HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

IT IS THE LORD 149
"If God in His providence order that our work shall lead
to valleys of difficulty which we cannot bridge over, to
mountain obstacles which we have no means of surmounting,
to crooked paths which the united zeal and energy of the
Church cannot make straight, to rough places that no human
power can make plain, shall we be discouraged? Shall we not
bless and praise His Holy Name for a clear platform on
which His holy arm, ever working, though hiddenly, can be
made bare-on which all flesh, and not merely the enlightened
believer, must see the manifestation of the glory of the
Lord? From this point of view our difficulties are seen to be
for our greatest good, and our best ground for encouragement."
Of the attack upon the Mission at home, both by the
Press and Parliament, we must not speak. That had
mainly to be faced by Mr. Berger. What more concerns
us here was Hudson Taylor's attitude towards such
manifestations of Satanic fury. The secret of his rest of
heart, amid such tempests of hate, was his refusal to
look at second causes. His times were in God's hands. ,
He believed that it was with God, and God alone, he had 1
to do. This is strikingly brought out in his article entitled
Blessed Adversity. With the experiences of Job as
his text, he wrote:
"Even Satan did not presume to ask God to be allowed
himself to afflict Job. In the 1st chapter and the nth verse
he says: 'Put forth Thine hand now, and touch all that he
hath, and he will curse Thee to Thy face.' And in the 2nd
chapter and the 5th verse: 'Put forth Thine hand now, and
touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse Thee to Thy
face.' Satan knew that none but God could touch Job; and
when Satan was permitted to afflict hiqi., Job was quite
right in recognizing the Lord Himself as the doer of these
things which He permitted to be done.
"Oftentimes shall we be helped and blessed if we bear
this in mind-that Satan is servant, and not master, and that