HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

THE AUDACITY OF FAITH 131
Hangchow, where the Lammermuir party had found
refuge.
"It is pretty cold weather to be living in a house without
any ceiling, and with very few walls and windows! There is a
deficiency in the wall of my own bedroom, six feet by nine,
closed in with a sheet, so that ventilation is decidedly free!
[We can imagine the twinkle in his eye as this was penned.
But then follows the more solemn aspect.] But we heed these
things very little. Around us are poor dark heathen, large
cities without any missionary; populous towns without any
missionary; villages without number, all destitute of the
means of grace. I do not envy the state of mind that would
forget these, or leave them to perish, for fear of a little discomfort."
It must be acknowledged that such conditions constituted
a somewhat stem school for new arrivals, especially
for any not cast in his Spartan mould. And as
these pioneers pressed forward into new centres, and
found that scarcely any station was opened without a
riot, one or two fell to criticizing their leader. It was just
this that Hudson Taylor had feared before his surrender
at Brighton.
His forecast had been correct, and it was well that it
had already been faced and conquered. But the ordeal
was severe, more severe than had been anticipated.
Ready ears were lent to the complaints by some who did
not approve of Hudson Taylor's methods, and reports
reached home which might well have wrecked the young
Mission had it not been founded upon the Rock. But it
called for faith to be patient under misrepresentation,
to be meek when misunderstood and maligned, to refrain
from self-assertion, and to await' God's vindication.
It was not the first time he and his noble wifewho
was indeed his "companion in 'tribulation and in
the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ"-had been