Emptied from Vessel to Vessel (1855-1856) (part 2 of 2)

Who Shutteth and No Man Openeth (1856)

It was the middle of February 1856, and William Burns and Hudson Taylor were in Shanghai again. They had been on two evangelistic trips together, and were glad to be once more at the weekly prayer meeting at Dr. Medhurst’s which was a rendezvous for all in the great port who were concerned for the work of God.

On this occasion a Christian captain was present whose vessel had just arrived from Swatow. His heart was burdened with the condition of things in that southern port to which he carried cargo and passengers from time to time. An important and growing centre of commerce, it was the resort of increasing numbers of people greedy of gain and wholly unscrupulous in their ways of obtaining it: The opium trade and the equally iniquitous ‘coolie traffic’!' were carried on with shameless activity. Piracy flourished to such an extent that even Chinese merchants had taken to shipping their goods in foreign vessels that they might obtain the protection of British and other flags. Thus, although Swatow was not an open port and foreigners had no business to be there 4s far as treaty rights were concerned, quite a European settlement had sprung up, connived at by the local authorities. On Double Island, five miles out of Swatow, captains of opium ships and other foreigners had bought land and built houses just as they might at Hong Kong, their presence, sad to say, only increasing the vices of this notoriously wicked place. And neither there nor in Swatow itself was there any witness for Christ or any influence that made for righteousness. No missionary or minister was to be found nearer than Amoy, 150 miles away; and in the absence of family life, as well as the restraints of law and order, the condition of things was as bad as it could be.

From this place Captain Bowers had just come, and in the meeting he urged the importance of Swatow as a centre for missionary operations. If merchants and traders could live there, of all nationalities, why should not ministers of the Gospel? But the missionary who would pioneer his way amid such darkness must not be afraid, he said, to cast in his lot with ‘the off-scourings of Chinese society, congregated there from all the southern ports’.

Silently that evening the friends returned to their boats, thinking of what they had heard. To Hudson Taylor, at any rate, the call of God had come while Captain Bowers was speaking, and he was struggling against rebellion of heart in view of the sacrifice involved.

“Never had I such a spiritual father as Mr. Burns,’ he wrote long after; “never had I known such holy, happy intercourse; and I said to myself that it could not be God’s will that we should separate.’

Thus several days passed by, and he could not escape the conviction that Swatow was where the Lord would have him.

In great unrest of soul, I went with Mr. Burns one evening to visit some friends of the American Presbyterian Mission near the South Gate of Shanghai. After tea, Mrs. Lowrie played over to us ‘The Missionary Call.’ I had never heard it before, and it greatly affected me. My heart was almost broken before it was finished, and I said to the Lord in the words that had been sung:

And I will go.

I may no longer doubt to give up friends and idle hopes, And every tie that binds the heart...

Henceforth then it matters not if storm or sunshine be my Earthly lot, bitter or sweet my cup;

I only pray, God make me holy, And my spirit nerve for the stern hour of strife.

Upon leaving, I asked Mr. Burns to come to the little house that was still my headquarters, and there with many tears I told him how the Lord had been leading me, and how rebellious I had been, and unwilling to leave him for this new sphere. He listened with a strange look of surprise and pleasure rather than of pain, and replied that-he had determined that very night to tell me that he had heard the Lord’s call to Swatow, and that his one regret had been the severance of our happy fellowship.

Thus the Lord not only gave, but gave back, the com- _panionship that meant so much in the life of Hudson Taylor. Together they went next morning to Captain Bowers and told him that the way seemed clear for them both to go to Swatow. So overjoyed was the captain to hear it that he offered them forthwith a free passage on his ship which was returning in a féw’ days. This was gratefully accepted, and on March 6th, two years from Hudson Taylor’s first arrival in Shanghai, they sailed for their new field of labour.

Anchored in a fog that night off Gutzlaff Island, everything must have recalled to Hudson Taylor the February Sunday when he first reached that spot. Then he had never seen the shores of China nor looked into the face of anyone belonging to that land. Now how familiar it had grown. He was at home in two dialects, one of which was the language of four-fifths of China, and was about to learn a third as an incident of his service. Seasoned as a good soldier of the Cross by many a trial and hardship, he was ready to stand alone in a peculiarly difficult sphere. War, with all its horrors, prolonged distress through insufficient supplies, the discipline of indebtedness to others, even for a home, and then of loneliness in his own quarters, sickness, change, uncertainty, and great discomfort as to material surroundings—all these had schooled his heart to patience, and brought a deeper dependence upon God. Evangelistic journeys, alone or with other missionaries, had greatly widened his outlook. Eleven such itinerations lay behind him within these first two years. How much each one had meant, with its necessary exercise of mind and heart, its strain upon endurance, dangers by land and water, “perils in the city... perils of robbers... labour and travail,’ and all its secret springs of faith and prayer.

And now encouragement had come and a friendship richer and deeper than any he had given up or ever hoped to know. Freedom also as to funds was a new and welcome experience.

‘I understand that the funds of the Chinese Evangelisation Society were much reduced a short time ago,’ he wrote in April of this year. ‘It does not affect me, however, as I have not needed to draw on my Society for the last two quarters, and have now in hand enough for six months to come. Only by last mail a valued friend and devoted servant of Christ, who has sent me £100 since last October, wrote urging me to tell him of any additional way in which he could forward the work by supplying the means. So as you truly say, if we are in the will of God, difficulty or trial as to circumstances cannot hinder us. Nothing can by any means harm us or frustrate His designs.’

In one thing only the years since he came to China seemed to have made no advance: he had still no home, no permanent work, no settled plans ahead. Where or how he was ultimately to labour was no more clear than it had been at the beginning. But the way of faith was clearer, and he had learned to leave the future in the hands of God. One who knew the end from the beginning was guiding and would guide. So a great rest had come about it all, and he was not concerned to make everything fit in. How this visit to Swatow would eventuate for him personally, how it would affect his life-work he could not tell. He only knew the Lord had set before him this open door, and he was increasingly content to walk a step at a time.

‘As to Swatow,’ he wrote just before leaving, “we go looking to the Lord for guidance and blessing. As we are led, we shall return sooner or later or not at all. Having no plans, we have none to tell. May the Lord be with us, bless us abundantly, and glorify His own great name. Pray for us.’

Thus in prayer and faith they drew near the great province of Kwangtung, and on March 12th atichored off Double Island a few miles from their destination. It would have been quite possible to settle here among other Europeans, and from comfortable headquarters to visit the mainland for their missionary operations. But such a plan had no attractions for either William Burns or Hudson Taylor. Avoiding even proximity to the vice and luxury of the Settlement, they went on to Swatow itself, to seek a footing among the people they had come to reach. In this their Chinese dress was of great assistance; and though at first it seemed that not a corner could be found, prayer was again answered and their faith strengthened by one of those ‘chance providences’ so often prepared for the children of God.

Situated on the delta of the Han between two of its principal channels, Swatow had little room to extend save by banking out its water-frontage, an operation in which hundreds of workmen were engaged. Houses were running up as rapidly as possible, for the supply was altogether unequal to the demand; and meanwhile the missionaries almost despaired of finding quarters.

After two days’ fruitless search during which they were thankful for Captain Bowers’s continued hospitality, they _ ‘happened’ to meet a Cantonese merchant whom Burns addressed in his mother tongue. Delighted at hearing excellent Cantonese from a foreigner, and a foreigner wearing Chinese dress, this gentleman interested himself on their behalf, and through a relative who ‘happened’ to be the highest official in the town succeeded in securing them a lodging. It was not much of a

place, it is true, just a single room over an incense-shop in a crowded quarter, but how glad they were to take possession before Captain Bowers had to sail for Singapore.

That it did not meet with Captain Bowers’s approval is hardly to be wondered at. Great was his love and admiration for Burns, and he could not bear to leave him in such surroundings. Of his visit to the incense-shop he wrote to a mutual friend

‘Seeking out his wretched lodging in Swatow amongst the degraded of every class, I remarked, “Surely, Mr. Burns, you might find a better place to live in.” He laughingly told me that he was more content in the midst of this people than he would be at home surrounded with every comfort. He said his expenses amounted to ten dollars a month. “Mr. Burns,” I exclaimed, “that would not keep me in cigars!” He said it was sufficient for him.’

But to the missionaries themselves, ten dollars a month and a single room, into which they had to climb through an opening in the floor, did not seem so bad. It was in touch with the people, that was the chief thing, and they were very conscious that the Lord was with them. The single room they divided as well as they could into three tiny apartments—two running east to west, and one north and south, which included the hole in the floor.

‘My bedroom is on the south,’ Taylor wrote two weeks later. ‘Mr. Burns takes the north side, and the strip on the west we use as our study. The partitions are made of sheets and a few boards. We have only just obtained exclusive possession, a passage having been needed for the landlord’s family until alterations were made in the house. We are promised a trap-door next week, and then shall have more privacy.

‘Our beds are a few deal boards, and our table the lid of a box supported on two bags of books. We may get a better some day, but nothing of that sort is to be bought ready-made in Swatow. So for the present, at an outlay of 230 cash 1s. 1d.), we have completely furnished the house—with two bamboo stools and a bamboo easy-chair.’

Here, then, amongst the worst and lowest, the little seed was planted that was to result in an abundant harvest. Years before, a solitary missionary of the Basel Missionary Society had laboured there in face of overwhelming odds. Driven from place to place he had itinerated widely in the surrounding country, living a life of Christ-like patience and love. But since 1852, when he had been driven back to Hong Kong, no one had taken his place, and Swatow had remained without testimony to the Gospel.

William Burns’s knowledge of Cantonese enabled him to make himself understood from the first, but for his companion this was a much more serious matter. As the only way to usefulness was to be able to talk freely with the people, Hudson Taylor set himself once more to study.

‘There is plenty of work to be done,’ he wrote to his mother soon after their arrival, ‘but I cannot do it. It is a great trial after being able to speak freely to begin again in a place where one cannot understand a single sentence. But if only we are used here, what a privilege is ours. Pray for me, and do not be uneasy about me. The Lord will undertake.’

If his mother and friends could have realised the conditions under which he was living, they would have felt more concern at this time than probably they did. For Swatow was a dangerous as well as difficult field. Two great evils already mentioned flourished under the protection of foreigners, and made the very sight of a European odious to the people. The same letter states:

About 200 boxes of opium are imported monthly; each box contains forty balls of about 4 Ibs. weight. Thus not less than 32,000 Ibs. of opium enter China every month at this port alone, the cost of which is about a quarter of a million sterling. After this you will not be surprised to learn that the people are wretchedly poor, ignorant and vicious.

A cruel slave trade also is carried on under the name of the ‘coolie traffic.’ The men are engaged (nominally) for a certain term of years, but few live to return. A bounty is paid them, and they are told that they are going to make their fortunes, or they are entrapped by worse means. Once on the ship the agent receives so much a head for the poor fellows, who soon find themselves in captivity of the most horrible kind. Some jump overboard in their efforts to escape, but they are generally retaken and flogged. Some ships carry 1,000 and others three or four hundred, and very many die before reaching their destination—Cuba, Havana and Callao. Of one ship with several hundreds on board, I heard the surgeon say that not more than two-thirds would survive the voyage.

It was little wonder under such circumstances, and with many of the traders living on Double Island, that the missionaries endeavouring to obtain a foothold in Swatow should be regarded with hatred, suspicion and scorn. The usual term ‘Foreign Devil’ was here reinforced by more offensive epithets, ‘Foreign Dog,’ ‘Foreign Pig’ and worse, hissed out with bitterest scorn. It was a humiliating experience, and as new to William Burns as to Hudson Taylor.

In towns and villages at a little distance a more friendly spirit was manifested, but the same poverty and degradation prevailed, and the people were so turbulent that those who went amongst them had to face constant danger. In their visits to the country the missionaries were liable to be seized at any moment and held to ransom, and they frequently heard the saying that the whole district was ‘without Emperor, without rulers and without law.’

One small town in which they were preaching had recently captured a wealthy man belonging to a neighbouring clan. Refusing to pay the exorbitant sum demanded for his release, he had been subj ected to cruel tortures, his anklebones finally being smashed with a club, after which his tormentors succeeded in obtaining all they desired.

‘There was nothing but the protection of God,’ wrote Hudson Taylor, ‘between us and the same sort of treatment. The towns were all walled, many of them containing ten or twelve thousand people who might be and frequently were at war with a neighbouring town. To be kindly received in one place was often a source of danger in the next. But amid such circumstances the preserving care of our God was the more manifest.’

Trusting in His unfailing presence, the missionaries were enabled to go on steadfastly through all, embracing many opportunities for bringing light into the darkness. Burns frequently visited Double Island, holding services in English that were well attended. Taylor, whenever he could spare a day from study, joined him in expeditions to the surrounding country which, in spite of attendant danger, were refreshing, especially as the heat of the summer came on. Even in May it was intensely hot. Sitting quietly at study Taylor had to keep a towel by him to wipe the perspiration streaming from face and hands. Burns, already acclimatised to a southern summer, was able to be out at all hours without danger, but his companion suffered seriously. Still, right on into June, he worked with unremitting diligence, eating hardly anything till evening came, when, in the coolness of a breeze that usually sprang up, they made their evening meal.

But more distressing than the heat, harder to bear than sleepless nights and all the weariness their work involved, was the sin and suffering that surged around them.

Sin does indeed reign here, and, as always, those most to be pitied and whose case seems most hopeless are the women. Looked up as hardly having any soul, girls are sold here for wives or slaves, and are left entirely without education. Married women and families are not numerous in proportion to the population, but the number of unfortunate women is very great. I say unfortunate advisedly, for they are bought and brought up for this very purpose. They are the absolute property of their owners, and have no escape from that which many of them abhor. Only a few nights ago I was distressed by heart-rending screams from two female voices and, on enquiring, was told that they were most likely newly bought women in a house nearby, who were being tortured into submission. ‘And that,’ added my informant, ‘is very common here.’ The cries went on for about two hours. Poor things! poor things!

This is hardly a fit subject to write to you about, but, unless you know, how can you pity and pray for them? English women little realise all they owe to the Gospel. And how few have love enough for Christ to come out here and seek to save the perishing. It does mean sacrifice; but low as they would have to stoop, Jesus stooped lower.

Here, then, amid such surroundings, he quietly endured week after week, month after month, drawing his strength from God. Frequently separated from Burns for the work’s sake he was much alone. Keenly the people watched him coming and going from the incense-shop, and enquired into every detail of his life and doings. It was an open life, lived within sight of his neighbours all day long—a life whose love and purity told far more than he had any idea. Three years later in London, at the annual meeting of the Chinese Evangelisation Society, Dr. De la Porte”? from Double Island was one of the speakers.

He had had the pleasure and honour, he said, of an intimate acquaintance with one of the agents of the Society, labouring at the time in Swatow—a Mr. Hudson Taylor, to whose zeal and devotion he could bear the most cordial testimony.

He had seen that young man come home at the close of the day footsore and weary, his face covered with blisters from the heat of the sun, and throw himself down to rest in a state of utter exhaustion, only to rise again in a few hours to the toil and hardship of another day. It had been very evident that he enjoyed the highest respect from the Chinese, and was doing a great amount of good among them, his influence diffusing the sweetness of true Christianity around him.

Six months of intercourse with William Burns had now gone by, and little as either of them expected it they were nearing the close of their congenial fellowship. To them it seemed that their work together was only just beginning. The needs around them were so great and the help they were to one another so evident that they were looking forward to doing something really adequate together. But Swatow was only one needy field out of the vast whole of unreached China. For that wider work to be done the Lord was making preparation, as well as for widespread blessing in the region He had specially laid upon their hearts. William Burns for Swatow and other strategic points in the great seaboard provinces, and Hudson Taylor, by and by, for far-reaching inland China—such was the purpose of Him who sees the end from the beginning. So the days of their pilgrimage together drew to a close.

It was in the middle of June that Burns returned from the neighbouring town of Ampo, where he had been living for ten days. He had had an encouraging stay in this busy, important place. Not only was there a constant stream of visitors coming for books and conversation, but several interested neighbours were regularly attending morning and evening worship. The change back to Swatow was not a little irksome, especially as continued rain prevented outside work. But it gave a welcome opportunity for prayer and conference over many problems connected with their position.

By the close of the week Taylor was evidently unwell. The close confinement to their narrow quarters was telling upon him, especially when—with their servants and two Chinese helpers—they were ‘so thick on the ground’ as he expressed it.

When brighter days came and Burns was able to return to Ampo with his Chinese helpers, he knew he must bid farewell to his English companion for a time. The greatest heat of summer was still before them, and Taylor was in no condition to meet it under existing circumstances. There were indications also that for the good of the work he ought to pay a visit to Shanghai.

They had been disappointed in efforts to open a preaching chapel, for the people of Swatow were far too suspicious of foreigners to let them have a room for nothing but preaching, but premises for medical work would.be quite another matter. The foreign doctor was always persona grata, and if he must tell more or less about his religion—well, his medicines were so good that the preaching could be tolerated. “ —

This being so even in Swatow, the two friends had almost decided,

to begin hospital work, or at any rate to open a dispensary. They were still praying about it, wondering whether Taylor should take the long journey to Shanghai to fetch his instruments and medicines, when the chief Mandarin of the place was taken ill and the local doctors were unable to relieve him. Hearing from a friend that one of the foreigners in Chinese dress was a skilful physician, he sent for Hudson Taylor and put the case’ into his hands. The treatment proved beneficial, and no sooner was he well himself than he strongly advised the missionaries to commence medical work in Swatow for the assistance of other sufferers.

As though the shadow of a longer parting lay upon his heart, Hudson Taylor was very reluctant, even then, to leave his friend. But when just at this juncture a free passage was offered him all the way to Shanghai by an English captain, the matter seemed taken out of his hands. It really seemed as though all they needed was the medical outfit waiting in Shanghai to enable them to enter upon fruitful labours.

And so early in July the parting came; and full of thankfulness for the past and hope for greater blessing in the days to come they committed one another to the care and keeping of God.

“Those happy months were an unspeakable joy and comfort to me,’ wrote Hudson Taylor long after, looking back upon the companionship thus ended with William Burns. ‘His constant communings with God made fellowship with him satisfying to the deep cravings of my heart. His accounts of revival work and of persecutions in Canada, Dublin, and southern China were most instructive as well as interesting; for with true spiritual insight he often pointed out God’s purposes in trial in a way that made all life assume quite a new aspect and value. His views especially about evangelism as the great work of the Church, and the order of lay-evangelists as a lost order that Scripture required to be restored, were seed thoughts which were to prove fruitful in the subsequent organisation of the China Inland Mission.’

They never met again. All unexpectedly Hudson Taylor found his path diverging from that of his friend. Dark clouds were gathering over southern China, soon to lead to war. On a boat near Swatow William Burns was taken prisoner and sent under escort, by river and canal, a journey of thirty-one days to Canton and the nearest British authorities. Returning to Swatow some months later he was enabled to take advantage of the growing feeling in his favour to establish a permanent work. Known as ‘The Man of the Book,’ he was allowed to go in and out freely, the trusted friend of the people, when all other Europeans were confined to their houses and in considerable danger on account of the iniquities of the coolie traffic; and the Swatow Mission of the English Presbyterian Church later flourished as an outcome of those early labours.

Passing on to other fields when initial difficulties were conquered, Burns was led to Peking at length, and there spent four years in literary and evangelistic work. And then, true to the commanding vision of his life, the veteran missionary turned his face once more to the ‘regions beyond’. North of the Great Wall and stretching far away-an almost unknown world—lay the plains of Manchuria. Alone with a single Chinese helper, he set out for Newchwang, his life and teachings so impressing the captain of the junk on which they travelled that he would take no fare from the man whose very presence seemed a blessing.

Then came the closing days, setting the seal of God’s own benediction upon this life of singular devotion.

Four months of earnest, pioneering work—preaching in English on Sundays to the handful of fellow-countrymen in the Treaty Port, and in Chinese all through the week in the native quarter in which he lived—and after that an illness, the result as it séemed of chill, brought the quiet, unexpected end."

To the far-away homeland he sent as his last message an appeal to take up the work he was thus laying down; an appeal nobly responded to by the arrival of the first representative of the Irish Presbyterian Mission in the following year, and of the sister Church of Scotland three years later.

Alone among the Chinese to the last, planting with his dying hand the standard of the Cross far afield amid the darkness, what could be more after the pattern of his whole life, more in keeping with his heart’s desire?

A brief absence was all that Hudson Taylor anticipated when he parted from Burns in Swatow. On reaching Shanghai, however, he learned that the premises of the London Missionary Society had been visited by fire and that his medical outfit left there for safety had been destroyed. As everything in Swatow seemed to depend upon the medical work they were now in a position to undertake, there was little use in his returning without medicines—but where was a new supply to come from? He could not purchase in Shanghai, on account of the extravagantly high prices of imported articles, and six or eight months might be required before they would reach him from home. It was a position in which the young missionary, as he tells us, was more disposed to say with Jacob, “All these things are against me’; than to recognise with cheerful faith that ‘All things work together for good to them that love God’.

I had not then learned to think of God as the one great Circumstance in whom we live and move and have our being, and of all lesser circumstances as necessarily the kindest, wisest, best, because either ordered or permitted by Him. Hence my disappointment and trial were very great.

The only thing was to go to Ningpo and see what Dr. Parker could do to help. If he could spare a small supply of medicine to go on with, they might still be able to begin work. So in the hope of retrieving his losses Hudson Taylor set out for the neighbouring city.

A set of new difficulties began forthwith. On the way to Ningpo his servant gave him the slip, made off with his baggage, and left him stranded. Not realising that this had happened, and thinking they had merely missed each other, Hudson Taylor spent some time searching for Yohhsi, spending one night in a very uncomfortable inn and the next, having tried in vain to find a lodging, on the steps of a temple. It was between one and two in the morning, when, footsore and exhausted, he lay down there

...and putting my money under my head for a pillow should soon have been asleep, had I not perceived a person coming stealthily towards me. As he approached I saw he was one of the beggars so common in China, and had no doubt his intention was to rob me of my money. I did not stir, but watched his movements, and looked to my Father not to leave me in this hour of trial. The man came up, looked at me for some time to assure himself that I was asleep (it was so dark that he could not see my eyes fixed on him), and then began to feel about me gently. I said to him in the quietest tone, but so as to convince him that I was not nor had been sleeping,

‘What do you want?’

He made no answer, but went away.

I was thankful to see him go, and when he was out of sight put as much of my cash as would not go into my pocket up my sleeve, and made my pillow of a stone projection of the wall. It was not long ere I began to doze, but I was aroused by all but noiseless footsteps of two persons approaching; my nervous system was rendered so sensitive by exhaustion that the slightest sound startled me. Again I sought protection from Him who alone was my stay, and lay still as before, till one of them came up and began to feel under my head for the cash. I spoke again, and they sat down at my feet. I asked them what they were doing. They replied that, like me, they were going to pass the night outside the temple. I then requested them to take the opposite side as there was plenty of room, and leave this side to me. But they would not move from my feet. So I raised myself up and set my back against the wall.

“You had better lie down and sleep,’ said one of them, ‘otherwise you will be unable to work tomorrow. Do not be afraid; we shall not leave you, and will see that no one does you harm.’

‘Listen to me,’ I replied. ‘I do not want your protection. ‘I do not need it. I do not worship your vain idols. I worship God. He is my Father, and I trust in Him. I know well what your intentions are, and shall keep my eye on you and not sleep.’

Upon this one of them went away, only to return with a third companion. I felt very uneasy but looked to God for help.

Once or twice one of them came over to see if I was asleep. ‘Do not be mistaken,’ I said, ‘I am not sleeping.”

Occasionally my head dropped and this was a signal for one of them to rise. But I at once roused myself and made some remark. As the night slowly wore on, I felt very weary, and to keep myself awake as well as to cheer my mind, I sang several hymns, repeated aloud some portions of Scripture, and engaged in prayer, to the annoyance of my companions, who seemed as if they would have given anything to get me to desist. After that they troubled me no more, and when shortly before dawn of day they left me, I got a little sleep.

He was awakened by a young man who threateningly demanded money.

This aroused me, and in an unguarded moment, and with very improper feeling, I seized his arm with a grasp he little expected and dared him to lay a finger on me again. This quite changed his manner!

Further enquiries for his servant and his belongings having convinced him that as far as he was concerned, both were lost, there remained nothing for it but to return to Shanghai. He set out to walk to Shih-mun-wan, where he hoped to find a passenger boat to take him to his destination. On arrival, however, to his dismay he found that no boats were leaving. The river bed was too dry.

His money was almost spent by this time, and his only remaining hope was in obtaining passage on a private boat going in his direction. His search for one, however, proved in vain until] suddenly he saw, at a turn in the canal, a letter-boat.

This f concluded must be one of the Kashing boats that had been detained, and I

set off after it as fast as hope and the necessities of the case would carry me. For the time being weariness and sore feet were alike forgotten, and after a chase of about a mile, I overtook it.

‘Are you going to Kashing-fu?’ I called out.
‘No,’ was the only answer.
‘Are you going in that direction?’

‘No.’

“Will you give me a passage as far as yoy'do go that way?’ Still ‘No,’ and nothing further.

Completely discouraged and exhausted, I sank down on the grass and fainted away.

It was at this point that the tide of events began to turn for him. As he was regaining consciousness voices reached his ears, and he realised that people in a junk on the opposite side of the canal were speaking about him. ‘He speaks pure Shanghai dialect,’ he heard someone say, and from their speech he knew that they themselves were Shanghai people. He was taken on board and his story, when he told it, evoked considerable sympathy. Eventually a boat was found going to Shanghai, and the captain of the junk arranged for him to travel on it.

‘This gentleman is a foreigner from Shanghai who has been robbed,’ he said. ‘If you will take him with you as far as you go, and then engage a sedan chair to carry him the rest of the way, he will pay you in Shanghai. I will stand surety, and if this gentleman does not pay you when you get to Shanghai, I will do so on your return.’

And so, three weeks after he set out for Ningpo, he found himself back where he had started. His record for Saturday, August 9th, 1856, reads as follows:

About 8 a.m. reached Shanghai and the hospitable abode of Mr. Wylie of the London Mission, completing a journey full of mercies though not unmixed with trial. Never since I have been in China have I had such opportunities for preaching the Gospel, and though the termination was far from what I desired it has been greatly blessed to me, and I trust the Word preached and distributed may bear fruit to the glory of God.

That, in the midst of such disturbing experiences, he should have been enabled to preach the Word at all was due, surely, to something which happened in the secret places of his own heart, where the Lord Himself met afresh with His servant. It was as he was trudging back along the road to Shih-mun-wan, after spending the night on the temple steps. After a meal in a tea-shop, followed by a rest and sleep for several hours,

I set off, much refreshed, to return to the city at the South Gate of which I had parted with my servant and coolies two days before. On the way I was led to reflect on the goodness of God, and recollected that I had not made it a matter of prayer that I might be provided with lodgings last night. I felt condemned too that I should have been so anxious for my few things, while the many precious souls around me had caused so little concern. I came as a sinner and pleaded the blood of Jesus, realising that I was accepted in Him—pardoned, cleansed, sanctified—and oh the love of Jesus, how great I felt it to be! I knew something more than I had ever known of what it was to be despised and rejected and have nowhere to lay one’s head, and felt more than ever I had before the greatness of the love that induced Him to leave His home in glory and suffer thus for me—nay, to lay down His very life upon the Cross. I thought of Him as ‘despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.’ I thought of Him at Jacob’s well, weary, hungry and thirsty, yet finding it His meat and drink to do His Father’s will, and contrasted this with my littleness of love. I looked to Him for pardon for the past and for grace and strength to do His will in the future, to tread more closely in His footsteps and to be more than ever wholly His.

And now the question arose as to what was to be done about his servant. The case was one of deliberate robbery, Yoh-hsi’s own letters brought final proof of that. It would not have been difficult to institute legal proceedings for the recovery of the property, and Taylor was ‘strongly urged to secure the punishment of the thief; but the more he thought about it, the more he shrank from anything of the sort.

Yoh-hsi was one whose salvation he had earnestly sought, and to hand him over to cruel, rapacious underlings who would only be too glad to throw him into prison that he might be squeezed of the last farthing would not have been in keeping, he felt, with the spirit of the Gospel. Finally, concluding that his soul was worth more than the £40 worth of things he had stolen, Taylor decided to pursue a very different course. In the middle of August he wrote,

I have sent him a

plain, faithful letter to the effect that we know his guilt, and—what its consequences might be to himself; that at first I had considered handing over the matter to the yamen, but remembering Christ’s command to return good for evil I had not done so, and did not wish to injure a hair of his head.

I told him that he was the real loser, not I; that I freely forgave him, and besought him more earnestly than ever to flee from the wrath to come. I also added that though it was not likely he would give up such of my possessions as were serviceable to a Chinese, there were among them foreign books and papers that could be of no use to him but were valuable to me, and that those at least he ought to send back.

If only his conscience might be moved and his soul saved, how infinitely more important that would be than the recovery of all I have lost. Do pray for him.'*:

This matter settled, it only remained to set out once more to obtain from Dr. Parker the supplies needed for the medical work at Swatow. This time the journey was accomplished in safety; and just before setting out Taylor was encouraged by an unexpected letter that relieved him of what might have been financial embarrassment. The sale of furniture left at the South Gate had brought in something, and then—just as he was starting came this letter that had been eight or ten weeks on the way:

‘Please accept the enclosed,’ it said, “as a token of love from myself and my dear wife.’ And the enclosed was a cheque for no less than £40 from Mr. and Mrs. Berger.

Posted long before Hudson Taylor had left Swatow, it arrived by the very first mail after the robbery.

Arriving at Ningpo (the ‘City of the Peaceful Wave’ as the Chinese characters imply) on August 22nd, Taylor remained for seven weeks with Dr. Parker, throwing himself heartily into all that was going on. The experiences of another year in China had prepared him more fully to appreciate both the missionaries and their work. Never before had he realised the comfort and advantage of labouring among comparatively friendly people, not embittered against the missionary simply on account of his being a foreigner. Although there was of course the usual ignorance and superstition in Ningpo, and at times much anti-foreign feeling, there was also a large element of interest and even enquiry about the Gospel. And then the missionaries themselves—how delightful to be in the midst of so united and efficient a community!

Welcomed by them in a most generous spirit, Dr. Parker had been successful in building up a practice among the foreign residents, the proceeds of which he devoted entirely to his Medical Mission. Rapidly acquiring the local dialect, in spite of every hindrance to study, he had made the spiritual care of the patients his first work. In this he was assisted by both English and American missionaries, who took it in turn to preach in the dispensary (in which 9,000 patients received treatment within the first twelve months) and to visit the temporary hospital. Converts were free to join any of the churches, Dr. Parker declining to influence them and making it very clear that his sympathies were with all.

With money contributed in Ningpo he had purchased a site on the city side of the river, on the brink of the great waterway and close to the Salt Gate with its constant stream of traffic. A better position could hardly have been found for the permanent hospital, and already the energetic doctor was having the ground levelled for building operations.

Hudson Taylor, who was expecting to return to such very different scenes in Swatow, wrote early in September:

I am now enjoying a season of rest with the friends here, but it must be of short duration. To me it would be very pleasant to remain on here or at Shanghai, among more civilised and friendly people than we have in Swatow. But my call is to a more arduous post; and in my brother Mr. Burns I have an inestimable companion whom J shall rejoice to meet again.

I sometimes wonder whether I shall ever be settled, and long for permanent work and a partner to share all my joys and sorrows. I think in His own time I shall be so circumstanced. The Lord knows. But while one longs for quiet, even now after a week of it I am eager to be at work again, telling of His surpassing love, His glorious redemption.

And work he did with all his usual energy in spite of summer heat. Careful attention to the peculiarities of local speech soon enabled him to make himself understood even by Ningpo people, and there were so many strangers settled there from other places that he found all the dialects he knew of service. A little later he wrote,

The weather is very warm, nevertheless I have been twice in the country, once with Mr. Jones to Tseki and once with Mr. Quaterman to Chinhai Hsien. Today I have been to a small village a mile or two away with Mr. Jones. He took some Portuguese Testaments and found three men able to read them, a Singapore man also who could read English and to whom he gave a Bible; while I had an attentive audience to whom I told of pardon, peace and Heaven through the once-offered sacrifice of Jesus, leaving with them a number of Chinese tracts and Scriptures.

Oh, what an abundant harvest may soon be reaped here! The fields are white and so extensive round us, but the labourers are few! I do thank God that He has given me such opportunities. I have met with a good many even from Formosa with whom I have been able to speak of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I sometimes wish I had twenty bodies, that in twenty places at once I might publish the saving Name of Jesus.

The place where the need was greatest, however, had for him the strongest claim, and before the month was over he was ready to return to William Burns at Swatow. Dr. Parker had fitted him out with medicines and Taylor was just setting out for Shanghai when a delay arose. Mr. and Mrs. Way of the Presbyterian Mission had to take the journey too, and said that if Taylor could wait a day or two, they would hurry their preparations for the sake of joining his party. He was already escorting Jones and his little son, newly arrived members of his own Mission, and it would mean a great deal to the Ways to travel in their company.

Regretting the delay but having no reason against it, Hudson Taylor waited, and almost a week went by before the final start could be made. When they did get away the winds were against them, Jones developed a painful malady, and not until early in October did they reach Shanghai. Having discharged his commissions at last, it now only remained for Hudson Taylor to put his things on board the vessel that was to take him to Swatow.

Providentially as it seemed Captain Bowers was again in Shanghai, on the eve of sailing, and cordially welcomed the young missionary as his passenger. So with as little delay as possible Hudson Taylor sent his belongings on board the Geelong and prepared to leave Shanghai, it might be permanently.

And then the unexpected happened. A letter from the south coming to one of the members of the London Missionary Society made him go hurriedly in search of Hudson Taylor.

‘If he has not started,’ wrote Burns, “please inform him at once of this communication.’

It was to the effect that all they had looked forward to in Swatow was at an end for the time being, William Burns having been arrested in the interior and sent to Canton. What could be the meaning of these tidings? Burns imprisoned and sent to Canton? The Chinese helpers still in confinement and in danger of their lives? The British authorities unwilling that he should return?

Almost dazed, it all came over him. First one check and then another; medicines destroyed, robbery and all it had entailed, visit to Ningpo, delay in getting away, tedious return journey, and now at the last moment nothing but a closed door—and a sick brother waiting to be taken back to the city from which they had come.

Yes, there was no question but to go back to Ningpo. ‘Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying, This is the way, walk ye in it.’ But for the moment the path that had seemed so clear was lost in strange uncertainty.