HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

142 THE MAN WHO BELIEVED GOD
And now we are permitted to accompany this man,
so intensely human as well as so eminently spiritual,
into the secret chamber where he was sorely stricken in
the tenderest spot of his nature. And it may be remarked
in passing that what most men find it difficult, if not
impossible, to do, Hudson Taylor could and did do, and
that was to admit the outsider into the sacred realm of
his own heart. It is one explanation of his influence
with and over men; he was no mere official, but a man of
like passions with others, not ashamed to reveal genuine
emotion. .
At the beginning of 1867 he had written:
"I have long felt that our Mission has a baptism to be
baptized with. It may not yet be passed. It may be heavier
than we can foresee. But if, by grace, we are kept faithful, in
the end all will be well."
These words, written shortly after the death of one
of the Lammermuir party, appear like a premonition of
what was to befall the leader of the Mission himself. For
all God's waves and billows were to pass over him, but
only to prove the truth of the promise that the waters
should not overflow or overwhelm.
The summ.er of that year was intensely hot, the
thermometer indoors being frequently above 100° F.
All the children suffered, and Mrs. Taylor was also ill,
so that a trip to the neighbouring hills was arranged.
The change from the sultry city to the beauty and the
comparative freshness of the country was an intense relief,
but it did not suffice to do all that had been hoped.
Little Gracie, the darling of her parents, sickened with a
.fatal disease, and Hudson Taylor, when writing to Mr·.
Berger on August 15, 1867, unburdened his heart as
follows: