Bear not a single care thyself, One is too much for thee; The work is Mine, and Mine alone; Thy work — to rest in Me. —Selected
Hudson Taylor was no recluse. He was a man of affairs, the father of a family, and one who bore large responsibilities. Intensely practical, he lived a life of constant change among all sorts and conditions of men. He was no giant in strength, no Atlas to bear the world upon his shoulders. Small in stature and far from strong, he had always to face physical limitations. Next to godly parentage, the chief advantage of his early years was that he had to support himself from the time he was about sixteen. He became a hard worker and an efficient medical man; he was able to care for a baby, cook a dinner, keep accounts, and comfort the sick and sorrowing, no less than to originate great enterprises and afford spiritual leadership to thoughtful men and women the wide world over.
Above all, he put to the test the promises of God, and proved it possible to live a consistent spiritual life on the highest plane.
He overcame difficulties such as few men have ever had to encounter, and left a work which twenty-seven years after his death is still growing in extent and usefulness. Inland China opened to the Gospel largely as an outcome of this life, tens of thousands of souls won to Christ in previously unreached provinces, twelve hundred missionaries depending upon God for the supply of all their needs without promise of salary, a mission which has never made an appeal for financial help, yet has never been in debt, that never asks man or woman to join its ranks, yet has sent to China recently two hundred new workers given in answer to prayer — such is the challenge that calls us to emulate Hudson Taylor’s faith and devotion.
What was the secret, we may well ask, of such a life? Hudson Taylor had many secrets, for he was always going on with God, yet they were but one — the simple, profound secret of drawing for every need, temporal or spiritual, upon “the fathomless wealth of Christ.”
To find out how he did this, and to make our own his simple, practical attitude toward spiritual things, would solve our problems and ease our burdens, so that we too might become all that God would make us. We want, we need, we may have Hudson Taylor’s secret and his success, for we have Hudson Taylor’s Bible and his God.
Remember them that have the rule over you …
and considering the issue of their life, imitate their faith.
JESUS CHRIST IS THE SAME yesterday, and today, yea and forever.