Hudson Taylor was not just an extraordinary missionary to China, but an incredible example of a life fully surrendered to God.
James Hudson Taylor was born in 1832 in Yorkshire, England. He grew up in a Christian family, started work in his father’s pharmacy when a teenager and, after a period of rebellion, was firmly converted at the age of 17.
Taylor took his relationship with God seriously and China soon became his passion and priority. It was a daunting task. The journey to China took five months by a hazardous sea voyage which had a reputation for inflicting illness on visitors. Undeterred, Taylor began preparing himself by learning Mandarin and acquiring medical training. Above all, he learnt to be dependent on God.
At the age of 21 Taylor sailed for China as the first missionary of the newly formed Chinese Evangelisation Society. Arriving in Shanghai in 1854 he found the city in turmoil but soon began preaching in the region. Realising that his western clothes and hairstyle created an unnecessary barrier to the gospel, he boldly dressed in Chinese clothes and a hairstyle with a pigtail.
In 1858 Taylor married Maria Dyer who helped train women workers. Poor health troubled the family and soon Taylor fell ill. In 1860, with every expectation that Taylor would not be able to come back to China, they returned to England. Here, however, he not only recovered but finished a Bible translation, gained medical qualifications and wrote a book on the needs of China. Taylor also gained a growing reputation as a powerful speaker on China. In 1865 he founded his own organisation, the China Inland Mission (today’s OMF). It was innovative in being non-denominational, offered no guaranteed income and relied entirely on God for provision. Other distinctives soon emerged: a vision for a Chinese church led by Chinese, the recruitment of ordinary people and single women as missionaries.
In 1866 Taylor took his family and a party of sixteen missionaries back to China. Arriving at a time of renewed instability they began moving deep into the interior of China, preaching and distributing Bible portions.
Ill-health continued to take its toll on Taylor’s family and four of his eight children died in infancy, and in 1870 Maria died. Widowed and weakened, Taylor returned to England partly to recuperate but also to develop his new mission. There he married again to a fellow missionary, Jennie Faulding. Taylor’s growing role as a missionary speaker bore remarkable fruit and China became a priority for many British believers.
Taylor was able to return to China with more new workers in 1876, and the next twenty years saw the CIM mission work expand as he and a growing number of co-workers (around a hundred in 1881) planted the gospel ever deeper into China. One extraordinary boost for CIM was the decision of seven talented young men – the ‘Cambridge Seven’ – to serve in China with the mission.
In foreign tours that now extended to North America, Taylor constantly pleaded for more workers; calling for a thousand missionaries to work in China. He got them but instability in China occurred and in 1900 the ‘Boxer Rebellion’ broke out in which westerners were brutally targeted. Fifty-eight CIM missionaries and twenty-one children were killed before the rebellion ended. Grieving, but undaunted, Taylor and CIM continued.
Finally, after fifty years in China, Taylor retired to Switzerland with Jennie. Despite having handed over most of his responsibilities, he remained deeply involved with CIM. After Jennie’s passing in 1904, he visited China for the eleventh and last time, dying there in 1905.
Taylor’s achievements remain truly astonishing. By the end of his life CIM had recruited over 800 missionaries for China and established 200 mission stations with over a hundred thousand Chinese Christians linked with churches. Taylor’s influence extended beyond preaching; he instigated medical work, promoted famine relief and encouraged the creation of over a hundred schools. He was also a leader in the campaign against the evils of the opium trade.
Hudson Taylor is one of the most remarkable figures in Christian history. Spiritually, he had an unquenchable hunger for God. Physically, despite episodes of poor health, he worked tirelessly. He was a gifted preacher, whether in several Chinese languages or English, and a remarkable motivator for missions. He was an outstanding organiser, taking his mission from nothing into one of the largest organisations of its kind.
Three related aspects strike me about Hudson Taylor.
First, he was someone who was dependent on God. Frequently, Taylor found himself in nerve-wracking situations in which he or his mission had desperate needs: in every case, his response was to pray. Although both he and CIM became well acquainted with suffering, he found God faithful and saw remarkable answers to prayer. And although he created a formidable organisation, Taylor never made the mistake of letting it become a substitute for relying on God.
Second, he was someone who was made independent by God. Taylor’s mould-breaking strategies of identifying with a culture, working with women, recruiting ordinary people and crossing denominations transformed missionary work. Although he came under many pressures from governments, authorities and even other missionary organisations, he resisted them. Quite simply, Taylor was someone who took his orders from God alone.
Finally, he was someone who was confident in God. Faced with evangelising an area almost as big as Europe, Taylor remained undaunted and pressed on. He displayed a boundless confidence that he had been called by God to preach the gospel in China and that the God who had called him could be trusted.
One of Hudson Taylor’s quotes summarises his attitude: ‘There is a living God. He has spoken in the Bible. He means what he says, and will do all that he has promised.’ Amen!
J.John
Reverend Canon
