HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

THE ETERNAL SPRINGS OF GOD
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fellow-workers, but also indirectly to himself. But be the
cause what it may, it is clear that the Spirit of God, who
was moving upon the hearts of His people at home, was
also doing a similar work in China, for at this time not a
few members of the Mission entered into a new enjoyment
of fulness of life in Christ. But in Hudson Taylor's
case the entrance into liberty and joy was preceded by
months of bondage and almost despair. Writing to his
mother in the spring of r869 he said:
"I cannot tell you how I am buffeted sometimes by
temptation. I never knew how bad a heart I had .... Often
I am tempted to think that one so full of sin cannot be a
child of God at all; but I try to throw it back, and rejoice
all the more in the preciousness of Jesus."
When writing to his sister Amelia (Mrs. Benjamin
Broomhall), in the autumn of the same year, he alluded
to the same subject.
"My mind", he wrote, ''has been greatly exercised for six
or eight months past, feeling the need personally, and for
our Mission, of more holiness, life, power in our souls. But
personal need stood first and was the greatest. I felt the ingratitude,
the danger, the sin of not living near to God. I
prayed diligently, sought more time for retirement and
meditation-but all was without effect. Every day, almost
every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me .... Each
day brought its register of sin and failure. To will was indeed
present with me, but how to perform I knew not.
"Then came the question: 'Is there no rescue? Must it be
thus to the end?' ... I hated myself; I hated my sin; and yet
I gained no strength against it .... Hope itself almost died
out, and I began to think that, perhaps to make Heaven the
sweeter, God would not give it down here-.';
It was when the agony of his soul was at its height
that he received a letter from his fellow-worker John
M'Carthy, who had been passing through a somewhat