HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

THE DESIGN OF GOD 187
he meant by willing, skilful men must be gathered from
his other published writings. Speaking in the Mildmay
Conference Hall he said:
"The man who would attempt to build without an architect
would not be very wise. But it, would be quite as great
a mistake to say, because architects are needed, 'We will
have none but architects'. And so in missionary effort ....
A bricklayer will build better than an architect; and an
architect will superintend, and make plans, better than the
bricklayer. It is in the combination of 'willing, skilful
workers', suited to every department of service, that the
work of God will go on as it ought to do. . . . .
"Now, we in the China Inland Mission have asked God
for workers of various classes, and He has given them; He
has given us men of the highest ability. Most of our English
and Scotch Universities, and Trinity College, Dublin, have
given us volunteers, and very thankful we have been for
them. But we have others who have graduated in different
schools ....
"I say different advantages, for I hold it to be sheer infidelity
to doubt that God gives to every one of His children,
without exception, those circumstances which are to him
the highest educational advantages that he can improve,
and which will best fit him for his own work."
There is much more we fain would quote, and the
italics are Hudson Taylor's own. The passage illustrates
his belief in "the hand of God in every little event of
life", and in "a particular providence over each life", to
quote his own words again.
But given these willing, skilful men, what was to be
their spirit? In answer to this we have an embarrassing
wealth of material. In the early editions of China's
Spiritual Need and Claims no less than· ten pages of an
appendix are devoted to a consideratii;m of the practical
details connected with the "Scriptural principle of becoming
all things to all men in order to gain the more".