HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

ALWAYS ADVANCING
I7I
vancing, he was supremely careful not to go before God.
There were several different ways of working for God,
he said:
"We may make the best plans we can, and then carry
them out to the best of our ability ....
"Or, having carefully laid our' plans, and determined to
carry them through, we may ask God to help us ....
"There is yet another mode of working; to begin with
God, to ask His plans, and to offer ourselves to carry out •
His purposes."
This distinction was to him all-important, for he
could then leave all responsibility with the Great Designer.
This was the secret of his rest and quiet confidence.
It is to be feared we too often forget the deep
significance of that familiar prayer:
"Prevent us, 0 Lord, in all our doings with Thy most
gracious favour, and further us with Thy continual help;
that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in Thee, we
rnay glorify Thy Holy Name, and finally by Thy mercy
obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord."
No sooner had the Seventy sailed, and God's Seventy
came to nearly Eighty, than Hudson Taylor set forth
for China once more, on January 20, r885, that he might
be in the field to welcome the Cambridge Seven who
were to follow in a fortnight. Of the strenuous months
which followed, the visiting of at least nine of China's
provinces, of the setting apart for the ministry of men
like Pastor Hsi, of establishing women's work on the
Kwangsin River, of organizing a China Council, arranging
for his own deputy in the field, of establishing
Training Homes for expected reinforcements, and other
far-reaching movements we must not speak. The same
belief that God's work must be ''always advancing"
still urged him on, and with r886 came another launch-