Hudson Taylor: A Man Beloved

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[00:01:55] Powered by Shopify. Martyrs & Missionaries is a production of Revive Studios. You're listening to Martyrs & Missionaries. I'm Elise and in every episode, I'll bring you a new martyr and or missionary, the called and the brave.

[00:02:10] In this episode, we're covering part three of the life of Hudson Taylor, the father of China Inland Mission. Before we begin, I want to repeat that this is part three. So if you have not listened to part one or part two, this might be a little confusing.

[00:02:43] So you might want to go back and give those a listen. But if you're kind of strange and just want to hear the ending, I guess keep on listening. We ended part two with Hudson's letter to William Berger about what kind of people they

[00:02:53] were looking for, for the China Inland Mission. So he writes that letter and then in 1868, they decide that they have the enough resources to move into a different part of the interior. That's Yangzhou. Yangzhou is not super far from Hangzhou, maybe I think 22 miles or so.

[00:03:09] But they don't have a single missionary, not even the Catholics, which is a huge deal because they usually beat everybody to it, but they didn't have any. It's a beautiful city, but it's known for its collection of mobs.

[00:03:20] People will just basically form a mob out of nowhere and start causing some consternation. The crew that's going to Yangzhou is Emily Blatchley. She is the secretary for CIM, the Taylors obviously and their children, the children's nurse, Mary

[00:03:36] Rutland and Tian Shi, whom Hudson had adopted like 11 years earlier, four Chinese Christians and another Chinese lady who was moving there to marry the mission's head printer. In July, they were able to move into a beautiful house that is described this way.

[00:03:54] The house shared an entrance lane about 100 yards long with several neighboring houses. Two gates of the north end of the lane open into an area of courtyards, gardens, rockeries and passageways between scattered buildings, each with only a few rooms and ideal for a mixed party.

[00:04:07] The main house consisted of a guest hall open to a courtyard and a stairway with two living rooms on each side. At the top of the stairs, a trap door could be lowered to isolate the bedrooms from the ground floor of the house.

[00:04:19] Now unbeknownst to them, as soon as they begin moving in, the scholars have a huge problem with this and the scholars had a huge influence in China at this time period because they were the leaders of religious thought, of political thought, of social commentary and

[00:04:33] they really didn't like these missionaries coming in and upsetting the balance. And so they have a meeting and they decide to begin this rumor mill that would inevitably get them kicked out. So they say that they're scooping out the eyeballs of children, they're cutting open

[00:04:45] pregnant women for medicine and they put these on flyers all over the city and the people begin to mob. They react to this very, very voraciously and Hudson sends a letter to the prefect and

[00:04:59] he brushes him off and Hudson sends another letter and he says, hey, we have this treaty, we're allowed to come into the interior and we're not supposed to be messed with and he gets brushed off again. So then more mobs begin to form because now they're even braver.

[00:05:12] No one's going to stop them. So you have these mobs of about 8 to 10,000 people and in the house there's only four missionary men, five missionary women, four children, 19 Chinese Christians and they're way outnumbered. And they begin shouting things outside of their house and they are convinced that they've

[00:05:31] eaten 24 children and not only is the mob angry but they're also armed with these crude weapons. Another message was sent to the prefect and this was left unanswered. So Hudson and another guy decide to go leave and get him and they get chased out into the

[00:05:45] back of these rice fields. But luckily Hudson knows kind of a back way to get to his house so they're let into the house but then they're made to wait for 45 minutes and while they're waiting they can

[00:05:57] hear the mob from a mile away and then within two hours it's finally dealt with. But they're told that every foreigner in the house is dead. While they were away this is what happened.

[00:06:09] The mob was able to break into the house and they began ransacking everything and tried to grab things off of their body that they perceived to be valuable. And the missionaries go up to the roof and they're trying to escape via a rope made of

[00:06:20] various sheets but then below them these people begin burning things so that way they can't jump from the roof. One man grabs one of the missionaries as he's trying to remove his watch and the man manages to take off his watch and throws it onto the ground.

[00:06:36] And he's thinking this man will go look for this watch but instead he tries to throw him off of the roof. But then luckily Maria and Emily were there to kind of drag him back into the room.

[00:06:46] So this man picks up a large brick from the wall raises his arm to crash it down onto this missionary's head and then Maria quickly put up her arm to stop the blow and the man turned

[00:06:54] to hit her and she said, would you strike it a fenceless woman? And the man looks down he looks at the brick and he drops it when he climbs out onto the roof and he shouts down to the rioters below to come up.

[00:07:06] One of the other missionary men had managed to drag the fire out into the yard away from the window. He's telling everybody to jump and he will catch them. So Maria who is multiple months pregnant at this point I think maybe seven months pregnant

[00:07:17] as she goes to the edge of the roof which is about 12 to 15 feet off the ground and she jumps and this man wasn't able to catch her but was able to break her fall but she landed on her side and her right leg twisted up underneath her.

[00:07:30] Maria watched as then Emily prepared to jump but as she jumps a flying brick hits this missionary guy who's supposed to catch them on the face and it all but knocks him out.

[00:07:39] He's blinded he can't see her and so she lands very heavily on her back and she's stunned but luckily she's wearing her head in the Chinese bun style so she's got quite a bit

[00:07:46] of hair back on the back of her head and that's what was able to protect her head. Mr. Rudland, Mary's husband is able to round everybody up and gets the party through the doorway to a neighbor's house and they're taken quickly to a room far inside this house

[00:08:00] where they then sit and wait anxiously and they're wondering what happened to Taylor and this other guy that he took with him. And during all this they get the news the soldiers had been brought in and they were carrying away the mobs and dispersing them.

[00:08:11] Shortly after this they're all reunited and much to everyone's surprise no one is dead. There's a couple of rather serious injuries but for the most part everybody is okay and they go back to the house and they see that it's been thoroughly ransacked except for

[00:08:26] Emily's room where all the important documents and money were kept. After this is all over Hudson decides to inform the British consul because he feels they have to know and the British consul did not like this at all.

[00:08:38] They were very upset and they go to the prefect and they demand answers and the prefect is very elusive because he's very disrespectful and that kind of causes a lot of tensions to be rather high and there's a couple things that happen some squabbles that break out

[00:08:52] and different threats were made and it was not good for public relations because all this gets back to England as we'll see in a minute. So while Hudson and the China Inland Mission had kind of moved on from the Yongzhou incident

[00:09:03] they're still there, the house has been repaired, they're ready to move on but in England they've gotten the news and the House of Lords is debating the incident and they believe that Hudson or at least some of them believe that Hudson had gone to the British

[00:09:16] consul and had used force against the Chinese to get his way which is not at all what happened. But it was weaponized as a way to basically say why are we even sending missionaries overseas? Why don't we just, why don't we leave them to their own devices?

[00:09:32] One of these particular antagonists was the Duke of Somerset who said what right have we to be sending inland missions to China? What right have we to be trying to convert the Chinese in the middle of their own country?

[00:09:42] I have a decided objection to the system of supporting missionaries in the interior of China. The fact is we are propagating Christianity with gunboats for the authorities of inland towns know perfectly well that if they get into trouble with a missionary a gunboat will come up.

[00:09:56] We ought, I contend, to recall these inland missionaries. A missionary indeed must be an enthusiast. If he is not an enthusiast he is probably a rogue. No man would go up and live up one of those rivers and preach Christianity unless he were

[00:10:07] an enthusiast and being an enthusiast he is more dangerous. I think today we would replace enthusiast with radicals who is basically accusing them of being crazy radicalists. The foreign secretary points out that he is in favor of missionaries being in the interior

[00:10:22] but perhaps they would do better to follow in the wake of trade when people have learned to see it and its material advantage to themselves rather than to seek to lead the way in opening up new locations. This was all too much for the new Bishop of Petersburg.

[00:10:36] His name was William McGee and he is brand new to the parliament and he becomes later on one of the greatest debaters of his time. This is his maiden speech and he is responding particularly to the Duke of Somerset.

[00:10:48] Quoting here Dr. McGee said that the Duke of Somerset had advocated stringent measures towards troublesome missionaries but pointed out that had such a course been always and successfully pursued neither the noble duke nor himself would have become Christians at all.

[00:11:02] Furthermore, the noble Earl, the foreign secretary has advised the missionaries to follow in the wake of trade. Perhaps the noble Earl would mention the kind of trade in whose wake they were to follow.

[00:11:11] Were they to follow in the wake of the opium trade or were they to wait until British traders had inoculated the Chinese with all their vices before they commenced teaching in the gospel? Instead of waiting for this, the missionary felt that he had a higher duty imposed on

[00:11:24] him by a higher master to go forth and preach the gospel. While all this is going on, George Mueller knows that Hudson needs a little bit of a pick me up, a bit of a good news because a lot of his friends were turning against him

[00:11:38] listening to all of this hearsay and propaganda against him. And so he sends money to every single CIM missionary in their own personal name. And then for every year after that, he gives 2000 pounds.

[00:11:53] And Hudson had a lot of friends that were in very high places and they supported him enthusiastically and wholeheartedly throughout his entire life. One of those people I came across is named Lord Radstock. And he comes up a few times.

[00:12:06] I might have actually mentioned him earlier on, but this is something I didn't know. I was looking him up a little bit trying to figure out his background. And there's not an awful lot about him, but there is a connection to this great awakening in Russia.

[00:12:22] And I kind of compared to make sure that there wasn't another Lord Radstock at this time that it could have possibly have done this. Because when you look at Lord Radstock, you actually don't find anything about his support

[00:12:31] for the China Inland Mission, but you come up with this great ministry in Russia. But the timelines are exact. So I'm almost 100% certain that this Lord Radstock, who was a radical supporter of the China Inland

[00:12:46] Mission and of Hudson Taylor, was also partly responsible or I would say mostly responsible for this great awakening in Russia a couple of decades before they have their revolution. If anybody knows more about this, if you happen to be a huge Lord Radstock fan and you've

[00:13:03] got some information for me, feel free to email me. I would love to hear more about it. Back in China, it's March 1869 and Samuel Taylor, who's now five, has very severe intestinal tuberculosis, which I didn't know was a thing, but apparently there are a few different types

[00:13:21] of tuberculosis and one of them is intestinal. So Hudson and Maria made the difficult decision to send their kids back to China because they were constantly getting ill and it was pretty much only a matter of time before they

[00:13:33] were just kind of slowly picked off due to illness. And Emily also had advanced TB in her lungs, and so she was going to go back with the kids. But sadly, Samuel died before they could leave, and so only Herbert and Howard and Maria left

[00:13:48] with Emily and then Charles, who was only born the year before, he stayed home. Now Maria was also suffering from intestinal TB and then she was pregnant again. And in July of 1870, she gives birth to a boy they named Noel.

[00:14:02] After she gives birth, she begins bleeding internally and Noel, who had been doing really well when he was first born, gets some kind of infection around his mouth and then he dies at 13 days old.

[00:14:13] And Maria is worsening so she can't go to the funeral, but she picks out two hymns that they can sing. As Hudson's leaving the funeral, he tells the funeral director that,

[00:14:22] I trust I may not soon have to trouble you again because he had just buried his son, his other son, and then a couple years before that he had buried his daughter. So it'd been a lot of funerals in a row.

[00:14:34] Maria's pulse is weakening, she's got rapid heart palpitations, and Hudson shaves her head to help her with the fever. And here I'll read directly from Roger Steers' A Man in Christ. As the sun rose on July 23rd, Hudson could see that Maria was dying.

[00:14:49] My darling Hudson said, do you know that you are dying? Dying, said Maria, do you think so? What makes you think so? I can see it, darling. Your strength is giving way. Can it be so? I feel no pain, only weariness. Yes, you're going home.

[00:15:03] You'll soon be with Jesus. I'm so sorry, dear. Then she paused as if correcting herself for feeling sorry. You're not sorry to go to be with Jesus, dear, Hudson asked. He never forgot the look she gave him.

[00:15:14] Looking right into his eyes, she said, oh no, it's not that. You know, there hasn't been a cloud between my soul and the Savior for 10 years past. I cannot be sorry to go with him, but I am sorry to leave you alone at this time.

[00:15:26] Yet he will be with you and meet all your needs. So everyone in the house gathers around her bed to kind of see her off, so to speak. And then as they come into her room, she says something to each and every one of them.

[00:15:37] She says, come to Jesus so that you will meet me in heaven to those who weren't Christians. Then she gives Hudson a kiss for each of her children, for Herbert, for Howard, and for Maria in England. And then she had a message for them all.

[00:15:48] And then when she could speak no more, she put her arm around Hudson's neck and one on his head, indicating that he should look up to heaven. Her face, he noticed, had a look of unutterable love and trust. Her lips moved but no sound came.

[00:16:00] And then she fell asleep. And as the others watched, they saw her sleep become lighter and lighter. It wasn't easy for them to tell when she died because she had felt no pain. After she died, Hudson immediately kneels down at the side of the bed and then prays,

[00:16:13] thanking God for the 12 and a half years they had together. And then he scribbles a note to the American Presbyterians in Hangzhou. And it's very hopeful and he lets them know what has happened.

[00:16:22] But it's much more cheerful than his actual feelings because he cuts off locks of Maria's hair and then he sends them to his parents, to her parents, and then to each of the children.

[00:16:31] And he is so paranoid that it'll go down with one ship, like if one ship wrecks, so he actually parcels it out to two different ships. But then with the locks of hair, he sends this letter to his three children in England.

[00:16:42] He said, Noelle had soft, sweet little eyes and long, silky lashes and a dear little mouth just like Grace's used to be. And then he gives them, their mother's last messages to them each.

[00:16:54] And he says something that is not ideal to tell your children, but he says, It may be that God will take away your dear father too before very long, but God will always be a father to you.

[00:17:05] But when he sent the letter, he was suffering from severe dysentery, which was often fatal. So that could explain why he was maybe feeling a bit more morose. And then also, you know, his child and wife had just passed away.

[00:17:17] And he says the house, which was once full is empty because even Charles was in a nearby city. But then through his grief, he pens something that I think is really beautiful. He says, I go to prepare a place for you.

[00:17:28] Is it not one part of the preparation, the peopling of it with those we love? Changing tacks here, the church at New Lane in Hangzhou had grown to 67 as five more Chinese Christians were baptized and Wang Lijun had opened up four country outposts to hold services

[00:17:45] and was supervising seven full-time evangelists and Bible distributors. And John McCarthy, who you may remember from his description of Hudson as he arrives there in Hangzhou and Hudson's up on the table and he's sharing the gospel with these people who are waiting to be seen at the hospital.

[00:18:03] And he kind of waves a little bit to McCarthy as he comes in. And McCarthy has been holding Bible classes and evangelism training. And then Ginny is running several schools and boarding facilities. And Wang Lijun said that at least 50 of his congregants had become Christians through

[00:18:18] her influence because she'd been visiting houses every single day. Hudson's feeling the need to make a trip back to England. William Berger wants him to return. He may need to be face to face and talk over some more serious issues. They need to renew relationships, et cetera.

[00:18:34] And Ginny also needed to return mostly due to parental pressure. And then so did another couple named the Meadows who were battling prolonged illnesses. On the voyage back, the Meadows' health was so poor. So most of the time it was just Hudson and Ginny hanging out together.

[00:18:50] And they realized they had a lot in common. They talked and prayed and enjoyed the complete relaxations from the pressures of China. Ginny had also loved Maria. And he didn't have to hide kind of that part of himself because they both loved her and

[00:19:04] loved to talk about her. By this time, it had been more than a year since Maria had passed away, a little bit more than a year. And I think it's a little bit weird for us today. We kind of balk at that.

[00:19:15] We go, oh, you had like multiple children with this person and you're ready to move on so soon. But I kind of like his rationale because it's actually anything but callous or moving on too quickly.

[00:19:27] I'm not sure if this was something he wrote in like a personal journal or if he writes it to somebody. But he says that the last wish Maria expressed to me was that if she were removed, that I would marry again.

[00:19:38] Seeing the love that I have for her is not likely to undergo any change or diminishing. I do not want one or two years or five years to forget her in.

[00:19:46] You do not know how I love her nor how seldom for one hour she is absent from my waking thoughts. And my dear Ginny would not wish it otherwise. She has her own place in my heart which Jesus has given her, a place all the larger because

[00:19:59] her love is not jealous. They write to Ginny's parents asking to be married and Ginny's parents are not super keen on it. They demand that she waits a year to get married to him because they're not physically fit,

[00:20:12] there's a lot of health issues and just really because they want to spend time with her. And Ginny was not okay with this. She pleaded with them and Hudson interceded a little bit and eventually they backed down

[00:20:23] and Ginny's mother was never as gung ho about that as her father was. So they get married November 28, 1871. There was no honeymoon and they joined the children moving into a new house together.

[00:20:37] When Hudson is finally able to meet with William Berger, Berger tells him that he wants to be replaced. So not only is he just not the best at public relations, he's never felt like he's the best man for the job, but also he had become a universalist.

[00:20:50] There was this new line of thought that a few other people had also fallen under that everyone can become saved through some means of the general dispensation of grace given to all. And he knew that that was very damaging for the China Inland Mission.

[00:21:06] He loved what Hudson was doing and he continued to support the mission for the rest of his life, but he realized he could not be the face of the China Inland Mission. While they're in England, they stay with George Mueller, they speak at his churches, they

[00:21:21] go to the Mild May Conference, they speak with D.L. Moody who is there in England touring as well, and they also enter into praying for 18 new missionaries for nine unreached provinces. So two missionaries for each province.

[00:21:36] After they get everything sorted out in England, they're finally back in China in October of the following year and they officially move the mission's headquarters from Hangzhou to Yangzhou because most of the work in Hangzhou was being done by Chinese Christians. And that was exactly what Hudson wanted.

[00:21:50] He wanted their work to be native and interior, to have as few foreign workers as possible. And then he also wanted to open a college to train Chinese workers. The mission was growing exponentially and this was great on one hand.

[00:22:05] On the other hand, Hudson felt very overwhelmed and he didn't want to focus just on administration because he loved to actually be out among the people and actually ministering. And he was looking for an administrator for the China office that would leave him free to do this.

[00:22:18] And there was a man back in England whose name was Henry Salto and Hudson thinks he's just perfect for the job. So he writes to Emily to ask her to convince Henry to join up.

[00:22:27] He doesn't hear back from her, but then later he hears via letter that she was actually dying of TB so she wasn't able to answer his letter. May of the following year, Hudson plans this trip 500 miles up the Yangtze River to Wuhan,

[00:22:41] which is about a three day journey. But while they're on this journey, he was climbing up a ladder and I guess he slips down off the ladder, but he lands very heavily on the backs of his heels.

[00:22:51] And at first he thinks it's not a big deal, like it hurts a lot, but it's not as bad. And then it begins to deteriorate to the point that he's actually partially paralyzed and he has to go back to England.

[00:23:03] And when they arrive in France on their way to England, they learn that Emily had died the month before, which was sad for them to receive. Hudson's so bad off that he's running all of their affairs from bed.

[00:23:15] He's got dysentery on top of being paralyzed and he thinks he's dying, which is understandable. So he writes a new will leaving everything to Jenny. Jenny may be one of the most chill people I've ever read about, especially concerning like missionary spouses. She's just she's absolutely even keel.

[00:23:33] So while there's this meeting going on downstairs at their house, she's in labor with their first son. And after he's born, she sends a child down to tell Hudson, Hey, I just had the baby and they gave him the name Ernest. And I think that's pretty adorable.

[00:23:49] They're still working on this appeal for these 18 missionaries. And while they're working on that, Henry finally decides that he will take over administration for Hudson. So he begins running the China office and then 20 young men present themselves to answer the call of the 18.

[00:24:04] So things are going really well and Hudson is improving. He's able to go up and down stairs and he wants to head back to China. But then he's thinking who would interview these new candidates who had produced this magazine?

[00:24:16] They had just kind of started a new magazine and discontinued the old one. And so the new ones called China's millions. And he was also thinking who would arrange for funds to be sent out. So he was really struggling with delegation.

[00:24:28] I think that's that is something that as you read through his story, that was his biggest stressor was how to delegate because he felt this need to take on everything himself with and also realized he couldn't. And so he had to find people who could help.

[00:24:42] But also his workload was so intense that it wasn't just one person who could carry it. So you had to just shovel it out to multiple different people. And even then it was a lot. But Hudson thought that his sister and her husband, the Broomhalls, Amelia Broomhall

[00:24:57] and Benjamin Broomhall would be perfect fits. Jenny had just received an inheritance from her uncle and it was they were able to buy this really big place that then contained three separate houses, kind of like townhouses.

[00:25:09] And so one of them was for the Broomhalls, one was for the tailors and then one was for the offices that was in the middle. So the offices and the candidates and the missionaries that were staying on home assignment could all be located there.

[00:25:21] And the Broomhalls accept that offer and they worked there for 40 years in that capacity. And they were very faithful to the China Inland Mission and honestly to the tailors in general. I'll get to that in a minute.

[00:25:35] But once they accepted, Hudson is finally free to go to China. So he leaves for 40 weeks. He's by himself. So Jenny does not go with him. And he had this document box that he was planning on working out of during the trip.

[00:25:47] But it gets left behind in Paris. So instead he has a lot of leisure time and he also has a lot of time to write some very intimate letters to Jenny, which I will spare all of us from reading. But in its own way, it is rather sweet.

[00:26:01] While he's in China, he goes to this mission conference that has all the missions agencies in China at it. And this event was a big stressor for not just Hudson, but for all the other agencies as well because there were a lot of things they didn't agree on.

[00:26:16] And when it comes to China Inland Mission, they didn't agree with a lot of things they did going into the interior, dressing natively, etc., etc., which were still all problems to the other agencies. And there could have been some serious conflicts at this conference.

[00:26:31] But because it was bathed in prayer, everybody felt the same way. It actually went really well. And there really weren't any major issues that came up. And so Hudson's able to go back to England, back to Jenny and the children without any huge fallout or stresses.

[00:26:54] If you can't get enough of Martyrs and Missionaries, but you need some other riveting stories to keep you sated between episodes, might I recommend a podcast called Compelled? It uses gripping, immersive storytelling to bring Christian testimonies to life.

[00:27:07] And if you're looking for an episode to get you started, check out the story of Virginia Prodan. Virginia was a small, petite attorney in communist Romania during the 1980s defending Christians in court. Her successes angered the Romanian dictator and he vowed that she would pay.

[00:27:23] One evening, Virginia was alone in her office when a man entered the room, closed the door, and pulled out a gun. He barked at her, shut up, sit down, I'm here to kill you. She was face to face with a trained assassin. What happens next?

[00:27:38] There's only one way to find out. Listen to Virginia tell her entire story on episode number 31 of Compelled, which is entitled He Came to Kill Me. I'll link it in this episode's description for you. There are so many other great stories ranging from missionaries, addicts, prisoners, or

[00:27:54] just regular people sharing how Jesus Christ has transformed their life. Search for Compelled on your favorite podcast app or by visiting compelledpodcast.com. That's compelledpodcast.com. Since 1876, there had been a famine in Shaanxi, China, which is in the north central part of China.

[00:28:23] And it was a very remote and rural area. And so in the course of three years, it would eventually claim the lives of 5.5 million people. And Ginny feels called to go and help with provide relief. And people were judging her for leaving her kids behind.

[00:28:39] Why would you just up and leave your whole family and leave your kids behind and go to some rural part of China when what good are you really going to do? She was really conflicted about what to do.

[00:28:48] And so she was praying about it and asking how the Lord would provide. And Amelia, her sister-in-law, who has 10 children of her own already, says that if Ginny feels called to go to Shaanxi, I am called to care for her children.

[00:29:05] Amelia wins the best sister-in-law award of all time. One of the things you'll notice as you look at Hudson's life and Ginny's life and just their marriage together is they were very sweet and wrote a lot of letters to each other

[00:29:19] and wrote a lot of letters back and forth to each other. And that's because they were apart for like large chunks of time in their marriage. They were juggling back and forth.

[00:29:29] So one of them would go to England, the other one would go to China, and they'd kind of swap back and forth. I want to take a minute to talk about a missionary who came to China who actually had a profound

[00:29:41] impact on Chinese society, but not a good impact. And he kind of was in part a catalyst for the Boxer Rebellion. His name is Timothy Richard, and he's an influential young Welsh Baptist.

[00:29:54] And he originally applied to join the CIM, but then was advised to go with a different society. He came to China in 1870 when he was 25 years old. And he begins preaching about this important mission, the idea of establishing the kingdom

[00:30:09] of God on earth and protecting the poor and needy from tyranny. And during the famine, he had been living near that area and he'd seen firsthand the effects of it. And he wanted to see China basically transformed by contact with the West and Western technology

[00:30:24] so that something like that would never happen again, which is not necessarily bad, that last bit there. But he also argued that God worked through other religions like Confucianism and Buddhism and Taoism, and that basically they were similar to Christianity.

[00:30:41] And that if you kind of basically syncretism, so you could take these the best aspects of each of these and then somehow create some hybrid Christianity out of them. And he had no interest in sharing the gospel, but instead he was more interested in promoting morality.

[00:30:57] And he started a college in Shaanxi and wanted to promote these Western ideas that were taught alongside Chinese history and culture. And his message spread to other missionaries, even in the CIM, who were living in that Shaanxi area.

[00:31:14] And there was a phrase that came about because it was such a prevalent problem. It's called the Shaanxi spirit. And it was basically used to describe the loss of evangelical fervor that kind of resulted from his thinking.

[00:31:27] And because of this, the faith of one CIM member broke down completely so that he was recalled. Another talked of leaving CIM to work instead with a society which provided regular salary. And three or four missionaries did end up resigning from the CIM because of his influence

[00:31:42] and then actually later returned because they decided they had been wrong, which is good. And then Timothy actually resigned from his previous society as he became much more liberal in his thinking and decided to focus more on social justice than the gospel.

[00:31:59] And Hudson had a very interesting thought on this whole thing. He said that he didn't see the defections from his mission as necessarily Richard's fault. Rather, it was the inevitable result of a strong and attractive character over weaker minds.

[00:32:14] The influence of Timothy Richard will pop up a little bit later on, but Hudson had been feeling as though he should be praying for more missionaries to be sent. And he began praying for 70 missionaries to be sent into the interior, to meet the 70 apostles that were sent out.

[00:32:29] And within a year, he had 42 men and 28 women sign up. By this point in time, Hudson Taylor is a famous man or infamous depending on which side of the spectrum you fall on. But he goes back to England and when he arrives, he has multiple requests to speak.

[00:32:44] And I want to read some of the letters that he received. One child wrote to him and said, if you're not dead yet, I want to send you the money I have saved up to help the little boys and girls of China to love Jesus.

[00:32:54] Another person said, will you do me the kindness to give a Bible reading in my house for about 60 people and to spend the night for us? Please do us this favor in the master's name. Now that person is Canon Wilberforce.

[00:33:06] Canon Wilberforce or Basil Wilberforce is indeed the grandchild of William Wilberforce, the famous abolitionist of England. By the time Hudson had finished his speaking tour in 1884, the prayers for the 70 were met and then exceeded.

[00:33:23] You might be familiar with some of the people who were influenced by Hudson during this time. One of them is rather famous called the Cambridge Seven. And if you are not familiar with the Cambridge Seven or you would like to hear more about

[00:33:33] them, then I recommend checking out the episode I did on C.T. Studd, who was one of these Cambridge Seven. Another one of them would become the successor to Hudson. It's DE Host or Dixon Host, but I won't get into that on this episode because I already

[00:33:48] covered it. So when you finish this one, go ahead and click down on that one if you haven't given it a listen yet. Once they reached the 70, Hudson began to pray for another 100 and people were shocked. They're like, how could you possibly get 100 missionaries?

[00:34:01] Like look, look, look, the Lord's done great things so far, but isn't 100 a bit too much to ask? But Hudson wrote down, the accepting and sending out of the 100 will require no small amounts

[00:34:12] of work, but the Lord will give us strength and no little wisdom, but the Lord will guide. There is an all sufficiency in him, is there not? Hudson and his friends even had a prayer they would sing at each meal that said, oh send

[00:34:23] the 100 workers, Lord, those of thy heart and mind and choice to tell thy love both far and wide so we shall praise thee and rejoice. And above the rest, this note shall swell. My Jesus has done all things well. Now about these 100, he had a timetable.

[00:34:39] He's wanted the 100 to be there within a year. By the end of 1887, the hope would be that they would have 100 missionaries. And this veteran Shanghai missionary hears about this and he says, I'm delighted to hear that you're praying for large reinforcements.

[00:34:53] You will not get 100 of course within the year, but you will get many more than you would have if you did not ask for them. And Hudson said, thank you for your interest. We have the joy of knowing our prayers are answered now.

[00:35:03] And I feel sure that if spared, you will share the joy by welcoming the last of the 100 to China. For the bulk of the year, the CIM prayed for these missionaries and Hudson would go

[00:35:14] around on speaking tours around the UK, meeting at conventions, you know, large places, small places, wherever, spreading the word about this. But in addition to all this speaking and touring, he was also doing a large bulk once again of the administrative work. And he was feeling very drained.

[00:35:31] And he wrote to a friend and said, I'm utterly used up and tempted to wish that my turn had come. And he was a power to the faint. And he's once again separated from Jenny, which also doesn't help. But they're exchanging frequent notes.

[00:35:43] And she says to him, darling, my heart trembles for you. Do get all the rest you can. It will not pay to kill yourself even to get the 100. The way that Hudson did his meetings was in no way dramatic. He didn't embellish anything.

[00:35:59] He wasn't even a particularly exciting speaker in the traditional sense. He didn't shout. He didn't move around. He didn't, you know, wildly fling his arms. It was really his words, his heart for God and his realism that stood out to people.

[00:36:14] And so when he would speak, people would be moved by his message and they would offer themselves up to serve as missionaries in China. And by the time he was finished speaking, 600 people had signed up to join the mission. But the CIM requirements were very rigorous.

[00:36:32] And so even though they had these 600 people, which you would think, oh my goodness, this is amazing. God has answered us, you know, six times as many as we had asked for. But in fact, because their standards were so high, they refused five out of six candidates.

[00:36:47] But by January of 1888, that appeal for 100 had been answered. And in his New Year message, he wrote, let us never forget that if we make no appeal to man, we need very, very definitely to continue our appeal to God.

[00:37:00] A God given, God guided spiritual impulse is expressed in every donation we receive. And this which makes our work particularly blessed will always keep us particularly dependent on him. How can we sufficiently praise him for this happy position, this necessity of trustfulness?

[00:37:16] It is not more than we expected God to do for us, but it is very blessed and to see that God does answer in these great things as well as small, the prayers of those who put their trust in him will strengthen the faith of multitudes.

[00:37:28] Now speaking of strengthening the faith of multitudes, one of the last people to greet these 100 missionaries arriving was none other than the veteran Shanghai missionary who said that it couldn't be done.

[00:37:40] Word of the China Inland Mission and the great work that they were doing and that Hudson Taylor was doing reached the ears of Henry Frost, who is a young man, barely 30. His family helped found Harvard and he felt the desire to have a North American branch

[00:37:53] for the China Inland Mission. He loved the mission and he loved the ideals behind it. And he goes to England to meet with Hudson about the possibility of opening up this North American branch. And Hudson is open to this idea of starting this North American mission.

[00:38:08] And he takes it to his brother-in-law, Benjamin Broomhall, and Benjamin is directly dead set against it because he says the idea of opening an international branch is just too complicated. You're dealing with different backgrounds, different cultures, and it's just not going to mix. We are a British institution.

[00:38:26] So Hudson comes to him and he tells Henry the bad news. But Henry doesn't give up. He didn't just turn around and go back home and go, well, I tried. He said, would you go to China via America if I were able to line up some speaking engagements

[00:38:40] at D.L. Moody's Institute and some other places? And Hudson was like, yeah, OK, sure. And so in the summer of 1888, he heads to America with his son Howard, who is now 25 years old and a doctor, and they meet Henry in New York.

[00:38:54] And he speaks at multiple, multiple engagements. And Henry keeps getting all this money to give to Hudson, to give to the CIM, specifically to give to North American missionaries that would go with the China Inland Mission. And Henry is really excited.

[00:39:09] So he comes to Hudson and he's got these bulging pockets. And Hudson's actually concerned and perplexed. He doesn't have the kind of excitement that Henry was looking for. And he says, OK, let's go pray about this. So he gets on his knees. They're praying about it.

[00:39:23] In Hudson's mind, he's thinking it's so much worse to have money and no missionaries than it is to have missionaries and no money. And this to him was a confirmation that the Lord was blessing this idea of opening a North American mission.

[00:39:37] And Hudson said, well, if the Lord is moving, then we'll keep praying about it. But let's also be practical. Let's set up some speaking engagements as I'm kind of moving out towards China. Let's keep it going.

[00:39:48] So they set up tons of speaking engagements moving west from Toronto towards China. They were on their way to Montreal traveling via train. And Henry had read this very critical magazine article about Hudson in the Toronto paper.

[00:40:02] And he was upset by this article and was determined to hide it from Hudson. But Hudson had already kind of heard about it. And he decided to pick it up and read it. In quoting here, it says, Hudson Taylor is rather disappointing.

[00:40:15] I had in my mind an idea of what a great missionary should look like. He, being professedly one of the great missionaries of modern times, must be such as they. But he's not.

[00:40:25] A stranger would never notice him on the street except perhaps to say that he is a good-natured looking Englishman. Nor is his voice in the least degree majestic. He displays little orital power. He elicits little applause. He launches no thunderbolts.

[00:40:39] Even our Goforth, speaking of Jonathan Goforth, used to plead more eloquently for China's millions. And apparently with more effect. It is quite possible that if Mr. Taylor, under another name, were to preach as a candidate in our Ontario vacancies, there are those who would begrudge him his probationer's

[00:40:55] pay. After Hudson read the paper, he put it down. And he was quiet for a little while. And then he smiles. He looks at Henry and said, this is a very just criticism, for it's all true.

[00:41:07] I've often thought that God made me little in order that he might show what a great God that he is. During the North American tour, over 40 women and men sign up to go to China. And 500 to 1,000 people see them off at the docks singing all the way.

[00:41:23] And then later on, the mission will open to Australia and to the Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. After being back in China for some time, he's feeling stressed and fatigued. And this is something that you'll see repeated throughout towards the end of his life especially.

[00:41:39] As CIM gets bigger and as his responsibilities get more intense. And as he's getting older, it just really takes its toll on his body. And he gets sick very frequently, like very sick frequently. And even when he's traveling back and forth, there's always something to do.

[00:41:55] There's always somebody who needs him. But there's cause for celebration and a family holiday when Howard gets married to Geraldine Guinness. The Guinness family has a famous missionary legacy in China. And if you're interested in hearing more about the Guinness family, not the ones that started

[00:42:10] the brewing company, but the other ones. They're actually related to each other, just different branches of the family there. But if you're interested in hearing more about the missionary side of the family, then

[00:42:21] check out the Revive Thoughts episode where Troy talks to Dr. Os Guinness about his family. It's a good episode, so I'm going to link it for you. I told you that we would get back to Timothy Richard and some of the influence he had in China.

[00:42:35] And in 1898, Emperor Guangxi institutes the Hundred Days of Reform. And these are based on the teaching of Timothy Richard. He's a huge fan. And so under these reforms, civil service and military examinations will be kind of overhauled. They'll establish schools and universities which would emphasize Western learning and

[00:42:53] then also begin constructing railways. Now the Qing bureaucracy that really runs China hated this idea. And Empress Dowager, who is his aunt and actually put him on the throne in a rather unorthodox way because it wasn't handed down the right way.

[00:43:11] And she served as co-regent for a long time. But she overthrows her nephew and then places him under house arrest and then threw out all the reforms. She hates Western influence. She hates missionaries. She hates anything to do with Christianity because it has Western influence.

[00:43:28] And the reason it's called the Boxer Rebellion is because the soldiers that she utilized were thugs. They had this fighting style which to the West looked like boxing, but it's actually a form of martial arts.

[00:43:43] A few months later, Hudson is traveling down river to speak at some conferences and he's about halfway there when he hears the news about the death of William Fleming, who is the very first CIM martyr. Fleming had been murdered together with his friend.

[00:43:57] And when Hudson receives the news, he writes to a friend and says, Blessed for the martyrs but sad for us. For China, for their friends. And not only sad but ominous. It seems to show that God is about to test us with a new kind of trial.

[00:44:09] Surely we need to gird on afresh the whole armor of God. Doubtless it means fuller blessing but through deeper suffering. May we all lean hard on the strong for strength. And in some way or other the work be deepened and extended, not hindered by these trials.

[00:44:25] Up to this point, since the formation of the CIM, not a single missionary had been lost to violence or accidents and Hudson was very dependent on God, rightfully so, and on his hand of protection.

[00:44:37] And when he felt that it had been removed, he didn't know why, it broke him just a little bit. While he's doing his speaking engagements in Sichuan, he contracts more illness and

[00:44:48] bronchitis and once again he is near to death but then he recovers enough to go to the China Council in Shanghai and then he does a speaking tour in the West, in Australia, in New Zealand

[00:44:58] and then he takes a train from California to New York and he speaks in Carnegie Hall and it's packed out and then he moves on to Boston. In Boston he's speaking before this audience and he begins to lose his train of thought

[00:45:11] and then he just repeats these two sentences over and over and over again and the sentences are this. You may trust the Lord too little but you can never trust him too much. If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself.

[00:45:27] You may trust the Lord too little but you can never trust him too much. If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself. And he just said it over and over again.

[00:45:37] But the person who came to his rescue said, there was something pathetic and poetic in the very fact that this repetition was the first visible sign of his breakdown. For was it not this very sentiment and this very quotation that he had kept repeating

[00:45:49] to himself and to all his fellow workers during all those years of his missionary work. A blessed sentence to break down upon which had been the foundation of his whole life of consecrated endeavor.

[00:46:02] His breakdown was so bad that it was physically exhausting, it was taking out his memory and his mental abilities and he couldn't take meetings or even write a letter and so Ginny arranged for them to travel to Switzerland so that he could begin to recover.

[00:46:17] The Christian's family had tried to keep the deterioration of China and the Boxer Rebellion away from him but even so he was still catching snippets of it and the missionaries were being deemed as primary devils and the Chinese Christians by association were secondary devils and that

[00:46:31] meant they had to die, all of them had to die. In the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion when it was all said and done, 130 Protestant missionaries were killed, 58 of those being CIM missionaries, 21 of whom were children.

[00:46:46] The CIM suffered the most loss of any missions agency and almost 2,000 Chinese Christians were killed. Hudson said I cannot read, I cannot think, I cannot even pray but I can trust. When he received a letter written just the day before two women missionaries had been

[00:47:02] killed he said, oh think what it must have been to exchange that murderous mob for the rapture of his presence, his bosom, his smile. They do not regret it now, a crown that fadeth not away. They shall walk with me in white for they are worthy.

[00:47:17] He was thinking of the Book of Revelation and then he heard about these CIM refugees who had managed to escape the most dangerous areas and were beginning to assemble in Shanghai. He said he wanted to travel out and join them but obviously couldn't and he said, I might

[00:47:31] not be able to do much but I feel they love me and if they could tell me their sorrows and I could only weep with them it might be a comfort to some. In 1902 Hudson was now 70 years old and he's in Switzerland on the northern end of Lake

[00:47:46] Geneva. And Hudson and Jenny were cherishing their time together after spending so many years separated on and off. And Hudson was getting well enough to even pick up photography again which is something

[00:47:57] that when he was a boy his father had encouraged him to do and he enjoyed walking the gardens with Jenny. Several months later they discovered that Jenny had an inoperable internal tumor and

[00:48:10] within the year she was unable to dress herself but she still loved to throw open the windows and look out at the surrounding beauty. And I want to share here her final moments from A Man in Christ.

[00:48:20] She wrote to a friend and said, I couldn't be better, cared for or happier. I'm nearly home and what it will be to be there. The Lord is taking me slowly and gently. In the evening of July 29 Jenny found it difficult to breathe. Hudson was at her bedside.

[00:48:35] No pain no pain she kept saying. Before the next day dawned she whispered to Hudson, ask him to take me quickly. He hesitated and then said, dear father free her waiting spirit. And then five minutes later that prayer was answered.

[00:48:51] In the weeks following Jenny's death he took comfort from a French text hanging on the sitting room wall which said, faithful is he who made the promises. In the spring of 1905 Hudson is finally feeling well enough to go back to China. This is his 11th trip there.

[00:49:07] He goes with Howard and Geraldine and they spent Easter in Yangzhou where they had survived that riot 37 years earlier. And then in Hangzhou he walks the cemetery by the river where Maria and four of his children were buried.

[00:49:19] And he speaks there to a group of young missionaries who are about to set off for inland missions. It's a great privilege to meet you here. I have met many, many here in days gone by. My dear wife died by me here.

[00:49:31] In spirit our loved ones may be nearer to us than we think. And he is near, nearer than we think. The Lord Jesus will never leave nor forsake us. Count on him, enjoy him, abide in him. Do dear friends be true to him and his word.

[00:49:46] He will never disappoint you. Later in his trip he visits with other veteran Chinese missionaries and ironically he's the youngest one in attendance. And then he's honored by Chinese Christians in Henan with a sign that says, with a sash which reads, oh man greatly beloved.

[00:50:03] Their mission house in central China has a huge reception which hosts six other mission societies and he wandered around and was chatting with people and was incredibly happy and just so pleased to be back in China and talking with all these different people.

[00:50:17] But he begins to feel tired and so he goes upstairs to rest and he takes his supper in his room. And Geraldine later goes in to check on him and she sees that he's reading a pile of letters.

[00:50:27] And she sits down beside him and is talking through this magazine that she finds on the bed when Hudson gasps, becomes unconscious and then slips away quickly and quietly. A young Chinese evangelist and his wife had been reading through Hudson's retrospect which

[00:50:41] is about the founding of the China Inland Mission and they decided that they wanted to meet Hudson. So they go to the mission house to meet him and when they arrive they're told that he's just died. But they're allowed to go upstairs near his bedside.

[00:50:54] Reading again from a man in Christ. He held Taylor's hand in his and said, They carried the coffin, the best the Chinese Christians who insisted on buying it could find, down to a ship moored at the Xiang River.

[00:51:34] The captain flew his flag at half-mast as they sailed northeast to join the mighty Yellow River. At every river station flowers and wreaths were carried on board so that when the boat arrived at Hangzhou the coffin lay hidden beneath a mass of color.

[00:51:48] DE hosts conducted the funeral and committed the body to the ground beside Maria and four of their children. Eight decades later Hudson's great-grandson discovered that there was a monument stone inside the former British consulate in Hangzhou which had been made into a museum.

[00:52:06] The inscription was still intact and it read, Sacred to the memory of the Reverend J. Hudson Taylor, the revered founder of the China Inland Mission, born May 21st 1832, died June 3rd 1905, a man in Christ.

[00:52:22] I think one of the things that stood out to me when reading Hudson's story was not necessarily his great exploits or the China Inland Mission and all of their successes. And those are important things and should definitely not be shoved aside.

[00:52:36] But it was actually his character, just reading his quotes and reading his thoughts, you were just struck by how much of a humble and faithful man that he was. Even though he had a lot of health problems, he had a lot of mental health struggles, he

[00:52:52] struggled with depression and all sorts of different afflictions. But throughout all those things he was entirely dependent on God to sustain him. At the time of his death in 1905 there were 824 China Inland missionaries working with 1,152 Chinese workers. There were 18,625 baptized Chinese Christians, 418 churches, 150 schools, 10 hospitals, 68

[00:53:21] dispensaries and 50 opium refuges. If you look back to his arrival in Shanghai, going way back to that very first time he sets foot on Chinese soil and how the people in Shanghai mocked him and they mocked his mission, his first mission that he was with.

[00:53:39] And they wanted to stay safe on the coast, they wanted to mingle with the elites. And he could have given up very easily, he had a very hard first few years. But instead he was there long after those missionaries had moved on and who even knows

[00:53:53] their names today? And to be honest, even if we knew their names it would really only add to their shame. I want to end part 3 with this quote of Hudson's that I think just sums up his entire life.

[00:54:05] He says, all of God's giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on God being with them. God is not looking for men of great faith, he is looking for common men to trust in his great faithfulness.

[00:54:19] As always, thank you for listening to Mars and Missionaries. I'm Elise.