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THE KING’S BUSINESS For the Worker's Library “ HUDSON TAYLOR IN EARLY YEARS”
[One of th e m o st helpful books of th e y e a r is “H udson T ay lo r In E arly Y ears,,” by D r. an d M rs. H ow ard T aylor. E v ery o n e w ho can should re a d th is book. W e give a few selections to w h et th e ap p etite of o u r rea d e rs fo r m ore. Cloth. 504 pp., $2, postpaid. M ay be o rdered from th e B ible In s titu te Book Room , A ud ito rium B uilding, L os A ngeles.—E d ito rs.]
Mr. D. E. Hoste, Hudson Taylor’s suc cessor as General Director of the China Inland Mission, says in the preface: “A good deal is written in the present day as to the need of living our lives and doing our work in a scientific manner. It is to be feared that much weakness and failure in Christian life and service may be traced to a lack of the scientific spirit in our treatment of the Holy Scriptures. We hear much, for instance, of the need of a fuller enduement of spiritual power for the Church and her representatives in the mission field, if. the responsibilities in volved by present opportunities are to be adequately met. Is it sufficiently realized, however, in practice, that such enduement, the outstanding instance of which is re corded in the opening chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, was bestowed upon people who, during the preceding three years, whatever their faults and limitations had counted the cost and had, without any res ervation, responded in intention at all events, to the conditions of discipleship laid dawn by their Lord; so much so that He was able at the close of that time to say to them, “Ye are they who have con tinued with me in my temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom?’’ . . . “It is perhaps the highest tribute to the character of Mr. Hudson Taylor that it is the recol lection of what he was, almost more than what he accomplished, which is most treas ured by those who were privileged to know and work with him. He possessed quali ties both of heart and mind not often found highly developed in the same individ ual. Whilst it is no exaggeration to say he was literally consumed with a self-sac
rificing zeal for the spread of the Gospel, yet he was never hard or unsympathetic towards those who, through various causes, were unable to toil and to suffer as he did; on the contrary, his tenderness and sympa thy endeared him to his brethren, and ever cheered those who were disheartened in the fight, or laid aside by illness. His gracious, unassuming manner, his habitual kindness and gentle courtesy, his tact and patience under opposition and ill-treatment, combined to bestow a peculiar charm to his personality. “Though gifted with more than ordinary powers, both of thought and action, his true humilitv as well as his practical wis dom, were evidenced by his readiness to confer with his brethren, and by the defer ence with which he weighed the wishes and judgment even of those many years younger than himself. Never, perhaps, was there a man who, as he went on in life, was more free from the disastrous mistake of despising ‘the least of his brethren.’ ” We get a glimpse of the sacrifices that Hudson Taylor made and the hardships that he endured in order to prepare him self to go to China as a missionary in a letter that he wrote to his mother when he was nineteen years of age: “I have found some brown biscuits which are really as cheap as bread, eighteen pence a stone, and much nicer. For breakfast I have biscuit and herring, which is cheaper than butter (three for a penny, and half a one is enough) with coffee. For dinner I have at present a prune and apple pie. Prunes ate two or three pence a pound and apples ten pence a peck. I use no sugar but Ipaf, which I powder, and at
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