And Enlarge My Coast (1866-1868)
A week later, early in the morning of the very day on which the American missionary was due to return, the Lammermuir party made their way through the silent streets of Hangchow and entered upon a home of their own. Large and well-built, though very dilapidated now, ~ it had once been a Mandarin’s residence, and was a regular rabbit warren of a place, occupied by a number of families, five of whom had not yet moved out. However, it was conveniently situated in a quiet corner near the city wall and busy streets, and would provide ample accommodation for the whole party, and for guest-halls, dispensary, chapel, printing press, servants’ quarters, etc. It was the very first house to which Taylor had been directed in his urgent search for property.
After hearing the rent demanded he had made an offer which was not accepted, the landlord hoping to drive a better bargain. Sunday, however, had intervened, putting a stop as far as the missionaries were concerned to business transactions—though not to prayer! The landlord, seeing nothing of his would-be tenants on that day, had been fearful of losing them altogether, and on Monday had come to terms with surprising alacrity. Here, then, Hudson Taylor decided his party should remain for a time, quietly studying the language.
‘By the time any of us are ready for work among the people,’ wrote Emily Blatchley, who acted as his secretary, ‘it will be known that a number of foreigners are living in the city, and we shall gain access to them, D.V., exciting less suspicion than could otherwise have been the case. We trust also to find an advantage from coming direct to the capital of the province, as a footing gained here will pave our way, to some extent, to less important places.’
The thought of extension was already occupying Taylor’s mind, and the very first Sunday in their Hangchow home found him not there at all but away in the neighbouring city of Siaoshan. Meadows and Crombie had come over from Ningpo to see if they could be of service, and he was glad to avail himself of their help in an evangelistic effort. Two days spent in the neighbouring city, where they had excellent opportunities for preaching the Gospel, so convinced them of its importance as a centre for missionary work that they were thankful to be enabled to rent a small house before leaving, with a view to settling out some of the new arrivals as soon as possible.
Meanwhile there was no lack of work immediately around them. From the first, one and another began to drop in to Chinese prayers attracted by the singing, and before the new arrivals had been a week.in the house one woman was openly interested in the Gospel. Thus the work began, and’ before Christmas there were attentive audiences of fifty or sixty at the Sunday services.
With the Chinese New Year, early in February (1867), came golden opportunities. A dispensary had by that time been opened; precursor of all the medical work for which Hangchow has become famous. With much else upon his hands, it was not easy for Taylor to attend to scores of patients daily, but there was no other doctor nearer than Ningpo or Shanghai, and his heart went out to the people in their sufferings. From far and near the patients came with every variety of complaint both of body and soul; and when holiday-makers were added at the New Year season, the doctor and his helpers were overwhelmed with guests.
When reinforcements arrived from England (February 23rd), the first sent out after the sailing of the Lammermuir, Taylor was too busy to see anything of them until some hours later. He was standing on a table at the time, preaching to a crowd of patients in the courtyard, and could only call out a hearty welcome as the party entered, escorted by Meadows. It was not long before John McCarthy was at Taylor’s side, soon to become his principal helper in the medical work. Those were days in which, amid external hardships, his fellow-workers had at any rate the privilege of close and constant association with the leader who embodied to so remarkable a degree their ideals of missionary service.
‘If only Mr. Taylor could be in three or four places at the same time it would be a decided advantage,’ Jennie Faulding wrote in May. ‘He is wanting to visit the governing cities of this province, to look out the most eligible places for stations: he and Mr. Duncan have been on the point of starting several times. Then there is Ningpo where he is needed, and here he is overwhelmed with work. He wants to go to Shaohing too (Mr. Stevenson’s station) that he may give further help with the colloquial dialect—there is hardly any knowing what his movements may be; yet he goes on so quietly and calmly always—just leaning upon God and living for others—that it is a blessing merely to witness his life.’
That within six months of their arrival the Lammermuir party should not only be settled in the interior, but that they should be cheered with so much of blessing in their rapidly growing work, was a wonderful answer to the prayers that had been going up on their behalf at home. No less strenuous than their own was the life the Bergers were living in the service of the Mission. It was not easy for them to turn their quiet home into a Mission centre, using as offices both dining-room and study; to encumber the billiard room with packing-cases; to receive at their table candidates for China and friends of the missionaries; to direct wrappers, and send out with their own hands the Occasional Paper; to attend to a large correspondence, keep accounts, transmit money, arrange for the outgoing of new workers, see them off from any port at any hour of the day or night, and correspond with those already on the field. Yet all this they did with the loving interest of a father’s and mother’s heart. When it became necessary they went further, and adapted a cottage on their grounds for the young men candidates and another for a tutor who gave secretarial help.
How he could find time amid the claims of business as well as these self-imposed tasks to write regularly and freely to Taylor as he did is a marvel.,He seems never to have missed a mail. Penned in joy and sorrow, as the tidings from China were cheering or otherwise, these letters breathed a faith and love that were unchanging, and formed a veritable storehouse of wisdom and encouragement.
Inevitably, there were hours of painful exercise of mind at Saint Hill as. well as in Hangchow. Even on the voyage out, Taylor had: become apprehensive about the spirit of certain members of the party, and as time went on their presence became an increasing difficulty. Among the letters, most of which brought only joy to the homecircle, were others of a very different nature. Complaints and criticism awakened Mr. Berger’s concern, and plainly revealed an attitude on the part of some that threatened the harmony and indeed the very existence of the Mission. It was only one or two at first, who were not prepared to go all lengths in wearing Chinese dress and adapting themselves to their surroundings in accordance with the principles of the Mission. But their disaffection went as far as to permit of their carrying exaggerated reports to outsiders, one of whom, with the best intentions, took them up seriously and considered them sufficient ground for strenuous opposition to the work. So prejudiced was he, indeed, by what he heard against Taylor, that he would not enquire from him, or the members of the Mission who felt with him, as to the charges made. Without letting them even know of the course he was taking, this influential missionary wrote the strongest accusations to Mr. Berger and others, attacking not only the methods of the C.I.M. but Taylor’s fitness for the position he occupied.
Having heard nothing of the other side, these painful letters came as a bolt out of the blue to the friends at Saint Hill. Never suspecting that the disaffected members of the Mission were writing home in a bitter spirit, far less that they had stirred up a comparative stranger to do so, the Taylors were saying nothing to the disparagement of any fellowworker. They were endeavouring by prayer and patience to remove difficulties and conquer opposition, determined that none should be prejudiced in Mr. Berger’s eyes by any word from them, as long as there was the least hope of improvement. The restraint was costing them dear.
In defiance of Taylor’s wishes the missionaries in question, now stationed in Siaoshan, had gone back to English dress, to the serious detriment of their interests in that inland city. The Mandarin, who had left them in peace before, then determined upon their ejection. With his soldiers and underlings he had come upon them suddenly on the evening of January 28th, and had ordered them to leave the city before morning. To put them in fear he seized the evangelist, Tsiu, whom at great sacrifice Taylor had spared from Hangchow, and had him cruelly beaten. Sorely bruised and shaken, there was nothing for it but for Tsiu to make his way as best he could to the capital; and he was quickly followed by the rest of the party, who had to be accommodated in Hangchow while the matter was being adjusted.
Those were months of extreme trial to all the household at Hangchow. Taylor was overwhelmingly busy with medical work and the throngs of holiday-makers brought by the New Year season. In a reasonable and patient spirit he sought to draw the ejected missionaries into all that was going on, and to conquer causes of difficulty. But another influence was at work; and instead of responding to his efforts they kept apart, openly wearing English dress, refusing to come to the meetings, and seeking to foment opposition to Taylor’s authority and arrangements. In this, unhappily, they were encouraged by the afore-mentioned missionary, who'was just leaving for furlough. Believing their reports to be true, he felt it his duty not only to write as we have seen, but personally to discredit the new methods of the C.I.M. among its supporters.
When one remembers the circumstances, it is easy to see that there may have been, in the practical working of the Mission, some cause for complaint. At thirtyfour years of age there still remains much to learn, and Taylor’s fellow-workers were all younger than himself. If only the older missionary could have used his experience to safeguard where he apprehended danger, how different the result might have been! As it was, he came very near accomplishing his avowed object, which was nothing less than to put a stop to the entire work.
Taking the course of true friendship, Mr. Berger wrote freely to Taylor, sending him copies of the correspondence.
‘My earnest prayer to God,’ he said with the first detailed accusations, ‘is that you may not be further moved by the letter than the Lord would have you be; and may He give the right spirit and the wisdom that will sei us both to do that which will please Him.
‘The difficulties at home are neither few nor slight, but yours are truly mountainous. You need our every sympathy and prayer; and be sure, my dear Brother, whatever Mr.— may have penned, you hold the same place in our hearts as before. That God will supply you and me with increasing wisdom and ability for the work to which He has called us, we need neither fear nor doubt. All that is required on our part is to lay aside everything we discover to be either faulty or erroneous, and constantly to be adding to our stock of both wisdom and love. O yes! we will commit this matter to the Lord who knows that we did our best. He is very pitiful, and will never leave nor forsake us in this our time of trial.’
How serious the trial'was to be, and how long continued, the writer could not realise at the time. In spite of all that he himself was going through, he was steadfastly encouraging.
May 19th: That you may be enabled to cast upon God the terrible trial resulting from Mr.—’s conduct, and from those acting with him, I earnestly pray. Let us not fear, dear Brother, anything but our own failings; and these may we ever be discovering, confessing, and putting away. I quite expect God will appear for us in the right time.
Occasional Paper number eight will contain the cash account for twelve months, and judging from the contributions in the year (£2,800, of which I have contributed little more than £100) I think we ought to give unfeigned thanks, take courage, and go forward, though with great caution and prayerfulness of spirit.
It seems to me we must enlarge our field of vision in regard to this work; that you must not undertake so much of the detail, but a more enlarged oversight; that you must not have so many immediately depending upon you. Oh, what need for wisdom in every step of this work! - June 7th: As regards your headship in China, I consider it is beyond being questioned, and that you must not allow the thought of appealing to me on the part of any. I think you will see that I must act in the same way in England, respecting candidates for China.
~ lam exceedingly rejoiced to notice that with the exception of—none have sympathy with Mr.—and his doings. The Lord will bring all these things to a caim in due time, I quite think. He will teach you the best method to adopt, and us at home. May we only be careful to be found in a teachable spirit.
August 24th: It is not our mistakes but our refusing to correct them when discovered that will prove baneful.
The spirit in which the Taylors met these trials may be judged from letters written by Maria to Mrs. Berger, many of which remain. From the quiet of her room early in February she wrote-—a little daughter five days old lying beside her:
\
I have been listening to my beloved husband and others playing and singing in the chapel some of our favourite hymns. One in particular, ‘Oh, for the robes of whiteness, Oh, for the tearless eye,’ seemed to take me away in thought to happy Saint Hill, and I was almost tempted to wish myself back in that home of rest and love. But it is not for the soldier on the battlefield, however sorely pressed or wounded, to wish himself back in safety and ease.
‘Do pray for us very much,’ she continued a few weeks later, ‘for we do so need God’s preserving grace at the present time. We have come to fight Satan in his very strongholds, and he will not let us alone. What folly were ours, were we here in our own strength! But our God will not fail nor forsake us. I should be very sorry to see discord sown among the sisters of our party, and this is one of the evils I am fearing now.
“What turn Mr.—’s matters will take I cannot think. One is almost tempted to ask, “Why was—permitted to come out?” Perhaps it was that our mission might be thoroughly established on right bases early in its, history.’
And all the while souls were being saved, and the prayer answered with which the Lammermuir party had entered the New Year: “O that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, that thine hand might be with me, that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!’
In May came the first baptisms, amid the joy of which Maria wrote to the friends at Saint Hill:
Perhaps our dear Lord sees that we need sorrow to keep us from being elated at the rich blessing He is giving in our work.
Sorrows there were; for the discontented spirit of the Siaoshan party persisted. Having gone back from the first principles of the Mission, they were now unhappy in association with it. The Taylors did everything in their power to help this particular married couple, and what they endured from discourtesy, disloyalty and untrustworthiness is better left untold. Not the least part of it was to see the harmful influence exerted on others, especially three of the unmarried women missionaries.”! All this greatly hindered Taylor in taking the pioneering journeys necessary if younger workers were to be planted out. All around them, even in that coast-board province, were millions upon millions to whom ‘no tidings came’ of the one, the only Saviour. To these in their sin and need His heart went out, moving those other hearts of the little missionary community with His own constraining love. No fewer than sixty cities in that one province were still without preachers of the Gospel, Chinese or foreign, nine of these being capitals of prefectures, or Fu cities from which the rest were governed. To open stations of the Mission in these centres was a purpose Taylor was prayerfully considering. In a journey round the Ningpo district he had taken counsel with his more experienced fellow-workers, finding Meadows and Stott ready to move on to places as yet unreached. Two important Fu cities in the east and south—Taichow and Wenchow—were now allocated to them, Jackson of the Lammermuir party volunteering to accompany Meadows. This left the north and west more particularly to the Hangchow workers, several of whom were anxious to get out alone among the people, so as to make more progress with the language.
Freeing himself, therefore, with no little difficulty from headquarters, Taylor turned his face northward at the end of April, with Duncan, the stalwart Highlander, as a companion. Years before he had had some memorable experiences in the region of the Great Lake, when evangelising with William Burns. Little or no progress had been made in that turbulent district since then, and it was with thankfulness the travellers found, even in the Fu city of Huchow, an open door for the Gospel. Taylor was not able to remain long, but so much was he impressed with the importance of this centre that he almost decided, a few months later, to make it his own headquarters. Meanwhile it was visited from time to time by his fellow-workers, one earnest convert giving them great joy, and becoming on his own account a real soul-winner.
‘More than a year has elapsed,’ Taylor wrote to Mr. Berger (May 30th), ‘since we parted on the deck of the Lammermuir, but both you and I can still say—of the past, “Ebenezer”, of the present, “Jehovah-nissi”, and of the future, “Jehovahjireh” thanks be to His grace! Burdens such as I never before sustained, responsibilities such as | had not hitherto incurred, and sorrows compared with which all my past sorrows were light have been part of my experience. But I trust I have, in some feeble measure, learned more of the blessed truth that
Sufficient is His arm alone, And our defence is sure.
‘I have long felt that our Mission has a baptism to be baptised with. It may not be past yet. It may be heavier than we can foresee. But if, by grace, we are kept faithful, in the end all will be well.’
Little reference has hitherto been made to an element that entered largely into Taylor’s experience; he was the ten-
AND ENLARGE MY COAST S17
derest of fathers. His children meant more to him than is usually the case with a very busy man, and it had cost him much to bring them to China. Journeys that involved an absence from home of weeks at a time, with no means of communication save by special messenger, were a real test both to him and to those left behind.
‘It is an easy thing to sing, “I all on earth forsake”,’ he wrote to his mother on the first of these occasions (January, 1867). ‘It is not very difficult to think, and honestly though ignorantly say, “T give up all to Thee and for Thee.” But God sometimes teaches one that that little word “all” is terribly comprehensive.’
A tiny sheet of pink notepaper with a flower painted in one corner followed him on this journey. The single word ‘Papa’ in large round hand on the envelope showed from whom it came, and inside were the loving words
Dear Papa, I hope God has helped you to do what you wanted, and that you will soon come back. I have a nice bead mat for you when you come home.
Carried in her father’s pocket-book for many a long year, Gracie’s little letter, probably the first she ever wrote, tells of the hard life he led no less than of his tender love _ for her. She was the eldest of his flock, the precious link with early years when he had first met, loved, and married her mother in Ningpo. Three sons had been given them in England, followed by the baby sister, whose arrival brought special joy to Gracie’s heart. But though all were equally dear to their parents, there was about the little maiden of eight years old a peculiar charm. On the Lammermuir the wonderful change in some of the sailors when they came to know and love the Lord Jesus had so impressed her, that she too gave her heart to the Saviour as never before. Her deeply spiritual nature had developed like a flower in the sunshine, under the consciousness of His love, so that towards the end of this first summer in Hangchow her father could write to the grandparents:
I do wish you had seen her lately. Since her conversion she had become quite another child. Her look was more soft, more sweet, more happy.
That first summer was intensely hot, and when the thermometer stood at 103° indoors it seemed time to seek relief. The children were all suffering, and Maria was so ill that it was with difficulty she could be got out of the city. A boat trip of six miles brought them to the hills, where amid the ruins of a once famous temple, accommodation had been found. Here the Hangchow party established themselves. The hills were lovely, though the glory of azaleas, wisteria, and other spring flowers had passed away. Pines, oaks, and elms afforded welcome shade, while mountain streams made music, and as far as eye could see there was one unbroken sweep of higher or lower ranges, canals, and rivers, with the Hangchow Bay and the open sea beyond. It would have been a paradise as compared with the city, but for the illness of several of the party, and the sorrowful sights and sounds of idol worship close at hand.
A week later, his heart overwhelmed within him, Taylor sat writing to Mr. Berger:
Beloved brother, I know not how to write or how to refrain. I seem to be writing, almost, from the inner chamber of the King of kings. Surely this is hely ground. I am trying to pen a few lines by the couch on which my darling little Gracie lies dying. Her complaint is hydrocephalus. Dear brother, our flesh and our heart fail, but God is the strength of our heart and our portion for ever.
It was no vain nor unintelligent act when, knowing this land, its people and climate, I laid my wife and children, with myself, on the altar for this service. And He whom so unworthily, with much of weakness and failure, yet in simplicity and godly sincerity, we are and have been seeking to serve, and not without some measure of success—He has not left us now.
‘He makes no mistakes’ was the unshaken conviction of these hearts. But the loss was so great, so overwhelming!
‘Except when diverted from it by the duties and necessities of our position,’ Taylor wrote to his mother in September, ‘our torn hearts will revert to the one subject, and I know not how to write to you of any other. Our dear little Gracie! How we miss her! As I take the walks I used to take with her tripping at my side, the thought comes anew like a throb of agony, “Is it possible that I shall never more feel the pressure of that little hand, never more hear the sweet prattle of those dear lips, never more see the sparkle of those bright eyes?” And yet she is not Jost. I would not have her back again. She is far holier, far happier than she could ever have been here.’
As their bereavement became known, they saw with thankfulness the chastening effect it was having upon others besides themselves. Tidings of it were no little cheer to Mr. and Mrs. Berger amid their difficulties at home.
‘He is keeping Satan altogether under just now,’ Emily Blatchley was able to write in October. ‘How devoutly grateful we ought to feel for the state of things in the Mission now as compared with a few months ago—when our lute seemed too full of rifts for harmony ever to come back again.’
\ Meanwhile the great, waiting land, in all its need and darkness, was not forgotten. At the bedside of the dying child in the temple, Duncan, the steadfast Highlander, Taylor’s chief companion on pioneering journeys, had been keeping watch. Nanking was upon his heart—the famous city twice capital of China, with its ancient wall twenty miles in circumference, and its large population still without any witness for Christ. Duncan was not specially gifted or cultured, but he possessed grit and perseverance and a great love for souls. He it was who had toiled at Chinese with the man at the wash-tub while waiting for a better teacher, sitting beside him for hours, repeating sentences as he said them or verses that he read from the Gospels, and winning him to Christ at length by his very earnestness in seeking to make the Saviour known. It was something of a risk, no doubt, to let Duncan go forward in such an undertaking. But he could be spared; he was a man who, his resolution once formed, never wavered; and the burden of those souls was on his heart.
The early autumn, therefore, saw this solitary pioneer arrive at Nanking. He received no welcome there. Up and down its long streets he and his Chinese helper searched in vain for any lodging that would take them in. Immediately on hearing of a foreigner’s arrival, word had been sent from the Prefect to every hostelry that they were on no account to receive him. Apparently, however, the priest in charge of the Drum Tower had not been included among possible hosts, and when the weary strangers sought his aid at nightfall he was not unwilling to render it. He had no proper room, he said, for visitors, but if they liked to sleep in the Drum Tower at night and be out all day, so as not to frighten people who came to worship, he would share with them his accommodation.
It was a miserable place! Very few would have thought it possible to live there at all, but,
“We gladly accepted it,’ wrote Duncan, ‘and managed very nicely, though we have rather more rats than I like. At night they want to devour everything!’
Between the depredations of these marauders and the solemn sound of the drum, beaten at intervals, it was not possible to get much sleep, and at day-dawn they had to roll up their bedding and turn out on the streets of the city. The tall figure of the missionary soon became familiar in the teashops and frequented thoroughfares, and the neighbourhood of the Drum Tower must have known him well before he succeeded in finding another residence. A carpenter at last had courage to receive him, dividing offa strip of his single upstairs room for the use of the foreigner. On the other side of the matting lived the Chinese family, while below was the shop and kitchen, so that the new arrivals had every opportunity for picking up colloquial conversation. After a time Duncan persuaded his landlord to share with him the lower room as well. A slight partition was put up, giving the missionary a long but very narrow street chapel, the first ever opened in Nanking; and there he sat, like Judson in his zayat, receiving and conversing with all who would turn in.
‘I am not able to talk much,’ he wrote, ‘but God helping me, I will say what I can, and T’ien-fuh (the Chinese evangelist) makes them understand. Oh, to make everything conduce to the gathering in of precious souls and the glory of our Master!’
Thus was commenced permanent missionary work in the great city that later became one of the strongest centres of the Christian Church in China. Duncan may not have been able to do much; but he held the fort with quiet courage, and one soul at any rate was saved in that first —street chapel.
In Hangchow, too, the Lord was working, and the sorrowful days of summer were giving place to the joy of harvest. The little church inaugurated in July with nineteen members was growing rapidly with Wang Lae-djiin as its pastor. Of the October baptisms Maria wrote:
When I went down to the afternoon service I saw such a sight as would have rejoiced the hearts of dear friends at home. Our courtyard in front of the main part of the house is a large one, and it was more than filled with a quiet, attentive audience. 160 persons. were seated. Dear Lae-djiin baptised three men and three women, and the service was held there as being more convenient than the chapel.
This brings us to one of the important discoveries Taylor was making along the lines of women’s work. The new departure of women missionaries dressed in Chinese clothes visiting in Chinese homes, was justified by results.
‘I think if you could see how the people love and trust us you would rejoice,’ Jennie Faulding wrote that autumn. ‘It does so please them to see us liking to be like themselves in outward things. They express the greatest satisfaction, and are delighted especially that our shoes and style of hair-dressing should be the same as theirs. Instead of having difficulty in getting access to the people, they come here day after day saying,
“Fuh Ku-niang”, we want you to come to our house and teach us about the religion.”
‘I should think when I go out I often speak to more than 200 persons. Yet I am never treated in any way rudely, but with all kindness.’
Rich and poor alike welcomed her, and the more she became known the more was she invited into homes of all sorts. It was largely due to such visiting that new faces were always to be seen in the chapel at Hangchow. The medical work had done much to attract; but Taylor as he watched it all could not but be profoundly impressed with this new line of things, new at any rate in China.
‘In its actual influence on the people at large,’ he wrote, ‘I am strongly inclined to consider it the most powerful agency at our disposal.’
Fuller experience only justified the conclusion. Nevertheless of all the innovations connected with the Mission none met with stronger opposition. The presence of unmarried women missionaries in the interior at all was, with many, a sufficient ground for condemning the whole work, and determined efforts were made to secure their recall to the coast. It was strongly stated in letters home that to send unmarried women to inland stations was a waste of life and energy, as there was no opening for their labours. This moved Maria deeply, and she wrote to Mrs. Berger:
Mr.—’s assertion about there being very little opening, etc., stirs me to hope and pray that God will show his mistake by pouring out a large blessing upon this instrumentality, feeble though it be in itself. Had we the right people and suitable accommodation, I believe that ten Miss. Fauldings and ten Miss Bowyers could easily find work in Hangchow tomorrow. The Lord ever keep them as simple and true-hearted as they are!
I have always found that the great difficulty in the way of female agency has been location. So few married couples (and I do not wonder at it, or blame any for it) are prepared to give up the retirement and privacy which are so pleasant, and to receive comparative strangers into their family. My husband and I have at times discussed the feasibility of establishing some of the single women in a house by themselves, and perhaps after a time this, might be done. May the Lord direct. It is His work we are doing, and He can and will raise up helpers.
Thus they were grappling with big problems, and obtaining, even then, glimpses of developments to which God was leading in His own way. And in the process He was developing them, preparing one and another for the special work that lay before them. How little anyone in those early.days could have foreseen the work for which Rudland was being fitted. Of all the Hangchow party he was the one who seemed, at any rate to himself, least likely to do much in China. He could not get hold of the language; and the more he tried to study the worse became the headaches, that left him utterly discouraged. Taylor, however, who was developing as a leader no less than his fellow-workers along other lines, prayed for wisdom to meet the difficulty, then said to him one day,
‘I am troubled about the printing-press. The workmen seem to get through so little when left to themselves, and I really have not time to look after them. You managed so well in putting the press together; do you think you could superintend it for me now?’
So Rudland, thoughi protesting that he knew nothing about printing, left his books for the cheerful activity of the printing-room. The workmen were glad to have his company and proud to display their superior knowledge. Listening to their conversation by the hour together, he found himself picking up words and phrases more quickly than he could discover their English equivalents. The headaches were soon conquered, and the lines laid down for a life service, that was to include the translation and printing of almost the entire Scriptures in a dialect spoken by millions to whom the Word of God was thus made accessible.
Resourcefulness was one of the characteristics Taylor was developing to the advantage of those associated with him. None who were in Hangchow at the time ever forgot his arrival one night long after the city gates were shut and they had given up hope of seeing him. In his absence no medical help was available, and one of the party was seriously ill. A messenger was sent after him, and he turned back from a journey only to find himself too late to enter the city. Darkness had fallen, and the gates were closed and barred. There seemed nothing for it but to spend the night on the river, while a precious life might be at stake.
But who was this coming up behind him who seemed confident of getting in? A Government messenger with _ despatches! then the gate would be opened surely? But no;
a basket he saw, was being let down over the wall, in which the messenger was to be drawn up. It was no use asking for a passage in that uncertain craft, but-Yaylor’s quick eye caught means of steadying it. Hanging from the basket was a rope, which it was the work of a moment to seize as it was ascending. It required pluck and determination, however, to hold on and face the angry guards at the top.
‘I gave them two hundred good reasons,’ said Taylor on reaching home, ‘why.they should allow me to proceed.’
‘Two hundred! How had you time?’
‘They came out of my cash-bag,’ was the smiling reply, ‘so it did not take very long.’
Among all the mercies’ that crowned the year 1867— the first complete year for the Lammermuir party in China—none was greater than the answer to the prayer with which it had opened, ‘O that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast.’ The stations occupied by the Mission had doubled in number in that short period. At its commencement, the distance between the most widely separated had been only four days’ journey; but at its close, Duncan in Nanking was as much as twenty-four days, by ordinary means of travel, from Stott in Wenchow—a considerably enlarged sphere of labour when one remembers that, with the exception of Hangchow, no Protestant missionaries save those of the C.I.M. were settled anywhere away from the coast or the treaty ports.
For the great land around them, as well as for their own spiritual needs, the last day of the year was again set apart for prayer and fasting. From eleven in the morning till 3 p.m. one meeting lasted.
*...without weariness,’ Emily Blatchley wrote, ‘God’s Holy Spirit wrapping us round in renewed dedication and truly baptising us: “He shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” At 8.30 we again met for united prayer, and still that power gathered and increased. Mr. Taylor read the 90th Psalm. We continued in prayer and singing till the year ended, and at twelve partook of the Lord’s Supper. A holier time I have never known.’
And there was need for such inward strengthening. In spite of success—because, indeed, of the footing gained in some places, there was great and increasing opposition in others. From his sick-bed, only a few weeks earlier, Taylor had been carried to the Governor’s yamen to report in person the ill-usage of McCarthy’s helpers, who had been set upon and almost beaten to death in Huchow. As soon as he could travel, he had gone direct to the scene of the riot, and giving two weeks of careful, patient effort to smoothing matters over, only to find that for the time being foreigners must retire. No sooner had the new year dawned than Williamson was driven out of Kin-hwa-fu, through attacks on those who had befriended him.
‘I went to see the poor fellow in prison,’ Williamson wrote. ‘His back and legs were severely swollen and bruised.’ He was shut up in a den with a number of criminals, confined like so many wild beasts in a cage. The weather was very cold, and there seemed every probability of the poor fellow losing his life from the treatment he had received. Next morming the landlord was sent for to the yamen, while the mother and wife of the imprisoned man were threatening to commit suicide, blaming us for bringing all this trouble upon them. The same day, in order to save these poor people from further ill-usage, we left the house, returning to Hangchow.’
It was proving harder even than had been anticipated, this pioneering work—yet Taylor’s heart still went out to the Christless multitudes around.
‘Are there no servants of our common Lord rusting away at home,’ he wrote to Mr. Berger, ‘or at least doing work that others would do if they left it, who might be out here among these numberless towns and villages?’
Very easily might the whole Mission have become absorbed in that one coast-board province, small though it was among all the provinces of China. But, providentially, door after door was closed. Riots, disturbances, sickness, and other troubles hindered developments.
Meanwhile, Mr. Berger wrote,
If you will not smile at my planning in our dining-room, I will tell you my musings concerning your future movements. I fancy you will some day transfer your headquarters to some desirable city or town very near the Yangtze River, perhaps within easy reach of Hangchow. Thus you would, I suppose, have access to a Consul, and facilities for going to Shanghai and up the river, so as to reach many provinces. The Lord guide you in all things: ‘He that believeth shall not make haste.’
It was not easy after sixteen months in Hangchow to face the thought of leaving the work that had become so dear to them for “some desirable city near the Yangtze’ in which to begin all over again. Fifty baptised believers were gathered already in the little church under Pastor Wang’s care, and there were many enquirers. John McCarthy and his wife with Jennie Faulding would remain in charge of the station, however, and Duncan at Nanking was sorely needing relief.
‘It really was building the wall in troublous times,’ Judd wrote of those days: ‘one never knew what friends who were away might be suffering. Scarcely any station was opened without a riot. The noon meetings were solemn hours—often prolonged, because there was so much to pray about. One feels the thrill of them still.’