Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission

by John Pollock, British author - all quotes are from his book, Hudson Taylor and Maria. All italicized paragraphs or parts of are mine, based on the book.

"China, China, China is now ringing in our ears", said Charles Haddon Spurgeon "in that special, peculiar, musical, forcible, unique way in which Mr. Taylor utters it."

James Hudson Taylor, after his initial stint as a missionary to China, was back in England and giving lectures all over Great Britain on China’s Need and Claims, and distributing a 116-page pamphlet on the subject. His goal was to "produce a missionary spirit" that would arouse the saints in England, and throughout Great Britain, to care for the gospel need in China.

The Perth Conference

At a spiritually prestigious conference held in Perth in 1866, Hudson, an unknown, arrived with the burden to speak for China. A note was passed to one of the leaders that a man wanted to "speak about China…has founded a new mission…is very much in earnest…with a missionary appeal." The reply to Taylor was, "My dear sir! Surely you mistake the character of the Conference. These meetings are for spiritual edification!"

"They agreed eventually to give me an opportunity of speaking of China tomorrow and of prayer this evening."

"As the meeting that evening drew to a close, 'the Convenor arose, scanned his notes to get the name right, and announced that Mr. Hudson Taylor of Ningpo, China, will engage in prayer. Taylor mounted the platform, gripped the rail to keep his hand from shaking, closed his eyes on the largest audience he had ever stood before, and opened his lips.' A contemporary of his recorded, ‘I was deeply impressed with the simplicity and fervour of his prayer, and felt that he was speaking to a familiar Friend in whom he had perfect confidence, and from whom real blessing was confidently expected. Hearts were opened to this unknown young man who unconsciously lifted the level of the Conference by a prayer. A General invited him to stay. Many pressed round to question. The following afternoon, nervous as before, he had the great audience in the hollow of his hand."

He told the audience about a young man he tried desperately to rescue from drowning and applied the story to the current spiritual condition of the church. The Chinese man had fallen overboard from a coastal junk into shallow water and deep mud. Hudson "leapt overboard and waded about in the hope of finding him. Unsuccessful, I looked around in agonizing suspense and saw close to me a fishing boat with a peculiar drag-net furnished with hooks, which I knew would bring him up."

“Come and drag over this spot directly. A man is drowning just here!”

“It is not convenient.”

“Don’t talk of convenience! A man is drowning, I tell you!”

“We are fishing, and cannot come.”

“Never mind your fishing,” I said. I will give you more money than many a day’s fishing will bring; only come – come at once!”

“How much money will you give us?”

“We cannot stay to discuss that now! Come, or it will be too late. I will give you five dollars” (thirty schillings).

“We won’t do it for that,” replied the men. “Give us twenty dollars, and we will drag.”

“I do not possess so much; do come quickly, and I will give you all I have.!”

“How much may that be?”

“I don’t know exactly, about fourteen dollars.”

"At last, but even then slowly enough, the boat was paddled over and the net let down. Less than a minute sufficed to bring up the body of the missing man. The fishermen were clamorous and indignant because their exorbitant demand was delayed while efforts at resuscitation were being made. But all was in vain. Life was extinct."

"Hudson paused as he sensed the indignation that pervaded the audience. He continued, ‘Is the body then of so much more value than the soul? We condemn those heathen fishermen. We say they were guilty of the man’s death – because they could easily have saved him, and did not do it. But what of the millions whom we leave to perish, and that eternally? What of the plain command, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature?”

"He expanded on the value of a single soul to God, and reported the daily mortality rate of 33,000 who were dying daily without a Saviour. He released other staggering statistics concerning the Chinese Empire. Its 400 million population: 'What mind can grasp it?' He imagined them walking past him, hour after hour, day after day, month after month, year after year and that it would take twenty-three years for them all to pass by him. It would take the total number of converts in China at that time only an hour and a half to walk by. With 33,000 people perishing daily, in the span of three months time the deaths would outnumber the population of London, approximately three million people. Virtually, all these people were passing into eternity ‘having no hope and without God’, which evoked the coining of a phrase by Hudson, ‘A million a month dying without God’. This controlling thought helped brother Hudson Taylor to make his urgent appeal for China, not only to an amazed Perth audience, but also everywhere he lectured."

"He also shared that afternoon about an ex-Buddhist merchant, an educated man, who had been baptized after attending the little church in Ningpo. 'He asked me soon afterwards, how long have you known this good news in your own country? Hudson told him, for 'hundreds of years.' The man replied, 'hundreds of years and yet never came to tell us!' My father sought the truth, sought it long, and died without finding it. Oh, why did you not come sooner?”

"Hudson concluded his fellowship at the Perth Conference, asking, 'Can we say that the way was not open?'"

"'Anyway, it is open now. Before the next Perth Conference, twelve million more in China will have passed forever beyond our reach. What are we doing to bring them the tidings of Redeeming Love? It is no use singing, 'waft, waft, ye winds the story.' The winds will never waft the story. But they may waft us…’"

Spiritual Awakening For China

Through his speaking engagements and the pamphlet distribution, a spiritual awakening occurred for China. Some men and women of means and position began to offer financial support and prayer. Many believers in all walks of life, in fact, gave themselves to pray and to give what they could monetarily. Hudson determined that prayer was a most critical matter the respondents could engage in for China's interests. And some were stirred to lay down their lives for the move of the Lord in China.

The Development of the China Inland Mission

Because of Hudson’s earlier experience in China, he knew that depending on the established missionary societies and organizations for financial and material support, as well as for spiritual direction would not be the way to fulfill his burden, the burden the Lord had laid on his heart for China. "He found that in the seven provinces with mission stations a total of 185 million souls were at present 'utterly and completely beyond the reach of the Gospel'. Eleven provinces inland, totaling in population 197.5 millions, had not one single missionary. And beyond those eleven was ‘Chinese Tartary’, by which he seems to have meant Mongolia and Turkestan, an enormous region unknown to Europeans."

"Since every missionary society had refused his plea that the eleven untouched provinces, and Tartary, should receive at least a crust from Christian England, there grew a deep conviction that a special agency was essential for the evangelization of inland China." Others he was associated with agreed and "sighed with him at such an airy dream." Within Hudson, the dream took shape as his deep sense from God was, “I intend to evangelize inland China. If you will walk with me, I will do it through you.”

"He was to report several years later the problem he faced at this juncture in 1865: 'I was very anxious that we should not appear for one moment to conflict with the work of any of the older societies; and still more that it should not divert any help of any kind from channels already existing, because that would have been no gain to China or to the cause of God. But that we should have such a method of working given to us as should draw out fresh laborers who, probably, would not go otherwise; and should open fresh channels of pecuniary aid which otherwise, perhaps, would not be touched.'"

He would look for working-class recruits and believed that such men and women would do very well for the type of mission he contemplated: "they were to be a band of evangelists under his direction, not missionaries of the more orthodox sort who required education to administer mission stations. He wanted his evangelists to go like the apostle Paul on missionary journeys through untouched provinces: staying awhile in a center, seeing a church grow around the first converts as Paul saw one grow at Philippi or Thessalonica or Corinth, and then moving on, always with native volunteer Christians as fellow-workers. Mission stations, with their buildings and paid native staff, might be the right way to open Africa, an uncivilized continent. For an ancient civilization, such as the Roman Empire in Paul’s day, or the Chinese Empire, Paul’s missionary method showed the way. If China had to wait for college graduates qualified to found, equip, and develop full-scale stations, a century might pass before the more remote provinces so much as heard the name of Christ."

"Taylor would not mind if his people lacked formal education. And he cared not at all what churches they sprang from if they shared basic evangelical beliefs. His inland mission would be a 'voluntary union of members of varying denominations agreeing to band themselves together' for a specific purpose."

"An interdenominational mission, in that age of disunity, was highly suspect, and an undenominational society, mainly working class in texture, would attract severe criticism."

"There was no possibility for me to found a mission on ordinary lines, for I had no denomination at my back." Hudson wanted a more personal relationship, as in a family. "And the defunct Chinese Evangelization Society had given him a strong dislike of remote control by committee. Decisions, therefore, would be made on the field, and Headquarters would be in China, not London. Funds would be distributed through himself. Because he believed it to be the only way by which inland China’s millions could be reached speedily with the Christian gospel, young Hudson Taylor proposed to make himself a dictator; indeed, as an American contemporary in China dubbed him, the Ignatius Loyola of Protestant missions"

"The problem of financial support rose like an impassable barrier. An appeal for funds would run counter to Taylor’s determination not to deflect support from other missions. As an alternative he considered Christ’s words to his itinerating seventy disciples in the tenth chapter of Matthew: 'Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses…And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, enquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go hence.' He realized that this, laid down for a limited circumstance, would lead to disaster if followed in China."

"The other alternative would be to apply the method by which he had financed his personal endeavors since resignation from the CES to the finance of a mission: to act in the Spirit of our Lord’s words in the sixth chapter of Matthew: 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.' Hudson reasoned, 'Matthew 6 is very clear – these things should be added; not do without them; not take them from the 'Gentiles'; depend on our Father for them all…I felt it best just to leave oneself open to receive such remittance through the post as God might lay on the hearts of His children to send; in this way interfering with no collections made in places of worship, nor with any collections made in other ways.'"

"That was the theory. To contemplate evangelizing a heathen Empire without actually asking a single congregation in the Christian West for a penny, shook even Taylor in the vigor and imagination of a thirty-three year old."

"Looking back in 1894, at the age of sixty-two, on nearly thirty years of proving that 'God is sufficient for God’s work', the leader of more than six hundred missionaries then active in China said: 'God chose me because I was weak enough. God does not do His great works by large committees. He trains somebody to be quiet enough, and little enough and then uses him.'

"That did not seem obvious in the spring of 1865. It looked fantastic."

"At heart, Hudson was a child who needed looking after, who would be lost without the daily care of his Father and the consciousness of the Spirit of Christ just as, on the human plane he would be lost without his wife, Maria."

"And thus Hudson Taylor reached greatness. To the world he was a feeble creature – of weedy physique, without powerful friends, almost a pauper. But he had thrown himself on God, had become an instrument of the Most High. His intelligence, his will-power and sticking power, his charm, his capacity to inspire and foster affection and loyalty, had all been touched by the divine; he had become greater than the sum of his parts."

"He had no idea, in the last days of June 1865, how God planned to give him the men or means to evangelize inland China. But Hudson had not the slightest doubt that He would."

Voyage Begins Back To China

In May of 1866, after a five and a half year stay in England, the Taylors and fifteen recruited missionaries left for China to join eight others already there awaiting there arrival. "The seven men and ten women who sailed for China on 26^th May 1866 by the Lammermuir, ironbuilt three-masted windjammer of 760 tons (Captain Bell and a crew of thirty-three), formed a variegated, rather improbable assault force."

"Lewis Nicol, a swarthy Scottish blacksmith from Angus and his wife were the only married couple other than the Taylors. Also from Arbroath in Angus came James Williamson, a carpenter; George Duncan was a mason from Banfshire. Two were East Anglians: Josiah Jackson, a carpenter, later draper, from Kingsland near March, and William Rudland, that sort of blacksmith known as ‘engineer’ who serviced harvestors and other newfangled farm machinery, at Eversden, outside Cambridge. John Sell, his calling not listed, was of Romford in Essex."

"Elizabeth Rose from Barnsley sailed to be the bride of James Meadows; Mary Bell of Epping as the children’s nurse, ranking as full missionary. Socially and educationally of better class was Jenny Faulding, a Baptist, daughter of a Londoner with a piano frame business; they lived in the Euston Road; and Emily Blatchley, also a Londoner, who was Taylor’s secretary. Of the remaining women, two had been governesses, one of them by birth Swiss, and two Bible women."

"Five of the fifteen recruits were Scottish, one Irish. There were Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians; Mary Bowyer and Jane McLean were Anglicans from Pennefather’s parish, St. Jude’s, Mildmay. When the party should reach China, together with the eight of Taylor’s people already in Ningpo, the China Inland Mission would augment the total of Protestent missionaries by about one quarter. The four Taylor children, Gracie, Bertie, Freddie, and baby Samuel who was carried for nothing, completed the list, together with Mary Bausum returning under Maria’s chaperonage to her mother. Almost every passenger was sick in the Bay of Biscay."

"By June 3^rd, a week out from London River, they sailed close under Cape Finisterre in calm weather. 'I should like you to have a peep at us all when we are all gathered together', Maria, who was not too well, wrote to her mother-in-law, 'to see how happy we all are. God ever keep us so.' Jennie Faulding scribbled in her journal for sixth June, ‘Oh, I have enjoyed to-day! The sea is so lovely and the air so beautiful. I never thought a voyage would be such a treat. It makes my blood tingle with pleasure.’ Another girl wrote: I hope I shan’t get very fat for I seem to be always laughing.’ William Rudland in old age recalled Taylor, whose thirty-fourth birthday had just passed, as quite one with the young men of the party. Mrs. Taylor, quieter, in some ways perhaps more mature, such rare judgment; calm sweetness about her face always: most restful. She was very thoughtful and gave much time to study of the Bible and prayer. She gave a good deal of time to the children too – used to gather them to the cabin for a little reading.'"

'They had no stewardess, a steward for table only. Bunks had been arranged on top of their luggage, and the party made improvements and kept their cabins clean. Taylor, a neat hand at carpentry, turned bookshelves for his family and for Miss Faulding, dashed about on odd jobs that could have been left to the younger men, led the singing at the meetings, conducted compulsory Chinese and Bible classes, doctored crew and passengers, and kept a sharp eye out for novel-reading, against which he had an invincible prejudice."

"His intention of hardening and disciplining intended pioneers was somewhat hampered. 'Mr. Taylor said before we came on board', wrote Elizabeth Rose to her father in his little Barnsley cottage, 'it was necessary betwixt the comforts of home and the privations of China to have a sea voyage on purpose to break us in; but really there has seemed to be no breaking in about it. We have not only comforts, but luxuries. Every possible kindness is shown to us by Captain and crew.’ Dinner on June 10^th, a random example, took one and three quarters hours: Hare or chicken soup; preserved mutton, minced hare, or chicken and ham, with potatoes and turnips; plum pudding, apple or damson pie, black currant or plum tart; biscuits and cheese; and for dessert, nuts, almonds raisins and figs.'"

Dissension on Board

"On June 29^th, two days after crossing the equator, Taylor 'learned of germs of ill feeling and division among our party'. On July 5^th they were becalmed in the sultry Atlantic."

A problem three brothers were having was over the required Chinese dress that Hudson found so helpful to him in his first round in China for gaining entrance and peaceful relationships among the Chinese. "Jackson, spokesman for the others, complained: 'I have seen the list of articles supplied to the Presbyterian missionaries. It is very different from ours.'"

"'We do not intend to take the Presbyterians as our pattern', Taylor replied. 'They are persons from a different position in society. And, they will wear their things in China. We shall wear native dress.' He assured them he had done what he could."

"Next day, Friday, Taylor worked hard to remove spreading discontent. He went round speaking to individuals 'privately and affectionately', making a particular effort with Lewis Nicol, and had a special evening meeting of 'confession and prayer for increase of the spirit of love and unity'. At another, on Saturday, still becalmed, he was horrified to discover by the contrite prayers that 'the feeling among us appears to have been worse than I could have formed any conception of. One was jealous because another had too many new dresses, another because someone else had more attention. Some were wounded because of unkind controversial discussions, and so on. Thank God for bringing it all out and removing it'"

"The atmosphere improved slowly, helped by the ship escaping from the doldrums to run before a good wind. Unity was restored temporarily, and the Lammermuir turned the Cape of Good Hope, far out of sight below the starboard horizon, to cross the Indian Ocean."

"Officers and crew had been disgusted to hear they would be shipping a boatload of skypilots.. The Mate complained, 'dreary psalm singing all day it will be!' The ship’s workmen, with an exception or two among the officers, was rough, foul-mouthed and hardened, a crew typical of a windjammer in the ‘sixties."

"When the passengers had shaken down, the seamen noticed first the happiness of these men and women going out to an apparently dismal exile. Laughter. High spirits. Singing all day, but of joyful hymns, some of which evoked memories of mothers’ knees."

"They noticed that everyone wanted to be friendly. Accustomed to passengers who held haughtily aloof, the hands appreciated kindness, courtesy, and a readiness to turn skills to the use of the ship. Nicol forged a thing or two, Williamson helped the carpenter. In Hudson Taylor, they had that rarity on a merchantman, a qualified ship’s doctor. He also found time to give simple lectures on anatomy to watches off duty. His enthusiasm for their interests in a few weeks had made the crew his slaves. 'They are so fond of Mr. Taylor’, Jennie Faulding recorded. And when a pretty girl wanted to hold a Bible class in the fo’c’sle, Mary Bell soon had their eyes more on the book than on her."

"Mary Bell’s Bible class began nearly a month out from England, under tropical skies. Mary at once discovered five men 'anxious about their souls'. The next day, June 24^th, young Tosh, Second Officer, now close friends with many of the missionaries, said he had become a Christian. On June 25^th “Mary reports one or two of the anxious men to be 'rejoicing in Jesus'. June 27^th: 'Mr. Saunders, one of the midshipmen, has found Jesus. But there is some opposition springing up.' On July 2^nd, Taylor, returning early from watching a glorious sunrise, met Mary who said ten of the men before the mast were converted."

"Religion became a chief topic of talk, serious or lewd. The most unlikely characters softened under the spell, such as James, 'a regular character, the ruler of everything in the fo’c’sle', Jennie Faulding wrote to her father, 'outspoken and fiery, scorning anything mean, unable to read, rough, and ready to fight in a moment, with a thoroughly pugilistic countenance, using awful language and keeping the whole crew in awe, though a capital sailor.' 'Miss Barnes noticed him one day and said to me, "look what a countenance that man has! I’ll try to talk to him." So she asked to come to the meeting, almost expecting to get knocked down, however he promised to come, and soon he was converted and the change in him had great weight with the others and one after another believed and gave up cards and other things, till now the fo’castle is like a different place…I am sure a most entertaining book might be written of sayings and doings on board the Lammermuir'"

"The dazzling trophy was Brunton the Mate, 'a very violent man', Rudland recalled, 'at times almost devil possessed. For the sailors he made the ship a hell for days at a time. He was especially violent at night when we were out of sight. Such a bully, all the men feared him, nothing and nobody pleased him.'”

"On July 8^th Brunton asked John Sell to come to his cabin and pray. Excitement among the missionaries seemed scarcely justified, for throughout July Brunton’s willingness to talk about religion with any and every passenger was countered by his continuing misery and bad temper, until Thursday, August 2^nd, when he 'had a terrible fit of passion and was swearing terribly'. Taylor spoke to him frankly about the state of his soul. 'He seemed almost in despair.' A crescendo of prayer meetings during the next day, among passengers and converts rose to the climax of midnight on Friday, when Taylor, instead of going to bed, sought out Brunton as he came off his watch. They talked for two hours. Brunton suddenly cried out, 'I see! I see how blind I have been!' And Taylor’s wondering ears heard prayer to God, of confession, faith, thanksgiving and intercession for each missionary, for Captain Bell, the crew, specially 'all who were unsaved on board, and his own wife and children.'”

"Taylor ran down, shook Maria awake, and two or three others, for praise and thanksgiving in the small hours. Taylor recorded next day, 'Mr. Brunton feels his burden quite gone and all our party are overjoyed.' 'There was not much done', wrote Mary Bausom, 'we all seemed as if we couldn’t settle to anything. There was such a change in him. His face didn’t look the same.' Brunton called out his watch and told them what had happened. One man after another sought out a missionary, male or female, to beg spiritual counsel or to announce new-found faith."

"They ran into heavy seas at the end of the week, had a bad accident when the sternsail boom broke and hit a seaman, William Carron. Three more of the crew 'found the Lord Jesus' on following days."

"Sailors crowding the nightly meeting in the steward’s room now suggested transferring it to the fo’c’sle, where 'card playing had for some time given place to Bible reading, and foolish songs to hymns. But now they and we met as believers.' The swaying ship’s lanterns cast their flicker on sailors, missionaries, officers, seated on sea-chests, planks, on chairs, from the saloon, or leaning against fittings. A few of the crew, half-shamed, half-attracted, watched from shadows beyond the capstan."

"The harmonium played the opening chords of Watt’s hymn, Come let us join our cheerful songs. After lusty singing the company bowed heads for prayer, led by John Sell, followed by a West Indian seaman. A passage from the gospel of John was read and talked about. A sailor asked for O happy day that fixed my choice, taken up with nautical gusto deepened by faith. 'Next voyage', said one of the men, 'we shall all be scattered in different ships and we shall be able to speak for Christ. We must never rest till the whole merchant navy is converted.'"

“'Mr. Taylor is very tired nowadays,'” Mary Bausum wrote to Amelia, Hudson’s sister, as the ship sailed through the Sundar Straits between Sumatra and Java, 'I don’t think he is well. I am sure he has not enough sleep, and he won’t have it. Now he is asleep in the stern cabin because he can’t write his letters and it is all because he was up about four this morning. I hope you don’t think I am grumbling at him, but I wish he would be more careful.' Hudson’s eyes were inflamed. He would be called out of bed if anyone fell sick. Maria’s health had caused additional anxiety since a bad fall when the vessel gave a lurch."

"Because he was run down, Hudson’s judgment failed him. At sunset that evening the Lammermuir anchored in Anjer Roads. Early next day they all went ashore for the first time in three months, thoroughly enjoying the Javanese market and Chinese shops, the lush tropical vegetation of deep green, blue water, paddy ripening yellow. They laughed as a little brown boy shinned up a tree to cut them coconuts, they bought banyan fruit, bananas and sugar cakes. And that afternoon, in a little stream behind Anjer, Hudson Taylor committed the worst misjudgment of his life."

"He had founded an unsectarian mission, announcing unequivocally that in matters of denominational conscience each missionary should be free. During the voyage he had allowed himself to persuade the two Anglicans, Jane McLean and Mary Bowyer, to accept the necessity of Believer's Baptism. This cherished Baptist doctrine, which holds infant baptism invalid and conversion incomplete without total immersion, had become dear to Taylor since he had been rebaptized in Hull in 1851, with the Brethren. To allow his personal convictions to interfere with members of another Church on such a subject flatly contradicted his interdenominational principle."

"The shore party held a little baptismal service in a little stream because several seamen and midshipmen wished to be baptized. When Taylor not only permitted but encouraged the Misses McLean and Bowyer, both of whom had been baptized and confirmed in the Church in England, to be immersed at his hands, none realized, though Taylor should have foreseen, that this folly might nearly wreck the CIM."

"The South China Sea in the typhoon season, after three months’ voyage, could be reckoned to bring out a man’s worst. Nicol, the Scottish blacksmith, a man of some attainments but a rough diamond, showed new disaffection backed by Jackson and Duncan, Brunton the Mate grew tyrannical and moody again, behaving unnecessarily harshly to the sailors, 'several of whom privately threatened to strike him.'"

"The spirit of mutiny spread. At the Lord’s Supper, Jackson and Duncan walked out because Brunton intended to receive the sacrament. Their action grieved the rest, who at a special session begged them not to 'set themselves as censors and judges.' Lewis Nicol sat silent. Taylor sought out Nicol and found him 'in a truly deplorable condition. This one and that one had shamefully treated him or his wife.' Taylor brought each who had supposedly wronged Nicol to settle matters face to face, and every instance 'proved to be pure fancies or the most trifling of trivialities. In the afternoon and evening all were explained and through God’s goodness, ill feelings were removed.' Nicol’s propensity for reckless statements did not bode well."

"Harmony had been restored, Brunton recovered; in time for the worst storms the oldest hand could recall."

"…On Thursday, a head wind drove Lammermuir off course. The gale, the seas and the misery increased through Friday. 'We were all feeling worn out', wrote Emily Blatchley, 'with want of rest, with perpetual tossing, our wet clothes, etc.' They were within two days’ fast run of Shanghai, but for as much as eight days Lammermuir was forced to beat to windward, losing more than she made. The passengers valiantly sang Rock of Ages, Jesus Lover of my soul, O God our help in ages past, and other hymns for time of storm, with voices scarcely audible above the roaring, but hearts calm in the belief that their Master rebukes the wind and waves, and must defeat the malevolent hand stretched out to resist the incursion of the CIM upon the kingdom of darkness."

TO BE CONTINUED - This has been an introduction of the China Inland Mission and to the leadership and person of Hudson Taylor, who led the mission till after the turn of the19th century through much hardship and many trials. The spiritual foundation and tone set early, at the inception of the little band’s quest to evangelize China’s interior, helped future missionaries to the venture to follow a pattern set of spiritual life and work. Margaret Barber became a member of the CIM, traveling thousands of miles from her home in England to serve the Lord in China. She knew the Lord deeply and had a profound influence on a young Watchman Nee, who the Lord was eventually able to use much in the recovery of the inner life among Christians, of the proper church life, and of many truths of the Bible.

The information for this reading has all been taken from the book Hudson Taylor and Maria, by John Pollock, published by Christian Focus Publications, 1962, 1996, Great Britain. I will gladly present a free copy of the book to anyone who requests it. It is a very inspiring account of consecrated Christians who gave up their soul lives "for my sake and the gospel" and helped open the way for the Lord's recovery in China and beyond.