HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

100 THE MAN WHO BELIEVED GOD
beyond the use that the Book, with its marginal references,
would be to the Chinese Christians, but in seeking
to water others his own soul was watered and prepared
for an unforeseen ministry. As he sat in his study, with
the Scriptures on his desk, and a large map of China on
the wall, there gradually dawned upon him, through
his tears, a two-fold vision, in which God and China
both had place. With the deeper sense of China's need
came the fuller realization of Divine resources. The one
was set over against the other. It was with him, as with
Isaiah, "In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the
Lord". •
"While in the field", he wrote, "the pressure of claims
immediately around me was so great that I could not think
much of the still greater needs of the regions farther inland;
and if they were thought of, could do nothing for them. But
while detained for some years in England, daily viewing the
whole country on the large map on the wall of my study, I
was as near to the vast regions of Inland China as to the
smaller districts in which I had laboured personally for God."
It is recorded of Napoleon, by his secretary, that
when in Egypt, contemplating a march into India, "he
spent whole days, lying flat on the ground stretched
upon maps of Asia". What a contrast is that picture and
this of Hudson Taylor in his humble home in London!
What a different ambition stirred his heart as he surveyed
the map of China! The cities, towns, and villages
of that vast land were to him a field for service, not for
self-aggrandizement. The countless millions without the
Gospel moved him with compassion, as his Master had
been moved by the hungry multitudes in the desert of
Palestine. They must not be sent hungry away. But how
could they be fed? Prayer was the only relief for his
burdened heart, and this, with his daily study of God's