With Wings as Eagles (1888-1889)

Crossing the Rocky Mountains by Canadian Pacific was an inspiring experience to Taylor. The greatness of the country as it unrolled before him was in keeping with the greatness of the possibilities he had felt among Canadian as well as American Christians for the rapid, world-wide extension of the kingdom of God. Nevertheless, the consciousness was much with him of the certainty of opposition from the powers of evil. For years the Mission had been carried forward on a wave of unparalleled success. During the period of the Seventy its membership had doubled, and since then it had more than doubled again, without the addition of this latest party. And what opportunities for enlargement did not their coming suggest? But experience had taught him that for every time of prosperity and blessing one of special trial was in store, though even he can hardly have anticipated how long and testing the conflict now before them was to prove.

Even before they came in sight of China it began, as in Yokohama news was received of the death from hydrophobia of the headmaster of the Chefoo School, who in protecting his boys from a mad dog had himself been bitten; and that also of Adam Dorward, the devoted pioneer of Hunan. On landing in Shanghai he learned not only of the death of a young worker of much promise, but that in the Mission home to which he was taking his fellow-travellers another was even then nearing the end of life’s journey.

A few weeks later these trials were surpassed by the arrival of the saddest party ever received from England. On the voyage out one of the new workers had had a shock which resulted in temporary insanity, and on landing her condition was that of acute mania. No asylums were to be found in China, even in the foreign Settlements, and she had to be cared for in the already crowded premises the Mission was renting in Shanghai.

“There is absolutely nothing to be done,’ wrote Taylor, ‘but to bear the trial, while using proper means, and wait on God. Our house has been a hospital; it is now an asylum. All that this means the Lord only knows. The night and day strain are almost unbearable, but I know the Lord’s ways are right, and I would not have them otherwise. So whatever time and care the case claims must be given, and it must be pleasing to the Lord for us to be so occupied.’

Meanwhile a telegram had been received from Hong Kong - telling of the serious illness of William Cooper, returning from furlough, and at the same time of another worker in an inland station being struck with black smallpox, from which she died six months later.

‘It was a dark and trying time that winter,’ recalled Stevenson. ‘There had been so much success, such rapid extension. We were going ahead full sail set, before a favourable breeze. Ballast was needed, though at the time we could not see it.’

There was scarcely a grey head in the Mission in those days, and under his enthusiastic leadership as Deputy Director in China everything had seemed possible. Was there a danger perhaps, of growing too fast for the spiritual well-being of the work or the faith of its supporters?

‘We might be lifted up, perhaps, or lose spiritual life and power,’ wrote Hudson Taylor, ‘if success were unaccompanied by discipline.’

Even more serious than the troubles in China were the anxieties that pressed upon him from another quarter. Friends of the Mission in England, it appeared, including some of the London Council, were concerned about the steps taken in America. No one had as yet foreseen the adaptability of the Mission, on account of its special form of government, to relations of an international character. The principle of control on the field—the direction of the work not from a distance but by experienced leaders in China—could not but constitute Shanghai the headquarters of the Mission rather than London, making it possible for Taylor or his representatives there to work with auxiliary Councils in any part of the world, just as with the original Council at home. This natural application of one of the cardinal principles of the Mission came as a surprise, however, to those who had hitherto never dreamed of such developments. Even the necessity for the China Council had hardly yet been fully conceded; and that it should come to occupy a central position, with affiliations in America and perhaps elsewhere practically independent of the mother country, caused great consternation. Some felt they might have to resign from the Council rather than consent to it. 7

The position was a critical one for the leader of the Mission. More sure he could not be as to the guidance given in America. Step by step he had been led, almost compelled, to accept the party that had accompanied him, and to appoint as Secretaries and provisional Council those who had been so remarkably provided. Go back upon it he could not, without going back upon what he had assuredly gathered to have been the will of God. But how go forward at such a cost?

‘The Cross does not get comfortable,’ is one revealing sentence in a letter of this winter, ‘but it bears sweet fruit.’ How truly it was so in Taylor’s experience may be gathered from recollections of Stevenson, who was much with him during that 1888—89 period.

Everything seemed crowded into those terrible months. I do not know what we should have done without Mr. Taylor, but oh, the look on his face at times!

One thing that deeply touched me at this time was his evident and intense longing to walk uprightly before God. He would go all lengths to do the right thing and put away misunderstandings. Early this spring, when our troubles were at their height, he was burdened about the lack of cordiality between ourselves and two former members of the Mission who were still in Shanghai. - The trouble had arisen during cne of Mr. Taylor’s absences in England, but he could not leave it with simply—‘They were wrong, and we did what we could at the time.’

He wrote a note saying he would be glad to call upon them and talk matters over, greatly desiring that any bitterness of feeling might be removed. On the 4th March, I remember, he spent a long evening with them, going over the whole story. It must have been very painful, for their attitude was far from conciliatory, but it ended right. He was able to have prayer with them, and friendship was restored.

Oh, his was a life that stood looking into—searching through and through! Get a man like Mr. Taylor, and you could start any mission tomorrow. He walked with God; his life bore the light all through. And he was so gracious and accessible! Day or night, literally at all hours, he was ready to help in sickness or any trouble. For self-denial and practical consecration, one could not but feel, he stood alone.

A sheet of notepaper bearing a few lines in Taylor’s writing reveals, perhaps, more than anything else the secret of his inward life at this time. Found between the pages of his diary, it brightens the record with unexpected radiance. From the brief entries in the book itself one learns little; but that well-worn paper, used evidently as a marker and moved on from day to day, what does it not reveal?

Lord Jesus, make Thyself to me
A living, bright Reality;
More present to faith’s vision keen
Than any outward object seen; —
More dear, more intimately nigh
Than e’en the sweetest earthly tie.

Was it not the answer to this daily prayer that made endurance possible? ‘I see no light as to the future of home arrangements; but I see God, the living God; and I love Him all the more for this trial—and trust.’

It was with a deep sense of the gravity of the situation” that Taylor set out for England again when it became evident that home difficulties could not be settled by correspondence. There was no spirit of self-confidence in the letter he wrote to Stevenson when nearing Aden:

It is so solemn to feel that one may go out as Samson did, unconscious that the Lord has left one, to win defeat and captivity and blindness. May the Lord keep me and keep you very near Himself. All our service will be worse than useless without that. The solemnity of our position makes me tremble.

From the very day of his arrival, however, he found that God Himself had been working to make a continuance of happy relations possible. He wrote at the end of the month,

I think that all may now be put right, and that great good will result from our great trial.

And a few weeks later:

July 4th: It is impossible not to see in these things the good hand of our God in answer to many prayers. I do not think things have been so cordial for years. In all this there is abundant cause for gratitude and praise..

Thus the storm-clouds began to roll away, and when a visit to America seemed necessary to strengthen the relations between the oldest and newest departments of the work, he went armed with a cordial letter of welcome to the Toronto Council from the Council in London. Of the quickened hopes stirring within him, and the way in which he was pressing on to know more of the wonder-working power of God, some impression may be gained from a letter to Jennie before leaving Queenstown Harbour (July 6th):

Darling, I do want our whole life to be an ascending plane—not resting in anything we have learned or felt or attained, but a pressing on and up. God has been faithful to us, as far as we have gone out on His promises and have trusted His faithfulness; but how little we have done so!

What would a great Sovereign think of a proposal to add 100 soldiers in the course of a year to his army of invasion in a country like China? We must get on to a higher plane of thought altogether, and of prayer, if we are to walk worthy of God and deal in any sensible way with the world’s crying need. Let us ask in faith for such workers for every department as shall be fit and able to deal worthily with their work at home, in America, in China, and for such an enduement of power as shall make the feeblest mighty.

Do we not want more really to meditate on God; to gaze on Him; to take in what we are even now competent to take in of His greatness, His resources, His assurances and promises? Dwelling thus on Him, should we not be enabled to grasp more of the heights and depths of His character and purposes, and be more ready and able to do His will? May He, darling, in our separation, become all the more to us, that we may first be more to Him, and then through Him to our work and to each other.

In the little town of Attica two other hearts had been learning similar lessons, hearts united in an equally deep bond of love. Circumstances had changed a good deal for Henry Frost and his wife since Taylor’s previous visit, but their home seemed, if anything, more attractive than before. The marriage gift of his father, it had been beautified by the addition of panelled wooden ceilings, to replace the plaster ones which had fallen in the lower rooms, a detail that was to have a good deal to do with the directions of their lives at this time. With every comfort in their surroundings, a large circle of friends and nothing but happiness in their children, there seemed little of earthly good left to desire. But an unseen Hand was stirring up this nest, and Taylor’s second visit found them in the midst of strange experiences. 3

Their income, which had hitherto been amply sufficient, had suddenly been cut off through the failure of a flourishing business. At his father’s express desire, Frost had given up his own business some years previously, to devote himself entirely to evangelistic work. The father was well able to supply the needs of the family, and rejoiced to have fellowship in this way in his son’s service for the Lord. But now, to his sorrow, this was no longer possible. To have gone back into secular employment would have greatly curtailed Henry Frost’s usefulness as an evangelist, and would have necessitated his giving up much active participation in the work of the C.I.M. This he could not feel to be the will of God, after all the way in which he and Taylor had been led, and it practically came to be, as he expressed it, a question, ‘Which father are you really trusting?’

Outside the immediate family no one knew of their position, and the Frosts saw it to be a special opportunity for putting to the test not their faith only but the definite promises of God. A few months previously they had determined never, under any circumstances, to go into debt. Amid the apparent comfort of their surroundings, therefore, they found themselves directly dependent upon _ their Heavenly Father even for daily bread. Searching as well as precious were the experiences through which they were learning more of His infinite faithfulness, but their joy in God was growing deeper and their desire to be wholly engaged in His service stronger, although they little anticipated the sacrifice that would be involved.

Meanwhile the interest in China and sympathy for the China Inland Mission were increasing. This was evident from the welcome both Taylor and Frost received at the Niagara Conference. The gifts of 1888 for the support of American workers were largely exceeded, and many new friendships were formed while old ones were strengthened.

Taylor’s chief object in coming over being the settlement of the work upon a permanent basis, he gave much time to meetings with the Council and intercourse with its individual members. The number of the latter was increased, and Sandham finding it necessary, on account of many engagements, to retire from the position he had held, Henry Frost was invited to assume the sole responsibility as Treasurer and Secretary, making his home in Toronto.

So this was what it had all been leading to! In view of recent experiences, he was himself prepared for a life of faith with regard to temporal supplies; but he knew that his wife would feel giving up their lovely home very keenly, on account of the children.

‘One day as I was in the parlour, resting,’ he wrote of this critical time, ‘my wife, unknown to me, was waiting upon God in her own room for guidance. While thus engaged she was led to open her Bible and to read in the book of Haggai; and she had not read long in this portion of Scripture before she had the light for which she had been so earnestly seeking. A moment later I heard her coming to me across the library and hall. She stepped to my side, and without a word laid her open Bible on my knee, pointing as she did so to the fourth verse of the first chapter of Haggai. I looked at the words indicated and read as follows:

“Ts it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses and this house lie waste?”

‘It was not necessary that my wife should say anything to explain her meaning; the lesson was self-evident. One look _ in her face showed me that the Lord had won the victory for her, and one look at the ceiling overhead settled the question finally for myself. From that hour, though it was not an easy thing to do, we were united in our desire to give up our home, in order that we might have part in the building of that spiritual house, the temple of Christ’s body, which we knew the Lord was waiting to see completed.’

Gladly would Taylor have made it possible for the step to be taken without financial difficulty; but while he could give them enough for the actual move, there was little over. The contributions at Niagara and in other centres, while amounting to thousands of dollars, were almost all designated for individual missionaries, and could not be drawn upon. About £50 given to Taylor for his own use he felt free to _ pass on, but ‘Beyond this,’ he said quite frankly, ‘I can promise you nothing. You will have to look to the Lord for supplies, as we do in England and in China.’ Recollecting his own reactions, Frost wrote later,

I confess that Mr. Taylor’s words did not at first suggest an inviting prospect. To move my family and belongings, to take a home in a strange city, to invite a large number of candidates into that home, to supply their needs and our own and to carry on the _ work of the Mission with little more than $250.00 was certainly not a promising arrangement from an earthly standpoint. But recent experiences had given me to understand that there was a factor in the case not to be left out, and which being reckoned upon altered the proposition. That factor was the Lord Himself. $250.00 was anything but a large sum with which to begin such an undertaking; but $250.00 with the Lord was all that we could need. Thus, so far as finances were concerned, I soon felt prepared to accept Mr. Taylor’s offer.

Could he have foreseen the many and wonderful answers to prayer that were to bring to the American branch of the Mission over half a million dollars within the next seventeen years, and place at his disposal property to the value of $40,000 more, he might have gone forward with less fear and trembling!

Cheered and strengthened by many tokens for good, Taylor left America in August, to carry out a full programme of meetings, which included a visit to Sweden before the close of the year. The interest that had grown to considerable proportions in that country owed not a

little to Hudson Taylor’s unconscious influence over a young stranger whom he met one busy day in Paternoster Row in London. He had gone out of his way to show the Swedish visitor courtesy, and later they met at an important meeting in connection with the outgoing of the Seventy.

“We had a conversation after the meeting,’ Mr. Holmgren recalled, ‘and Mr. Taylor talked to me in a very kind way, by which my heart was drawn out to him. He seemed to be full of love.’

Visits to Pyrland Road deepened the interest, and Holmgren returned to Sweden as a staunch friend of the China Inland Mission. First as editor of a religious weekly, then as pastor of one of the leading churches in Stockholm, he did all that in him lay to awaken Swedish Christians to a sense of responsibility for the unevangelised millions of China, among whom they as yet had no representatives. Eric Folke, an Uppsala graduate, deeply conscious of a call from God to that great field, could find no Swedish society to send him there. Going independently, he was welcomed at the C.I.M. in Shanghai, and passed on to its training home in Anking for the study of the language. Six months later he wrote to Holmgren of his desire to work in association with the Mission, and a Committee was formed in Stockholm to facilitate the going out of others to join him.

For some time this representative group of friends had been urging Taylor to visit Sweden. Tied for time as he was by the second General Missionary Conference in Shanghai, at which he had promised to preach the opening sermon, it was not easy to spare a month for this purpose; but the Committee was needing advice as to their work in China, which was to be carried on in close affiliation with the C.I.M.

The whole thing was coming about so naturally that he can hardly have realised the widening that was taking place in his personal ministry and the connections of the Mission, which was yet to be linked with deeply prayerful movements in many Continental centres as well as in America and Australasia. With the Niagara Conference of the previous year the new movement had begun, and to the present summer may be traced the larger vision, which was to lead to outward development. Taylor himself was growing with the growing work. After the recent - difficulties which had so tested and strengthened faith in God, he was full of longing ‘to grasp more of the heights and depths of His character and purposes, and be more ready and able to do His will.’ And now, even before he could pay his promised visit to Sweden, a fuller revelation of that will had come.

Conscious of a new call from God, a new urgency about the work to which his life was given, Hudson Taylor was ready for the important openings his northern journey afforded.:

‘We seldom address fewer than two to five thousand people daily,’ he wrote towards the close of the visit, in which he was accompanied by his second son. ‘Even in small places we have large audiences. Hundreds could not get in last night: and some had come thirty miles to the meeting. May great and lasting blessing be the result.’

In Sweden as elsewhere it was the spirit of the man that added weight to what was said. Seen through the eyes of Holmgren, who travelled with them, this was if anything the more eloquent message.

Everywhere the people were drawn to Mr. Taylor. He showed much love and affection, which also was returned. It was a joy to see how the children gathered round him in the families we visited, although they could not understand what he said. He spoke very friendly to them and patted their heads.

Mr. Hudson Taylor felt much-gladdened by his visit to Sweden. He gained many friends; and still today when his name is mentioned before those who heard him, their faces are lit up with joy. He also was very simple, and without pretensions. On leaving Linkoping, for example, he was specially tired. He had had several meetings the day before, and had risen early in the morning. There had already been a meeting at eleven o’clock, and at six there should be another in a town sixty miles away. On the way to the station, Dr. Howard Taylor said to his father:

“You are very tired now. Let me take a second class ticket.’ In so gentle a way Mr. Taylor answered: “Well, it is the Lord’s money, you know; we had better be very careful about it.’

Which answer made a great impression on me. I have many times since heard this word repeat itself in my ears: ‘It is the Lord’s money: we had better be very careful about it.’

Lastly, I may mention an incident which also made a great impression upon my mind, and which shows his trust in God. The Committee had intended to meet Mr. Taylor’s expenses and those of his son for their journey by taking collections at the meetings. When I met them in Gothenburg I told Mr. Taylor this. Then he looked at me, and with a smiling face said:

“Well, I have a rich Father, you know. I will ask Him about it. But I do not think this thought is quite according to His will. He is sure to provide for me; and I feel that what is gathered by collections ought to be used for the Swedish Mission.’

I felt very much touched, and if I had had money I should gladly have paid all the expenses of his travels in Sweden. But as to his trust that these would be provided, I said to myself, ‘That is all very well in England; but in Sweden it is not the same.’

I parted from Mr. Taylor at Christiania. He crossed for England and I returned to Stockholm. In his first letter he said:

“A few days after we had come to England I received a

letter from someone in Sweden, I do not know from whom. A cheque was enclosed for £50, and the writer said that this money was to meet my expenses and those of my son for our journey in Sweden, and if anything was left over I might use it as I liked. If you know who has sent it, please give them my warm thanks.’

I did not know at all from whom it was; but I felt very much ashamed and humiliated for my unbelief. At the same time I _ could not restrain my thanksgivings to the Lord for His faithfulness, and that His power is just the same in Sweden as in England..

The burden on Taylor’s heart all through this Swedish visit, if burden it could be called, was the deeper apprehension that had come to him one Sunday a few months previously of the meaning of the Divine command, ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.’ It was Jennie’s birthday and they were spending it in her father’s home at Hastings. Did it recall that other memorable Sunday, on the sands at Brighton, when he had met the crisis of his life, and had yielded himself to God for the evangelisation of inland China?

What he saw now, in the light of the Holy Spirit’s teaching, was a meaning so great, so comprehensive, in those few simple words—among the last that fell from the ascending Saviour’s lips—that it seemed as if he heard them for the first time.

‘I confess with shame,’ he wrote a few months later, ‘that until that moment the question, What did our Lord really mean by His command “Preach the gospel to every creature”? had never been raised by me. I had laboured for many years, as have many others, to carry the Gospel further afield; had laid plans for reaching every unreached province and many smaller districts in China, without realising the plain meaning of our Saviour’s words!’

‘To every creature’? And the total number of Protestant communicants in that great land was only 40,000. Double the number, treble it, to include adherents, and suppose each one to be a messenger to eight of his fellowcountrymen—even so, only one million would be reached. ‘To every creature’: the words burned into his very soul. But how far was the Church, how far had he been himself from taking them literally, as intended to be acted upon! He saw it now, however; and with Hudson Taylor there was but one course—to obey.

How are we going to treat the Lord Jesus Christ with reference to this command? Shall we definitely drop the title Lord as applied to Him, and take the ground that we are quite willing

WITH WINGS AS EAGLES ~ 499

to recognise Him as our Saviour, so far as the penalty of sin is concerned, but are not prepared to own ourselves ‘bought with a price,’ or Him as having any claim to our unquestioning obedience? Shall we say that we are our own masters, willing to yield something as His due, who bought us with His blood, provided He does not ask too much? Our lives, our loved ones, our possessions are our own, not His: we will give Him what we think fit, and obey any of His requirements that do not demand too great a sacrifice? To be taken to Heaven by Jesus Christ we are more than willing, but we will not have this Man to reign over us?

The heart of every Christian will undoubtedly reject the proposition, so formulated; but have not countless lives in each generation been lived as though it were proper ground to take? How few of the Lord’s people have practically recognised the truth that Christ is either Lord of all, or is not Lord at all! If we can judge God’s Word as much or as little as we like, then we are lords and He is the indebted one, to be grateful for our dole and obliged by our compliance with His wishes. If, on the other hand, He is Lord, let us treat Him as such. ‘Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?’

So, all unexpectedly, he came to the widest outlook of his life, the purpose that was to dominate the closing decade of its active service.