The Coming Thousand (1889-1892)

Not a mere human project but a Divine command was what Taylor saw in the words, ‘To every creature,’ that autumn day by the sea. They came to him with all the urgency of a royal mandate that brooks no delay. It was a question of duty, and no time was to be lost. ‘If we begin at once,’ he realised afresh with straitened heart, ‘millions will have passed ere we can reach them.’

But begin what? Begin a definite, systematic effort to do just as the Master said—to carry the glad tidings of salvation to every man, woman and child throughout the whole of China. Nothing if not practical, Taylor set himself forthwith to consider, not whether the attempt should be made, but simply—how? And as he thought and prayed he came to see, first of all, that it could be done. There was no impossibility about the matter. Armies of scores of thousands could be sent to the ends of the earth for the sake of material conquest, and the Church had at her command resources fully equal to the obligations laid upon her.

Very simply it occurred to him, about the vast population to be reached: a million is a thousand thousands: given 1,000 evangelists, each one teaching 250 people daily, and in 1,000 days 250 millions would have the offer of Divine mercy. Surely a task that could, at this rate, be accomplished in little over three years should not be thought of as chimerical or beyond the resources of the Christian Church!

Many objections, he knew, could be raised to this calculation. To begin with some might think it impossible for an individual worker to reach as many as 250 people daily; or that, if they could, such an offer of the Gospel would accomplish little. Taylor could not but remember, however, the work he had himself done in early years, and especially the many months spent with William Burns in the thorough systematic evangelisation in districts in which there were no settled missionaries. They had not found it difficult to reach 500 to 1,000 people daily—preaching in all the streets of a given town or city, and entering every shop with books and tracts. As night came on they would repair to a previously, announced tea-shop, where interested hearers could meet them for conversations, and any who wished to learn more were invited to their boats for further talk and prayer. As to results, he in common with many others could recall, among the brightest converts they had ever known, not a few who had truly given their hearts to Christ the first time they ever heard - of Redeeming Love. ‘And if one offer of the Gospel is insufficient,’ he urged, ‘what shall we think of none?’

Thus it was in the December Chinas Millions an earnest, practical paper, entitled ‘To Evéry Creature,’ made its appearance, outcome of the deep soul-exercise of that October day. Its plea was for immediate action, first in the realm in which every believer may have power, the realm of prayer. What part the C.I.M. might take in the forward 502 BIQGRAPHY OF JAMES HUDSON TAYLOR

movement Taylor did not attempt to determine. It was the united, simultaneous action of all the societies that alone could put 1,000 evangelists in the field without delay.

Travelling out to China for the second General Missionary Conference, he was thankful for the opportunity the gathering would afford for bringing forward the matter.

“We cannot take hold of this thing in earnest,’ was his conviction, ‘without getting more than 1,000; and oh, the enlargement, the enrichment that would come in the train of such a movement! Could China be blessed alone? Would not the whole world necessarily share in the blessing? For we could not be blessed on the field without our home churches being brought into it; and if they were filled with spiritual life, every land would be thought of and cared for. The Church is well able to evangelise the whole world and to do it with rapidity.’

When face to face with his audience at last—that responsiblé body of men and women representing all the Protestant societies at work in China—his heart overflowed the bounds of his written address.

I do not know that we are told anywhere in the Bible to try to do anything. “We must try to do the best we can’ is a very common expression; but I remember some years ago, after a remark of that kind, looking carefully through the New Testament to see under what circumstances the disciples were told to try to do anything. I did not expect to find many instances, but I was surprised not to find any. Then I went through the Old Testament, very carefully, and I could not find that the Lord had ever told Old Testament believers to try to do anything. There were many commands that appeared impossible to obey, but they were all definite commands: and I think we all need to set ourselves, not to try to obey our Lord as far as we can, but simply to obey Him.

If as an organised Conference we were to set ourselves to obey the command of the Lord to the full, if as an act of obedience we were to determine that every district, every town, every village, every hamlet in this land should hear the Gospel, and that speedily, and were to set about doing it, I believe that the Spirit would come down in such mighty power that we should find supplies springing up we know not how. We should find the fire spreading from missionary to flock, and our Chinese fellowworkers and the whole Church of God would be blessed. God gives His Holy Spirit to them that obey Him. Let us see to it that we really apprehend what His command to us is, now in the day of our opportunity—this day of the remarkable openness of the country, when there are so many facilities, when God has put steam and telegraph at the command of His people for the quick carrying out of His purposes.

The Conference appealed for the Thousand—a thousand men within the next five years, for all forms of missionary work in China. Taken by representative leaders of American and Continental as well as English Societies, this united action could not but have weight with all sections of the Church at home on either side of the Atlantic.

“We make this appeal,’ they wrote, ‘on behalf of 300 millions of unevangelised heathen; we make it with the earnestness of our whole hearts, as men overwhelmed with the magnitude and responsibility of the work before us; we make it with unwavering faith in the power of the risen Saviour to call men into His vineyard, and to open the hearts of those who are His stewards to send out and support them, and we shall not cease to cry mightily to Him that He will do this thing, and that our eyes may see it.’

Meanwhile, in other scenes and unexpected ways, the hand of God was working. Simultaneously, though independently of each other, four ministers in Melbourne had been much exercised about China’s spiritual need and claims. To each of them came the conviction that Australian Christians ought to be doing something towards the evangelisation of the greatest heathen country in the world, and the heathen country nearest their own shores. Of the four, two were Episcopalians, one a Presbyterian and one a Baptist. After some weeks, when they discovered that the burden was one they shared in common, the friends met together for prayer, and it was not long before they found that the Lord was calling one of their number to give his own life to the work. His place could be filled at home, but few were thinking of the greater need beyond.

Missions to the New Hebrides and New Guinea, as well as in some parts of India, were receiving the support of Australian Christians at this time, but partly in consequence of racial prejudice against the Chinese in their midst, nothing was being done for the vast and populous land from which they came. Yet it was evident that these merchants, market gardeners, and laundrymen represented a strong sagacious people, capable of wonderful response to the redeeming love of Christ. Thus when the curate at Caulfield, near Melbourne, desired to go as a missionary to China, it was necessary to seek a connection with one of the societies in the old country. This led to a correspondence with the China Inland Mission; to the acceptance of Parsons and his sailing for Shanghai shortly before the conference which had brought Taylor from England, and also to the earnest desire on the part of his friends in Victoria that a local Council should be formed, to work in connection with the C.I.M. as did the Councils in Toronto and elsewhere.

Nor was this all—for in the neighbouring island of Tasmania similar results had been arrived at, though in a different way. A young missionary who had gone out from England as an Associate of the Mission was obliged, through failing health, to return to Launceston about the time that Taylor was writing Jo Every Creature. In the church of which George Soltau was then the pastor, her influence was telling. China in all its need was still the burden on her heart, and as she spoke of it in meetings, with the love and zeal of one who was following in the footsteps of the Master, many were moved with the same spirit. The result was that gifts began to flow in and offers of service.

To Taylor, in the midst of the conference, all this was full of encouragement. If in China they were being led to ask great things for the Lord’s work He was certainly showing, under the Southern Cross, that He could open up fresh channels of supply. The new headquarters of the Mission also, to which he had been welcomed on landing, encouraged thoughts of development. Commenced as he was leaving China little more than a year previously, these ample premises were completed just in time for his return, _and to receive the members of the Mission, eight of whom gathered for the conference and for the C.I.M. meetings which followed. The opening of the hall-for prayer and public services, and the wedding that took place a few days later, when the generous donor of land and buildings married a fellow-member of the Mission—all the bridal party being in Chinese dress—attracted many friends, and called attention to the wonderful provision the Lord had made for the needs of the growing work.

Upon the C.I.M. conference we must not dwell, nor upon the subsequent Council Meetings, when for three weeks the leaders of the Mission were occupied with problems of the work and with preparation for future developments. A cable to Melbourne authorising the formation of the proposed Council had put matters in train for Taylor’s visit to the Australian states, and by the end of July he found himself free to set out.

On his arrival open doors awaited him on every hand, and friends old and new were generous with help and sympathy. Beginning in Melbourne, where at first the meetings were not large, Taylor had time to become personally acquainted with the members of the Council, and both there and in Tasmania it was noticed how he laid himself out to help these and other friends in the duties they had undertaken. Of a meeting in the drawing-room at Mount Pleasant to consider the important question of candidates, one who took part wrote:

Never can I forget how helpfully Mr. Taylor led us on to see the needs, so that we suggested the rules to be made and the line to be taken by the Council, wholly unaware at the moment of how he was guiding our thought. But that was characteristic of Mr. Taylor! the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ so overflowing, that those who listened were for the time being scarcely conscious of the wisdom and power behind his words.

His simplicity and the naturalness of all he said and did impressed many. As the meetings became better known, large buildings were filled with eager hearers; but he was still the same, and as free from self-consciousness as a child. One occasion was long remembered in Melbourne, when a large Presbyterian Church was crowded, the Moderator himself occupying the chair. In eloquent, well-chosen phrases he enlarged upon what had been accomplished in China through Hudson Taylor’s instrumentality, finally introducing him to the audience as ‘our illustrious guest’.

Quietly Taylor stood for a moment, and then began his address by saying in a way that won all hearts: ‘Dear friends, I am the little servant of an illustrious Master.’

Children were drawn to him, just as in Sweden, and indeed wherever he went. After a meeting in Government House, Hobart, it was just like him to return with pleasure to the nursery of the home in which he was entertained, a few miles out of the city.

“He was just beautiful with little ones,’ wrote his hostess. ‘He took each child in our home, and kneeling with them apart, presented them one by one to his Heavenly Father for definite blessing. Two of those children are now engaged in missionary work, one in India and one in China.’

It was the latter, little Edith, only three years old at the time of Taylor’s visit, who remembered him with special affection. A year or two later, when she achieved the triumph of knitting a doll’s garment, nothing would do but that it must be sent to China, to Hudson Taylor—‘’Cause - Tlove him so!’

But it was on those of ripe experience that he made the most impression, and the deeper the spiritual life the more it responded to his own. His host in Melbourne wrote:

He was an object lesson in quietness. He drew from the Bank of Heaven every farthing of his daily income—‘My peace I give unto you’.

‘Keswick teaching’ as it is called was not new to me at that time. I had received those glorious truths and was preaching them to others. But here was the real thing—an embodiment of ‘Keswick teaching’ such as I had never hoped to see. This impressed me profoundly—here is a man almost sixty years of age, bearing tremendous burdens, yet absolutely calm and unruffled. Oh, the pile of letters! any one of which might contain news of death, of shortness of funds, of riots or serious trouble. Yet all were opened, read and answered with the same tranquillity—Christ his reason for peace, his power for calm. Dwelling in Christ he partook of His very being and resources, in the midst of and concerning the very matters in question. And he did this by an act of faith as simple as it was continuous.

Yet he was delightfully free and natural. I can find no words to describe it save the Scriptural expression ‘in God.’ He was ‘in God’ all the time, and God in him. It was that true ‘abiding’ of John 15. But oh, the /over-like attitude that underlay it! He had in relation to Christ a most bountiful experience of the Song of Solomon. It was a wonderful combination—the strength and tenderness of one who, amid stern preoccupation, like that of a judge on the bench, carried in his heart the light and love of home.:

More than sixty applied to join the Mission before the time came for Taylor’s return to China, and many others were profoundly influenced who found their life-work in India and elsewhere. Such, for example, was the young evangelist who felt quite annoyed when he saw in the local paper an announcement of Taylor’s Hobart meetings. He had no sympathy at that time, no patience even, with those who advocated foreign missions; being convinced, through certain preconceptions, that the whole idea was mistaken and unscriptural. Charles Reeve was an earest Bible student, however, and when drawn to the meetings in spite of himself the first thing he noticed was that the speaker was certainly dealing faithfully with the Word of God. Indeed as he listened, Reeve felt that he had never heard the Bible more truly expounded, though the conclusions he could not escape ran counter to his strongest convictions up to that hour. For it was on the back seat of that hall, as Taylor’s earnest voice went on, that the call of God came to him, and the Poona and Indian Village Mission of today, with its band of devoted workers, is the outcome.

The best of the meetings were naturally the last, when Taylor was surrounded by the young volunteers who were returning with him to China. He had had no hesitation in letting it be known that he was praying for 100 fellowworkers from Australasia, and the large number who had already come forward awakened the deepest interest. When the Council arranged for a day of prayer and conference for ministers only, to meet Hudson Taylor, no fewer than forty attended; and the same evening the Melbourne Town Hall witnessed an enthusiastic gathering of 3,000 people to bid farewell to the party.

The party was to sail in October. The vessel was delayed, however, owing to a strike of dock labourers, and an invitation for meetings in Queensland, which he had - had to decline, recurred to Taylor’s mind. He little knew how much prayer there had been behind that invitation, or the outgoings of heart with which, the Queensland vicar and his wife thought of great, dark China, far away. Their home was attractive and their work congenial, but the appeal of the Shanghai Conference had reached them, and Mr. Southey noted that ordained men were specially asked for. His health was not very robust, and with three young children to think of, it might well have seemed that he was doing all he could, by earnestly forwarding the cause of missions at home. But this did not satisfy his conscience before God.

‘I cannot help feeling,’ he wrote to Taylor when he heard that the latter was really coming, ‘that some of the Ipswich ministers ought to go to the heathen. In a town of eight or nine thousand inhabitants—of whom not quite two-thirds are Protestants—there are nine Protestant churches with ten ministers; and not one of the churches is ever really full. It is not from any wish to change that I write this. I am only anxious to do my Father’s will. I am perfectly willing to stay in Queensland if it is His will, and I am willing if it be His will to go to the heathen. There is plenty to do here. Spiritual religion in all the churches is at a sadly low ebb, and there is but little missionary zeal. So that I may truly say that there is work for a child of God here; but it does seem that there is more among the heathen.’

Few experiences ever touched Taylor more deeply than the visit to this happy, delightful home, which the parents were so ready to forsake for the love that is stronger than any earthly tie. Southey, when he met him that early summer morning, was for a moment disappointed. He had heard and thought so much about the veteran missionary that he unconsciously expected someone of imposing appearance; and when a

single passenger alighted from the express and came towards him, he could hardly believe it was the visitor expected. Some years later he wrote,

On reaching home, I mentioned this feeling of disappointment to my wife, adding, however, ‘I am sure he is a good man.’ But she was of quicker discernment than I, and after a little chat with our guest came and said, ‘Look at the light in his face.’

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And truly Mr. Taylor did have the light of God in his face. So constantly did he look up to God, and so deep was his communion with God, that his very face seemed to have upon it a heavenly light. He had not been many hours in the house before the first sense of disappointment gave place to a deep reverence and love, and I realised as never before what the grace of God could do. Often and often had I longed to go to Keswick, but now God in His love had sent Keswick to me, and I was permitted not to listen to beautiful teaching, but to see the beauty of a life lived in abiding fellowship with the Lord Jesus. In the house he was all that a guest should be, kind, courteous, considerate, gracious. He at once fell into the routine of the household, was punctual at the meal table, studied to give the minimum of trouble, and was swift to notice and to express his thanks for every little service rendered. We could not help noticing the utter lack of self-assertion about him, and his true because unconscious humility. About the Lord and His grace and faithfulness he spoke freely; about himself and his service he said nothing. Only by questioning did we learn anything of his own labours or experiences, but when he was thus drawn out, how much he had to tell!

While he was with us the question of our going to China was discussed, and though from the very first he seemed to feel that our offer was of the Lord, yet he took pains to set before us the whole facts of the case. The climate, the discomforts, the absence of medical help, the necessity of parting from the. children, etc., were fully gone into. He certainly did not lead us out by withholding from us the real facts; and more than once after walking up and down our garden, which seemed to have a great charm for him, he said to my wife, “You won’t have a garden like this in China!’

But the refuge in God that they would have, and the certainty of His sustaining grace, was confirmed to them by all they saw of their visitor, and had not a little to do with the step of faith which gave to China two of its truest helpers and to the Mission, ultimately, its Home Director for Australia and New Zealand.

Wonderful were the developments of that winter, both before and after Taylor’s return to China. Arriving on Sunday, December 21st, he had the joy of finding Jennie awaiting him. Arrangements had at last been possible to free her from home responsibilities, and she had long felt that her place was at his side. Absent nine years from China, she saw great changes, great advance on every hand, and her presence seemed to double Taylor’s capacity for work and happiness in it. There was need of all he could do and be that winter, to keep pace with the unprecedented growth of the Mission. Great had been the joy in 1887 when 100 new workers had.come out within twelve months; but now, in half that time, a hundred and thirty-one were received in Shanghai for the C.I.M. alone. Sixty-six of them, indeed, arrived in little over three weeks—a new thing on any mission field! And the sources of supply were no less remarkable than the numbers.

Far away in northern Europe, the little pamphlet Jo Every Creature had fallen into the hands of a devoted evangelist, the Rev. F. Franson—Swedish by birth but a naturalised American—who had worked for seven years with D. L. Moody. Always keen about foreign missions, its appeal for absolute loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ and unquestioning obedience to His great command fired a soul whose zeal could not but move others. Twice had Franson been in prison for his uncompromising earnestness in preaching the Gospel; and now, with a burning heart, he carried this new crusade throughout the region where he then was, which happened to be northern Germany.

In Barmen missionary interest was specially developed. The China Alliance Mission was the result, and wishing to work on the lines of the C.I.M., its leaders entered into correspondence with Taylor. It was not long before its first representatives sailed for China as associates of the China Inland Mission; but Franson, by that time, had entered upon another campaign, among the Scandinavian churches in America.

Well-known throughout the States, he had no lack of openings, and he proceeded on the plan of encouraging the Lord’s people ‘to give support each church to. one missionary’.

‘This plan has proved to be a very good one,’ he continued. ‘I have succeeded very well. Not only have this party their support secured, but another expedition of some ten will leave Omaha twelve days later than this one. We arrange it so that we do not send any who has not been used of God to blessing for souls. A good many have offered themselves but have been refused, some on the ground of insufficient health, some on the ground of incapability for mission work. A very great interest has been created all over America among Scandinavians, through my personal visits and the visits of these missionaries.’

Chosen men and women of devoted spirit, their intention was, as Franson explained, to do itinerant work; ‘that is to be of the Thousand Mr. Taylor has prayed to the Lord about—to do just that work.’

They are prepared to go from place to place preaching the Gospel, distributing tracts and Bibles, as the Lord may lead for at least three years, and not to marry during this time, or even get engaged. I suppose it best that they procure Chinese clothes as soon as they arrive.

Their desire was to be associated with the C.I.M., just as the Swedish and German Alliance Missions were, and to be under the direction of Taylor and his representatives no less than that of their own leaders. It was a large contribution, as it proved, to the ranks of the Mission.

One February morning Stevenson was on the long verandah of the Mission house when two healthy-looking young men presented themselves at the main entrance.

‘They must be the Scandinavians,’ said the Deputy Director, going to meet them. He had just been speaking of Franson’s party.

‘How many are you?’ was a necessary question in view of providing accommodation.

‘We are thirty-five,’ came the astonishing reply, ‘and there are ten more, or perhaps fifteen, who will be here next week.’

The Scandinavian Fifty had hardly gone singing on their way when riots began to break out all along the Yangtze valley. In place after place mission premises were destroyed, and though the fury of the people was specially directed against the Romanists, all foreigners were more or less imperilled. Even in Shanghai it seemed uncertain whether the authorities would be able to restrain looting and violence, and little sleep was to be had on more than one hot summer night because a riot was expected before morning.

For five long months, from May to October, the excitement continued, notwithstanding an Imperial proclamation which had a good effect. Gradually the anti-foreign feeling died down for the time being, and normal conditions were restored.

Meanwhile burdens of a different nature were pressing more and more heavily. With a Mission embracing so many workers, widely scattered over a vast territory, all to be counselled, guided, sustained by prayer, supplied with means and many of the necessities of life, it was inevitable that much of care, if not anxiety, should come upon its responsible head in Shanghai.

Often had the question of funds to be brought to the Lord at this time, for it was one that was causing Taylor considerable exercise of mind. With a rapidly growing and encouraging work on the field, the income received in England had been falling for two or three years. Believing as he did that every gift to the Mission was the outcome of a Divinely given impulse, Taylor could not but search his own life again and again, and prayerfully consider every aspect of the work to see whether there might be anything hindering the blessing of the Lord in this respect. His heart was kept in peace about it and about all the pressure that was upon him, but apart from the daily miracle of sustaining grace it would have been far otherwise.

And there were other trials that led to even deeper exercise of heart and mind. The relation of the work in China to the Council at home had not yet passed beyond the experimental stage, in which questions were apt to come up that were difficult of settlement. The whole idea of the Mission in this connection—government on the field rather than from a distance—was so new and contrary to received traditions that it was no wonder it had to win its way gradually and in face, at times, of criticism and questioning. To Taylor with his thorough grasp of the problems to be dealt with, nothing could be clearer than that the control of affairs in China must be vested in men of expert knowledge, leaders in whom their 516 BIQGRAPHY OF JAMES HUDSON TAYLOR

fellow-missionaries would have confidence, able to deal with matters effectively on the spot. It was easy to see that in the home centres the Directors and Councils must be free to apply the principles of the Mission to their own problems and decide their own line of action in accordance with them; but it needed time and experience to make it equally plain that the China administration must be upon the same footing. In principle this had been conceded from the first; but it was one thing to have confidence in Taylor’s management as long as matters were in his own hands, and quite another to transfer that confidence to the China Council. Yet this was a cardinal point in the organisation he was building up.

‘Mr. Berger is quite right,’ he wrote in this connection (May 1891), ‘that the supreme question is that of final headship, and it is equally clear to me that it can only be vested in China.’

There could be no question of compromise upon so vital an issue.

“We may make mistakes in China,’ he wrote again (August 28th), ‘and no doubt mistakes have been made in the past; but evils far more serious would result from abandoning what I am convinced are God-given lines for the C.I.M.’

Much as it would have meant to him therefore, amid all the pressure of this period, to have had the full and sympathetic concurrence ultimately secured in these matters, there was nothing for it but to wait upon God and to wait His time.

‘The Lord doubtless has His purpose in permitting it,’ he wrote to Stevenson at the close of the year 1891, ‘and to learn any

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lesson He may have to teach us is more important than getting rid of the trouble.’

What could have been more encouraging under the circumstances than just the outpourings of spiritual blessing, both in the spring of the year and at its close, with which the Lord was pleased to cheer His servants in Shanghai? No one could relieve Taylor of burdens that pressed the heaviest, but others might be channels of Divine grace through which the entire Mission should be refreshed.

Such a channel was Henry Frost, now paying his first visit to China. Arriving with a party from Toronto in February, he stayed until well on in the summer, making a considerable journey round the nearer stations. A conference of American workers gathered in Shanghai to meet him proved a time of real spiritual help.

Early in the autumn Cassels of the Cambridge Seven arrived from his far western province to attend the Council Meetings, and the Misses Newcombe of the C.M.S.—soon to lay down their lives for Christ’s sake—came up from Foochow on a

visit. All these brought blessing to the resident staff and the many coming and going in the Mission house. They spoke much of the life that is ‘No longer I but Christ’ in practical reality, but best of all they - lived it. And is there anything else so sure to awaken hunger in other hearts?

‘There is a real spirit of prayer and quickening in the home here, praise God!’ Jennie Taylor wrote on November 7th.

Then a great uplift was given, as the year drew to a close, by the coming of a C.M.S. party with Mr. and Mrs. Heywood Horsburgh from England. These beloved friends had the sorrow of losing a precious child in Shanghai, but from stricken hearts only love and blessing flowed to others. The tide of spiritual life‘was deepening, and before they left for their new sphere, 1,500 miles up the Yangtze, several conversions had taken place in the C.I.M. hall and on a British man-of-war lying in the river.

After that came a wonderful time, in which one and another were brought face to face with a question which revealed the heart’s deepest need and opened up a whole world of blessed possibility. One young worker from the interior, for example, unavoidably detained in Shanghai, was present at these meetings, and stirred with a sense of need and longing as never before. Four years in China had taught her something of the joy and blessing to be found in deeper fellowship with the Master, but something also of the deadening influences of heathenism, the power of evil within as well as around her, and the blank despair of seeking to help others when her own soul was out of living touch with Christ. How she longed for ‘the exchanged life,’ the life she saw in others, but knew not how to attain. Praying in an anguish no one suspected for light and help, it was the last Sunday before Christmas when a word was spoken that, under God, brought deliverance and made all things new. After the evangelistic service in the C.I.M. hall, an entire stranger—a Christian seaman—came up to her and said earnestly:

‘Are you filled with the Holy Ghost?’

Filled with the Holy Ghost? She remembered no more of the conversation, but that question burned deeper and deeper into her heart. This, then, was the explanation of all the inward failure, the sorrow that seemed unavailing, the purposes that came to nothing. God had made a provision, given a Gift that she had never definitely accepted. She knew that the Holy Spirit must be her life in a certain sense, for ‘if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.’ And yet, just as certainly, she knew that she was not ‘filled with the Spirit,’ and was experiencing little of His power.

But how afraid she was of being misled, of running into error and mistaking emotion for reality! The Word of God was full, now she came to study the subject, of the personality and power of the Holy Spirit. The Acts of the Apostles—what was it but the acts of the Holy Ghost, transforming and quickening lives just as she knew she needed to be quickened and transformed? O yes, why had she never seen it? It was indeed the Holy Spirit she needed; the fullness of the Holy Spirit, to make unseen things real to her and impossible things possible. And there stood out in Gal. 3. 13, 14 the words:

‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us... that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.’

What was she doing with the infinite Gift purchased at such a cost? She saw that just as Christ is ours by the gift of God, and yet we have each one personally to receive Him, so with the Holy Spirit. She saw that He too was a - Person, just as real as the Lord Jesus, and to be just as truly welcomed by faith into the heart that cannot do without Him as a living link with the risen, glorious Lord. All the rest that can be told is that she took the step, though with fear and trembling—scarce knowing what it meant—and trusted the Holy Spirit to come in and possess her fully, just as she had trusted the Lord Jesus to be her Saviour. Feeling nothing, realising nothing, she just took God at His word, and then and there asked that the promise might be fulfilled, ‘When he is come (to you) he will reprove (or convict) the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.’ Her chief sorrow for many months had been that she seemed to have little power for soul-winning, and hardly knew of any who had been brought to Christ through her instrumentality. It was Christmas week, and believing that a real, a definite transaction had taken place alone in that quiet room, she asked in faith that God would give her to see the proof of it in actual conversions every day that week, in connection with meetings that were being held.

And every day that week the prayer was answered. More than twenty people, young and old, sailors, visitors, and residents in Shanghai, it was given her to help to a definite decision for Christ, while the joy and liberty of her own heart were so manifest that others could not but long for and seek the same blessing.

‘God is working in our midst,’ Jennie Taylor wrote in April 1892, ‘emptying and humbling one and another, and filling with the Holy Spirit. We are having frequent meetings full of liberty and power.’

On the 16th of that month the Council, which was in session, was suspended, a minute being passed to record that,

Instead of meeting for conference, the China Council united with the members of the Mission in Shanghai in seeking for themselves, the whole Mission in China and the Home Councils, the filling of the Holy Spirit.

In answer to prayer the blessing spread. From distant stations letters that took weeks in coming told of individual missionaries, and whole groups in some cases,

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transformed by the same renewing power, while from the young men’s training home came the tidings that not one of the students remained unblessed. In a circular letter to the members of the Mission, Taylor wrote:

Here in Shanghai there have been some very hungry hearts, and praise God He has been fulfilling to them the promise ‘He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness’; with the result that there have been more conversions in connection with our work here, in a few months, than for several years previously—some fifty persons, sailors and residents as well as servants, having accepted Christ. From other places too we are hearing of quickening and ingathering, which we trust may be as droppings before the showers we need.

The supreme want of all missions in the present day is the manifested presence of the Holy Ghost. Hundreds of thousands of tracts and portions of Scripture have been put into circulation; thousands of Gospel addresses have been given; tens of thousands of miles have been traversed in missionary journeys, but how small has been the issue in the way of definite conversions! We as a Mission have much need to humble ourselves before God. There has been a measure of blessing among us and souls have been saved, but where are the ones that chase a thousand, or the two that put ten thousand to flight? Where are the once-thirsty ones, now filled, from whom flow rivers of living water?

Few of us, perhaps, are satisfied with the results of our work, and some may think that if we had more, or more costly machinery we should do better. But oh, I feel that it is Divine power we want and not machinery! If the tens or hundreds we now reach daily are not being won to Christ,,where would be the gain in machinery that would enable us’to reach double the number? Should we not do well, rather, to suspend our present operations and give ourselves to humiliation and prayer for nothing less than to be filled with the Spirit, and made channels through which He shall work with resistless power?

Souls are perishing now for lack of this power. God is blessing now some who are seeking this blessing from Him in faith. All things are ready, if we are ready. Let us ask Him to search us and remove all that hinders His working by us in larger measure. If any of us have been tempted to murmur, to think or speak unkindly of fellow-workers; if light conversation or jesting ‘which are not convenient’ have been indulged in; if we have allowed less important things to take time and attention that God’s direct work should have had; if our Bibles or secret prayer —have been neglected, let us confess the evil before God and claim His promised forgiveness, carefully avoiding such occasions of weakness for the future. And having sought the removal of all hindrances and yielded ourselves up in fresh consecration, let us accept by faith the filling, and definitely receive the Holy Ghost, to occupy and govern the cleansed temple.

Before the close of the year, deliverance was given in the matters of difficulty that had necessitated Taylor’s return to England. When it seemed that unanimity could not be reached by discussion of the problems, the whole time was given at more than one Council Meeting to united waiting upon God. After that the change was very marked. With certain concessions on Taylor’s own part, liberty for the China administration was fully and finally secured, and early in 1893 it was evident that this prolonged period of trial was passing away.

As to the financial trial of the period, there had been times of straitness in China when special prayer was called forth, times when the members of the Mission had been drawn to one another in quickened love and sympathy, and had learned fresh lessons of the overruling care of God. Such, for example, was the December day in 1891 when £2,000 was urgently needed for general purposes, and the cable announcing the month’s remittance was due to arrive from England. Taylor and his wife were at work

THE COMING THOUSAND LO

in the study as usual, a junior member of the Mission being with them when the telegram was brought in. With a brief pause for silent prayer he opened and read it, read it aloud, forgetful perhaps of the young worker to whom the moment was one of almost breathless suspense.

“A hundred and seventy pounds.’

‘One thousand seven hundred, perhaps?’

“No: a hundred and seventy.’

In the silence that followed it seemed to the one who listened as if the heavens had fallen, or a chasm of measureless blackness had opened at her feet. A hundred and seventy pounds, and a pressing need of two thousand! Nearly 500 missionaries, and no further cable for a month!

How did he know just what that young heart was experiencing? How could he be so at leisure from himself, so sure of God and at rest in Him that his first thought was for the faith of another? Turning in his chair, Taylor held out his hand with fatherly kindness:

‘Now you will watch,’ he said, and there was even a touch of joyous confidence about the words. ‘You will watch and see what God will do.’

A special opportunity for God to work and for faith to triumph—this was the immediate attitude, fully justified, by the events that followed. The deficiency was not made up by any outstanding gift cn this occasion, but in many directions the hand of God was seen. Larger remittances than usual were received from Australia and other centres, while unexpected help was forthcoming in China, so that by the end of the month an average remittance had been sent to all the stations with more than an average sense of the love and care of Him who ‘abideth faithful,’ who even when our faith wavers ‘cannot deny himself’.