Page 102 - Living Epistles

had passed he had been able to arrange for five missionaries to be sent. These
missionaries operated differently than most all other mission organizations
in that day. They received no regular support. They did not raise large
amounts of money before setting forth. They went in faith that the God who
had called them would also care for them.

Hudson Taylor began to feel the pressure of this situation. His mind was led
to deal with the responsibility of sending men and women to China to
evangelize the population. What if support failed? What if there arose some
great need among the workers, and there were no resources to send them?
Hudson Taylor was confronted by the fear of great suffering and even death
resulting in consequence of the missionaries who were going out with so little
material support in evidence. We read of his struggle at this time.

"I knew God was speaking," he said of this critical time. "I knew that in
answer to prayer evangelists would be given and their support secured,
because the Name of Jesus is worthy. But there unbelief came in.”

"Suppose the workers are given and go to China: trials will come; their faith
may fail; would they not reproach you for bringing them into such a plight?
Have you ability to cope with so painful a situation?”

"And the answer was, of course, a decided negative.”

"It was just a bringing in of self, through unbelief; the devil getting one to feel
that while prayer and faith would bring one into the fix, one would have to
get out of it as best one might. And I did not see that the Power that would
give the men and the means would be sufficient to keep them also, even in the
far interior of China.”

"Meanwhile, a million a month were dying in that land, dying without God.
This was burned into my very soul. For two or three months the conflict was
intense. I scarcely slept night or day more than an hour at a time, and feared
I should lose my reason. Yet I did not give in. To no one could I speak freely,
not even to my dear wife. She saw, doubtless, that something was going on;
but I felt I must refrain as long as possible from laying upon her a burden so
crushing - these souls, and what eternity must mean for every one of them,
and what the Gospel might do, would do, for all who believed, if we would
take it to them."