Hudson taylor, god’s venturer

Chapter 5

“Mamma—do you think apple pie is good for little boys?”

It was at that table, too, that he had sat, day after day, learning the lessons his father set for him, until eventually at the age of eleven, he went to school. Though he had been much happier under his father’s tuition than at school, he became one of the star pupils. There was something eminently wholesome and manly about this father of his, with his rigid ideas of right and wrong, and his unyielding discipline. Hudson had learned to be punctual long before he had his life ruled by school bells! Woe betide the one who was not ready to sit at table, hands washed and hair brushed, when it was time for a meal!

“If there are five people, and they are all kept waiting one minute, then five minutes are lost,” father would say sternly, adding slowly, “minutes that can never be found again!” It was very solemn indeed!

“Learn to dress quickly,” was another of his axioms. A very good reason he had for it, too! “For you have to do it once at least every day of your life.” So, obviously one might as well get used to it! If Hudson smiled at these memories as he sat in the cozy home, it was with the affectionate amusement with which children review the idiosyncrasies of parents. It was interesting to remember that it was from his father he had first hearñ of China, when, at five years, he had heard his exclaim vehemently:

“Why don’t we send missionaries there! That is the country to aim at, with its teeming population...strong, intelligent, scholarly people!”

Now, nearly fifteen years after, Hudson himself was preparing to go there! As he spent those weeks at home, with plenty of time to think, he marveled at the way his destiny had been revealed to him. Surely this was his destiny, the particular work that was appointed for him to do. “Go for Me to China.” He could never forget the night when he received that divine commission. Only one other experience, perhaps, stood out more vividly in his memory. China had not come to it, that afternoon in the old warehouse when his whole outlook on life had been completely changed, but had it not been for what took place then, certainly he would have no thought of going to China now. Many a time Hudson lived through that momentous afternoon. It was over three years ago, yet as clear in his mind as if it had happened yesterday...

He was sixteen years of age, and already disappointed with life! How dull it seemed, living at home, and helping his father in the shop! It was not that he did not love his parents, for he did, but he found their manner of life irksome. Balls and hunting parties found no place in their lives. They preferred singing hymns in the little chapel down the road, and Hudson, dutifully accompanying them thought it was very dull. He tried his best to enjoy it all as they did, but he could not. His own private desire was to live in a large house with a number of servants, from which he could sally forth, clad in a scarlet jacket, to go hunting. He longed to possess that which would enable him to rush along at the great possible speed—a horse, of course, motor cycles not yet invented! These desires, however could evidently not be satisfied, and it was in a discontented frame of mind that he wandered into the parlor one afternoon in June, looking for something to do.

“I know what this will be,” he thought. He knew the sort of paper-covered booklets his father was fond of collecting! “It will have an interesting story to begin with, and a moral or a sermon at the end.” Well, he decided, he would read the interesting story, and leave the rest! So he took it off to the warehouse where he would be undisturbed by younger sisters with ideas for games. He sat down among the boxes and bottles to read it.

He little knew that at that very moment his mother, on holiday about seventy miles away, was kneeling beside her bed, praying for him with unusual earnestness and intensity. Nor had he any idea that six weeks previously his sister Amelia, thirteen years old, had determined that she would pray for him three times a day until his mind was changed about God. That was what he needed—a changed of mind about God. He had told her that he was not really at all sure about God; and very moody he seemed to be as a result! He was not even sure there was a God! Not sure there was a God! Amelia, being herself quite sure about God, felt this state of affairs must not be allowed to continue. Realizing, however, that her arguments, convincing and conclusive as they appeared to her, did not seem so to him, she came to the conclusion that only God could change Hudson’s mind. That is why she determined to pray three times every day, until it happened. She even made a note of her decision in her diary. For all her corkscrew curls and frilly frocks, Amelia was a young person of some determination, and pray three times a day she did!

Unaware of all this, Hudson sat in the warehouse and read the booklet. It was the reading of that little booklet that completely changed his outlook on life. Quite suddenly and unexpectedly it dawned upon him that what he had heard about God and Jesus Christ from his earliest childhood, was true. God was real. Jesus Christ was his Son, and had died for the sake of sinners. He had come to life again, and was in Heaven alive, able to see everything on earth—able to see him, right there in the warehouse! He had died for the sins of the whole world—therefore He had died for the sins of Hudson Taylor. He had promised eternal life to all who believed on Him, therefore He had promised eternal life to Hudson Taylor. He heard prayer, therefore He would hear Hudson Taylor’s! What a remarkable thing that having heard it so many times before, it had only just dawned on him! Somehow, it made Hudson feel as he felt when he suddenly saw the simple solution to a mathematical problem that had puzzled him for hours—relieved, enlightened, exuberant. Everything was different now. The heavy feeling of discontent, the uneasy sensation of having done something wrong that would one day be found out, were gone. He felt free. It seemed too good to last!

But it did last. Three and a half years later, sitting contentedly by the flowing, crackling fire, Hudson knew that it lasted. The years since that June afternoon had not been idle, easy ones. Indeed, they had contained certain trials and hardships hitherto unknown. But there had always been the exhilarating consciousness of adventure in an unseen realm. The stimulation of finding out that God answered his prayers, that God would lead him into unexplored pathways he would never have discovered himself, was far greater than that of galloping along after the hounds. And he knew the simple secret of getting rid of that sensation of guilt. He merely did what he knew to be right, and when he inadvertently did that which was wrong, he confessed it to God, who has promised to forgive when in is acknowledged! Yes, it lasted!

The weeks at Barnsley sped past all too quickly, and renewed Hudson faced London again. Not without many a pang did he bid farewell to the intimate warmth and love of home. He was beginning to know from personal experience what it meant to tread a lonely pathway, and to endure weakness and privation without the sustaining comfort of like-minded companions. After all, that was the way to grow strong and self-reliant. Pioneer missionary work required men—not mollycoddled weaklings! Hudson, delicate from childhood, was determined to be a pioneer missionary—and therefore he must be in every sense of the word, a man.

His parents, however, not unnaturally, were distinctly averse to his becoming a man if doing so involved returning to a diet of apples and brown bread, washed down by water. Indeed, they had grave doubts as to whether he would ever become that way. Even Hudson himself agreed that matter was open to question! Instead of residing in the Soho boarding house and buying his own food, it was decided he should obtain a position as doctor’s assistant, where he could live with the family. He did. He attended lectures at the hospital in the morning, assisted his surgeon employer from dinner-time until nine o’clock in the evening, and the remainder of the day was his own—he could start studying for lectures then!

It was a strenuous life, certainly, but he was happy. Good food and a comfortable home did make a difference to his spirits, he found! And during the next six months he gained not only much useful medical knowledge and experience of human nature, but further evidence of that which he knew to be of even greater importance—the help God would give in all matters about which he prayed.

One outstanding example was the case of the man with gangrene. A thoroughly hardened drunkard he was, and now he lay dying, though he did not know it.

“It’s not use speaking to him about religion,” Hudson was warned when he visited the home where the man lodged. “He’s an atheist. He won’t hear a thing about religion. We asked a Scripture reader to come and visit him once, and he got in a towering rage and ordered him out of the room.” The vicar of the parish had called, too. Alas, he was forced to depart in some confusion, for the infuriated invalid only permitted him to advance near enough to spit in his face! Hudson felt not unlike the gladiator entering the arena when he called for the first time to dress the man’s foot. Speak to him about God’s willingness to forgive his sins, and to receive him as the father received that prodigal son, he must. Why, the man was dying! What hope was therefore him in this world or the next, without God? But Hudson decided to wait a propitious occasion to broach the all-important subject. Until the angry and rebellious attitude had in some measure altered, it would be worse than useless to do so. He took special care in dressing the man’s foot, and said nothing about religion for several days. But the man was on his mind. He felt responsible for him, and many times a day Hudson prayed for him. “Learn to move men through God by prayer.” If his prayers for the softening of hard hearts did not prove effective here in England, he could scarcely expect to be successful in China.

Had he been the Scripture reader or the vicar, he would probably have fared as they did! However, as he was the doctor, able to relieve pain, the man managed to swallow his wrath, merely expressing it by turning his back without a word, and remaining there, with his face against the wall, until Hudson departed! It was not exactly encouraging, but at any rate it was a step in the right direction. The next day Hudson broached the subject again, with the same result. And after several more visits, his heart began to sink. Was it any use continuing? It seemed not. One day he felt so discouraged, so anxious about the man who, despite his ill-temper, was so often in his thoughts, that he felt something rising in his throat, and tears came to his eyes.

“Well, if it will relieve you to do it, you can!”

It was scarcely a warm invitation, but Hudson needed nothing more. He knelt down, closed his eyes, and prayed aloud. Oh, that God would open the eyes of the dear man! Oh, that he might know that God was real, that Jesus Christ had died to save him from the punishment due for his sins, that forgiveness was his for the asking. The man lay silent, and although he made no comment then, it was evidently the real turning point in his life. No longer did he turn his back when Hudson spoke to him about God. The realization was dawning on him that what this earnest young man repeatedly told him was true. And if it were true, why not believe it? Why not...? And so it came about that one day Hudson left his patient’s room almost walking on air. The bitter, hardened old man, who had not been inside a church for forty years, and then only to get married, was lying in bed, his eyes reverently closed, learning to pray to his God.