Macartney once visited J. Hudson Taylor and was greatly impressed by the sense of calm that surrounded Taylor. He recorded the following impression:
"He was an object lesson in quietness. He drew from the bank of heaven every farthing of his daily income - “My peace I give unto you.” Whatever did not agitate the Savior or ruffle His spirit was not to agitate him. The serenity of the Lord Jesus concerning any matter, and at its most critical moment, was his ideal and practical possession. He knew nothing of rush or hurry, or quivering nerves or vexation of spirit. He knew that there is a peace passing all understanding, and that he could not do without it. …
“I am in the study, you are in the big spare-room,” I said to Mr. Taylor at length. “You are occupied with millions, I with tens. Your letters are pressingly important, mine of comparatively little moment. Yet I am worried and distressed, while you are always calm. Do tell me what makes the difference.”
“My dear Macartney,” he replied, “the peace you speak of is, in my case, more than a delightful privilege, it is a necessity. I could not possibly get through the work I have to do without the peace of God 'which passeth all understanding' keeping my heart and mind.”
That was my chief experience of Mr. Taylor.
Are you in a hurry, flurried, distressed? Look up! See the Man in the Glory! Let the face of Jesus shine upon you - the wonderful face of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is He worried or distressed? There is no care on His brow, no least shade of anxiety. Yet the affairs are His as much as yours.
“Keswick teaching,” as it is called, was not new to me. I had received those glorious truths and was preaching them to others. But here was THE REAL THING, an embodiment of “Keswick teaching” such as I had never hoped to see. It impressed me profoundly. Here was a man almost sixty years of age, bearing tremendous burdens, yet absolutely calm and untroubled. Oh, the pile of letters! any one of which might contain news of death, of lack of funds, of riots or serious trouble. Yet all were opened, read and answered with the same tranquility - Christ his reason for peace, his power for calm. Dwelling in Christ, he drew upon His very being and resources, in the midst of and concerning the matters in question. And this he did by an attitude of faith as simple as it was continuous.
Yet he was delightfully free and natural. I can find no words to describe it save the Scriptural expression “in God.” He was in God all the time and God in him. It was that true “abiding” of John fifteen. But oh, the lover-like attitude that underlay it! He had in relation to Christ a most bountiful experience of the Song of Solomon. It was a wonderful combination - the strength and tenderness of one who, amid stern preoccupation, like that of a judge on the bench, carried in his heart the light and love of home.
This quote appears in multiple biographies of Hudson Taylor, including Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret.