activity on behalf of China in this country. The eighteen missionaries necessary to allow a forward move in the Western Provinces of China were now ready, but the war cloud hung dark over that land, and it seemed as if hostilities between Britain and China could not be avoided.
It was under these circumstances that Mr. Taylor returned to China in 1873. Before he reached Shanghai the Treaty of Chefoo had been signed, and the door of access had been opened to the remotest part of China, and already three parties were well on their way to the interior. For long the missionaries of the C. I. M. were the only foreigners who availed themselves of these open doors. They traveled far and wide, even penetrating into Eastern Tibet, traversing 30,000 miles in eighteen months, selling and distributing the Scriptures and tracts wherever they went.
All was not smooth going for the director of the Mission. His own health was far from satisfactory. Heavy cares devolved on him in consequence of the unsettled state of the country, the health of the workers in various parts gave cause for concern, yet he never lost heart.
One day there came news of serious rioting, and he read aloud the letter which told of the danger of his loved colleagues. This done, he began to whistle the chorus of, “Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what Thou art.” “How can you whistle when our friends are in such danger?” asked a young missionary. “Would you have me anxious and troubled? That would not help them and would certainly incapacitate me for my work. I have just to roll the burden on the Lord.”
At this time several members of the Mission band were engaged on hazardous enterprises. Mr. M`Carthy set out to walk across China, from the Yangtse to the Irrawadi, a journey which took seven months. Time was taken to preach the Gospel as he journeyed and to open a mission station at Chung-king, in the center of a population of seventy millions.
From Bhamo, Messrs. Stevenson and Soltau hoped to reach a similar objective, but were hindered by Government interference. All the while Mr. Taylor was overseeing the work, succouring the workers, and seeking to create unity and fellowship among all the missionaries on the Yangtse river.
In 1877 Mr. Taylor visited all the stations of the Mission in Che-kiang, being fully occupied thus from May to October. The awful famine of 1876-79 was ravaging China, and from Shansi news of the impending calamity, which lasted for nearly four years, ravaged eighteen provinces of China, and cut off between eighteen and twenty millions of people, began to reach the missionary. This hurried his return to England to secure such assistance as he could to relieve the suffering in Shangsi. The awful tales of suffering which reached home, of orphaned children perishing in multitudes who might be saved, of women Load girls sold into slavery, presented new problems for the Mission. Orphanages and havens of rest must be provided, and women workers of experience and wisdom were urgently needed. The one woman best fitted for this work was Mrs. Taylor, but she had a sick husband, and a large family of young children to care for. Severe as the trial of separation was, she was prepared “to go for Christ sake.” Mr. Taylor’s sister, Mrs. Broomhall, hearing of the proposal, added her contribution. She said: “Jenny is called to go to China, I am called to care for her children,” and to her family of ten, the missionaries’ bairns were added. A gift of ₤1000 received by Mrs. Taylor the day she set sail for China was a further indication that the Lord was prospering her journey. Penetrating into the interior, she was able to carry succor to the suffering.
Mr. Taylor at home was finding that the mission was growing beyond anything he had anticipated, and with this growth new problems were arising. Frequently missionaries were accepted, and, told there was not a penny on hand or their passage, but time and again the necessary funds came in at the moment they were required. Leaving home affairs in the hands of trusted friends, he again returned to China in 1879. He became seriously ill on the voyage and reached Shanghai an invalid, where his wife was waiting his arrival. They were, on medical advice, directed to Chefoo, which became to time a center and a place of training and care for the children of the numerous missionaries now in China.
In 1883 Mr. Taylor returned to the home base, and was soon busy attending conferences, interviewing candidates, and in 1835 he went back to China with some of the Cambridge Seven. One of the new recruits tells us that when he interviewed. Mr. Taylor he “went away deeply impressed with the character of the man with whom he had been speaking, and with his heart more than ever set upon becoming a missionary in China.”
This band, well-known as athletes, impressed Britain, and almost equally the Chinese. One of them was subsequently set apart as Bishop of a great western province of Szechwan. But why praise some, when it is clear that all the members of the Mission band shared the same absorption in Divine truth, and manifested the same sacrifice of self if only the kingdom of Jesus might be extended?