HTSS: Chapter 3

November 5, 2008 – 5:13 pm

Chapter 3: First Steps of Faith

Summary

Opening with the statement “it was no perfect being to whom this sense of call had come,” chapter three unfolds young Taylor’s growth in grace as God narrowed his focus on China, often through the endurance of  trials upon his faith.

Dr. Taylor’s writes of his father’s struggle to find time to commune with God as “a normal boy living a busy life.” He goes on to write that “the soul that is starved cannot rejoice in the Lord, and Hudson Taylor had to learn that there is no substitute for real spiritual blessing.” During a particular time of hungering after God, “the touch of God came to Hudson Taylor in a new way.” He desired to be free from the power of sin, and “if God would but work on his behalf, giving him inward victory in Christ he would go anywhere, do anything, suffer whatever His cause might demand and be wholly at His disposal.”

Dr. Taylor reports the following concerning his father’s call to China:

Never shall I forget [he wrote long after] the feeling that came over me then. Words could not describe it. I felt I was in the presence of God, entering into a covenant with the Almighty. I felt as though I wished to withdraw my promise but could not. Something seemed to say, “Your prayer is answered; your conditions are accepted.” And from that time the conviction has never left me that I was called to China.

He had heard his father pray concerning China since his childhood, and he sensed “distinctly, as if a voice had spoken [that] the Lord came in the silence, ‘then go for me to China.’”

This call radically impacted his life, causing him to prepare for the physical rigors that ministering in China would demand. He sought to strengthen himself by exercising more in the open air, trading his soft feather bed for a hard mattress, and limiting his intake at the supper table. He also plunged head-long into service opportunities in his community, exchanging attendance at his church’s evening services (he still attended Sunday mornings) to go “visiting in the poorest parts of the town, distributing tracts and holding cottage meetings. Rigorous study of the Chinese language was next on his list of preparation. Hudson wrote to his sister at school:

I have begun to get up at five in the morning and find it necessary to go to bed early. I must study if I mean to go to China. I am fully decided to go, and am making every preparation I can. I intend to rub up my Latin, to learn Greek and the rudiments of Hebrew, and get as much general information as possible. I need your prayers.

The next step of providential preparation was a job as a physician’s assistant. This proved to be a valuable experience for young Hudson, as he moved out of his home to work in the medical field. He was still living in decent comfort with his aunt when Hudson decided that, in order to create more ministry funds, he would move out and live in a “none-too-attractive neighborhood” called “Drainside” because it overlooked a ditch that was often filled with waste from area inhabitants. His living conditions were sparse: basic necessities, a meager supply of food that he rarely ate as “a proper meal.”

Hudson had two goals in mind as he radically altered his lifestyle: “accustoming [sic] himself to endure hardness and…economizing in order to help those among whom [he] was laboring in the Gospel.” He goes on to state that “In this way I had more than two-thirds of my income available for other purposes, and my experience was that he less I spent on myself and the more I gave to others, the fuller of happiness and blessing did my soul become.” Though interest in and awareness of events in China dwindled in England, Hudson’s zeal grew all the stronger, as he was “ready, by grace, to go all lengths in carrying out His purposes.”

But he was not without setbacks and trials. “For two long years he had hoped and waited” to marry the one he loved but, in light of her feeling that she was not “fitted for such a life” and family pressure, she broke off the relationship. With a crushed heart, Hudson endured a barrage of attacks from the tempter, such as, “Is it all worth while? Why should you go to China after all? Why toil and suffer all your life for an ideal of duty? Give it up now, while you can yet win her. Earn a proper living like everybody else, and serve the Lord at home. For you can win her yet.” Though, for a while, he refused to turn his sorrow over to the Lord, choosing to “nurse his grief,” God’s Spirit pressed upon Him and won the victory.

Taylor wrote the next day, concerning his grieving experience, that

alone in the surgery I had a melting season. I was thoroughly softened and humble, and had a wonderful manifestation of the love of God. And thought he does not deprive me of feeling in my trial, He enables me to sing, “Yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” Now I am happy in my Saviour’s [sic] love. I can thank Him for all, even the most painful experiences of the past, and trust Him without fear for all that is to come.

Editorial

Three Observations:

1. We notice Hudson’s reported “second experience” of sanctification, where he requests freedom from the weight of sin and senses the words “your prayer is answered; your conditions are accepted.” This seems fairly clear evidence that Hudson Taylor espoused to a Keswick view of sanctification in which one comes to a crisis moment and experiences a “new level” of growth in sanctification, previously impossible while dwelling on the lower plain.

2. The degree of Hudson’s commitment to train himself for an uncomfortable life is convicting and challenging. Do we live with this “war-like” mode, ready to live in the slums and eat “oatmeal and rice, with occasional variations” in order to have more money to give to the poor? We would do well to step back and analyze our lives, as young Hudson did.

3. God often allows deep periods of sorrow and grief to reveal His character to us in clear, powerful ways. For Taylor to utter words like “I can thank Him for all, even the most painful experiences of the past” is truly a work of God’s grace. God’s process often involves pain, sorrow, grief, persecution, and other forms that we detest and vehemently avoid at all costs. Do we have this profound trust in the goodness of our God that he had?

Chapter four provides insight into “Further Steps of Faith” in the life of Hudson Taylor.

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106 years ago this November, J. Hudson Taylor resigned as Director of the China Inland Mission. He left behind a legacy to all believers, particularly those involved in missions works in mainland China. Missions Mandate will highlight Taylor’s life and ministry during the month of November.

Each work day of the month of November I will post a summary of one chapter of Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor’s classic book Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret. Dr. Howard Taylor was the second son of J. Hudson Taylor, and followed in his father’s footsteps as a pioneer missionary, speaker and author.