Page 103 - Living Epistles

The break in the journal at this point is surely significant. Faithfully the
record had gone on for two and a quarter years; but now-silence. For seven
weeks from the middle of April, lovely weeks of spring, there was no entry.
First and only blank in those revealing pages, how much the very silence has
to tell us! Yes, he was face to face with the purpose of God at last. Accept it,
he dare not; escape it, he could not. And so, as long ago, "there wrestled a
man with him until the breaking of the day."

It was Sunday, June 25, a quiet summer morning by the sea. Worn out and
really ill, Hudson Taylor had gone to friends at Brighton, and, unable to bear
the sight of rejoicing multitudes in the house of God, had wandered out alone
upon the sands left by the receding tide. It was a peaceful scene about him,
but inwardly he was in agony of spirit. A decision had to be made and he
knew it, for the conflict could no longer be endured.

"Well," the thought came at last, "if God gives us a band of men for inland
China, and they go, and all die of starvation even, they will only be taken
straight to heaven; and if one heathen soul is saved, would it not be well
worthwhile?"

It was a strange way round to faith - that if the worst came to the worst it
would still be worthwhile. But something in the service of that morning
seems to have come to mind. God-consciousness began to take the place of
unbelief, and a new thought possessed him as dawn displaces night.

“Why, if we are obeying the Lord, the responsibility rests with Him, not with
us.”

This, brought home to his heart in the power of the Spirit, wrought the
change once and for all.

“Thou, Lord," he cried with relief that was unutterable, "Thou shalt have all
the burden! At Thy bidding, as Thy servant I go forward, leaving results with
Thee."

For some time the conviction had been growing that he ought to ask for at
any rate two evangelists for each of the eleven unoccupied provinces, and
two for Chinese Tartary and Tibet. Pencil in hand he now opened his Bible,
and with the boundless ocean breaking at his feet wrote the simple
memorable words: " Prayed for twenty-four willing skillful laborers at