The Father of Faith
Missions
Hudson Taylor
Before Hudson Taylor was five he was saying, "When I become a man, I will be a missionary and go to China."
The English boy's sensitive heart had been impressed by stories about the lands where almost no one had heard about the true God. But those who knew young Hudson passed it off as only childish impulse. William Carey had gone to India, and a few others had taken the gospel to foreign lands, but the notion still persisted in English church circles that God would convert the heathen Himself when he was ready.
The Taylor home was both happy and godly. Each day James Taylor read a Bible passage and explained it to his children. "God cannot lie," he would often tell them. "He cannot mislead you," and little Hudson would bob his curly head as if to say, "Surely it is true if Father says so."
But the simple trust of childhood slipped away as Hudson entered his teens. For six years he was unsettled spiritually. He tried hard to "make himself a Christian" by performing every religious exercise that came to his mind. Surely, he thought, there is some way I can become worthy of God's love.
He began working in his father's apothecary, mixing
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and dispensing medicines to the customers, but he was still not sure that he had taken the right spiritual medicine for his soul. At work one day, he read a tract story of a half-wit who was able only to fix his mind upon one spiritual truth — that Christ came to save sinners — and in that truth he found peace that sustained him in death.
After reading the tract, Hudson quietly bowed his head and made his first conscious attempt to surrender to Christ. But in later years he did not consider this to be a true conversion.
When he was fifteen, he secured employment as a junior bank clerk. Most of his associates in the bank seldom spoke of religion without a sneering wisecrack. An older clerk who befriended him took every opportunity to laugh at Hudson's old-fashioned notions.
Despite his better judgment, Hudson permitted his mind to be dragged into cynical disdain of his childhood teaching. "I began to set too great a value on the things of this world. Religious duties became irksome to me," he later wrote.
But Providence was working. Working long hours by gaslight resulted in serious inflammation of his eyes. Nothing seemed to help his failing eyesight, so after nine months in the bank, he again became his father's assistant.
He confided to his parents that he was not sure of the truth of what they had taught him. They tried to be patient with him. His mother and younger sister Amelia redoubled their prayers.
One day he was at home alone. During the afternoon he explored his father's library, looking for a book to help him pass the time. But no book seemed
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interesting; so he turned to a basket of religious pamphlets. Selecting one, he told himself, "There will be a story at the beginning and a sermon at the end. I will take the story and leave the sermon."
What Hudson Taylor did not know then was that seventy miles away, his mother was kneeling in prayer for him. After the noon meal she had felt an intense concern for Hudson's conversion. Locking herself in a room, she had resolved not to leave the spot until being assured her prayers were answered.
Meanwhile, Hudson had come upon the phrase, "the finished work of Christ." "Why should not the author say the atoning work of Christ?" he asked himself. Immediately the words of Jesus on the cross, "It is finished," shot into his mind.
Then came the further thought, "If Christ has finished paying the debt for my sins, what is there left for me to do?"
And with this came the happy assurance that there was nothing he could do, except fall on his knees and accept what Christ had done.
Two weeks later his mother arrived home. Embracing her, he told her the good news. "I know," she said happily, "I have been rejoicing for a fortnight. God assured me that my prayers were answered."
Thus began a long life of spiritual victory for Hudson Taylor. He went to China as a missionary. He founded the great China Inland Mission which has been responsible for putting thousands of missionaries on spiritually needy fields. Many have called Hudson Taylor the father of faith missions.
