One Man Who Went to China

"One of the greatest missionaries of all time, and ... one of the four or five most influential foreigners who came to China in the nineteenth century for any purpose..." -Kenneth Scott Latourette

“More than any other human being [he] ...made the greatest contribution to the cause of world mission in the 19th century." -Ralph D. Winter

“He was ambitious without being proud ... He was biblical without being bigoted... He was catholic without being superficial ... He was charismatic without being selfish." -Arthur F. Glasser

“No other missionary in the nineteen centuries since the Apostle Paul has had a wider vision and has carried out a more systematized plan of evangelizing a broad geographical area than Hudson Taylor" - Ruth Tucker

His name was Hudson Taylor. Born in Yorkshire, England in 1832 in a Christian home, at age 17 he professed his faith in Christ and committed himself to going to China as a missionary. He began studying Mandarin Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. At 19 he began working as a physician's assistant in a clinic that served the poor in Yorkshire. The next year he began studying medicine at the Royal London Hospital, London, as preparation for working in China. He spoke to other missionaries who had been to China, trying to learn everything he could in preparation for his career.

There was great interest in China in England at this time as the Opium Wars were controversial and unpopular -- even shameful and outrageous -- among Christians in the UK. The war had led to turmoil in China, with the Taiping Rebellion threatening the stability of the Qing government. Christians committed to Chinese missions felt that the window of opportunity was closing to get into the country and make a difference.

Taylor left England and arrived in Shanghai in 1853 before finishing medical school. He landed in the middle of the civil war that was the Taiping Rebellion, throwing his first year in China into turmoil.

Taylor made 18 preaching tours in the vicinity of Shanghai starting in 1855, and was often poorly received by the people, even though he brought with him medical supplies and skills. He made a decision to adopt the native Chinese clothes and Queue (pigtail) with shaven forehead, however, and was then able to gain an audience without creating a disturbance. Previous to this, Taylor realized that wherever he went he was being referred to as a "black devil" because of the overcoat that he wore. He distributed thousands of Chinese Gospel tracts and portions of Scripture in and around Shanghai. During his stay in Shanghai he also adopted and cared for a Chinese boy named Hanban.

In 1858, Taylor married the orphaned daughter of another pioneering missionary. The Taylors ran a hospital in Ningbo and adopted another Chinese boy as well as having a daughter of their own. About this time he wrote a letter home to his sister in England:

If I had a thousand pounds China should have it- if I had a thousand lives, China should have them. No! Not China, but Christ. Can we do too much for Him? Can we do enough for such a precious Saviour?

In 1860 the Taylors were struggling with health problems returned to England for a furlough.
They brought with them a young man, Wang Laijun, from their church in Ningbo who stayed in England to work on Bible translation.

Taylor ended up spending 5 years in Britain, traveling throughout the UK preaching and raising awareness and support for a more comprehensive approach to Chinese missions. He founded a new organization, the China Inland Mission. It was to be a broadly evangelical and non-denominational. Perhaps more importantly, it sought to avoid the appearance of imperialism that was associated with paid missionaries supported by organizations or denominations in Western countries. China Inland Missions workers would live in China and make a living like anyone else there:

All who [go] out as Missionaries should go in dependence upon God for temporal supplies, with the clear understanding that the Mission did not guarantee any income whatever ; and knowing that, as the Mission would not go into debt, it could only minister to those connected with it as the funds sent in from time to time might allow.

The Taylors returned to Shanghai in 1866 with the largest party of missionaries ever sent to China. The size of the group as well as their intent to be dressed in native clothing caused a stir in Shanghai and criticism of the new CIM group. The party donned Chinese clothing, notwithstanding - even the women missionaries - which was deemed semi-scandalous at the time. When other missionaries sought to preserve their British ways, Taylor was convinced that the Gospel would only take root in Chinese soil if missionaries were willing to affirm the culture of the people they were seeking to reach.

Hudson Taylor went on to spend 51 years in China, with periodic trips back to Europe to recruit more missionaries and raise organizational support. Throughout all the turmoils of the late 19th and early 20th centuries there his organization grew based on the principles of living among the people, adopting their language and clothing and customs. The China Inland Mission eventually brought 800 missionaries to the country who began 125 schools and directly resulted in 18,000 Christian conversions, as well as the establishment of more than 300 stations of work with more than 500 local helpers in all eighteen provinces.

More important than these direct numbers were the examples he set and the models he created for missionary work in China. Many, many others, including Scottish Olympic medalist Eric Liddle (from the movie Chariots of Fire) followed his example. Today there are many young people, including friends of mine, who are living in China working as English teachers or other professions in order to build relationships with the community and have an opportunity to spread their faith based on Hudson Taylor's model. The result in that there are more daily conversions to Christianity in China than in any place in the world today.