First person to take the gospel into the interior of China!
Born: 1832, in Barnsley, Yorkshire, England Died: 1905, Changsha, Hunan, China
After becoming a Christian at 17, Hudson Taylor wasn’t content just to go to church but longed to do something daring, something that had never been done before.
Believing God was calling him to China, he began to evangelise among the poor in the worst areas of his hometown, and to prepare himself for the cultural challenges, he moved out of his own comfortable home and lived among the poor, refusing to live well while his neighbours suffered.
As China was closed to foreigners, he thought medicine would be a way of getting into China so he took a job as a physician’s assistant. He also began to teach himself the language by reading a copy of Luke’s gospel in Mandarin.
Hudson thought a strong faith was more important than a strong education. He had no medical degree, university training or ordination papers, but he did have enthusiasm, courage, and the desire to make a difference for God with his life.
Becoming Native! At last an opportunity arose to go to China as a teacher. He entered China during a civil war that would last a further 11 years. Using small boats to navigate the web of waterways, Hudson took Christian literature and New Testaments into China’s interior, in spite of the ban on foreigners. In order to better identify with the Chinese people, he also had the radical idea to dress like the Chinese. He even wore a Chinese pigtail.
Six years in China pushed Hudson to his physical limits. Having to return to England with his wife, Maria, and young daughter, he spent the next five years translating the Bible into the Ningpo dialect, writing a book on China (“China’s Spiritual Need and Claims”), praying for missionaries for inland China, and completing his medical training. Hudson and Maria both missed China terribly. Their flat and life in England all seemed too small for their vision and dreams.
Birth of China Inland Mission Grieved by the spiritual apathy he saw around him, for weeks he sought to overcome depression until finally, while taking a walk on Brighton beach, the breakthrough came. He had been burdened by the needs and dangers that would be faced by any missionaries he might take to China, but no more. This would be God’s responsibility. This revelation of not striving or struggling to accomplish his dream but resting in God - now often referred to as ‘Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret’ - began to transform Hudson’s spiritual life. Encouraged by hearing God speak into his heart, he started to pray for 24 willing and able workers, two for each unreached province in China. Before a year had passed, the Taylors returned to China with 16 new missionary recruits and the interdenominational China Inland Mission was born.
Back in China, the work prospered but life still had many challenges with dangerous riots and aggression from angry Chinese mobs, divisions within the Mission, and the death of Maria and two of their children.
After remarrying back in England, in 1876 every region of China was opened to Westerners as never before. Hudson seized the moment and pioneering C.I.M. missionaries went everywhere throughout inland China.
In addition to his evangelistic endeavours, Hudson was very active in providing famine relief, opposed the opium trade, was ahead of his time in his willingness to work with other missionary organisations and in allowing women to pioneer on their own, and in his desire for a Chinese-led church. His writings, travels, and dramatic appeals for missionaries stirred churches in Britain, Europe, Australia and North America.
At his death aged 73, Hudson Taylor left behind the largest Protestant mission in China, with 205 mission stations, 849 missionaries, and 125,000 Chinese Christians. There was hardly a city in the interior of China that had not been reached by missionaries whom Hudson had inspired and challenged. Hudson’s God-given dream had come to pass.
Further reading: Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, by Howard Taylor (Discovery House Publishers, 1990) J. Hudson Taylor: A Man in Christ, by Roger Steer (Harold Shaw Publishers, 1990) God’s Adventurer, by Phyllis Thompson (Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1991) Hudson Taylor, by J. Hudson Taylor (Bethany House Publishers, 1991) Shanghaied to China, by Dave & Neta Jackson (Bethany House Publishers, 1993) Hudson Taylor & Maria, by John Pollock (Christian Focus, 1996) Hudson Taylor: Deep in the Heart of China, by Janet & Geoff Benge (YWAM Publishing, 2004)
