HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

A GODLY HERITAGE 17
in God's promises, was of inestimable value to Hudson
Taylor in years to come. Foundations were then laid in
things of the Spirit without which many of the con-
. structive enterprises of the future would have been
impossible.
And James Taylor, the father, was as downright and
thorough in the details of his business as in the realm of
the soul. Indeed, he would not separate the two, for he
carried his sense of God into everything. Utter rectitude
in all financial undertakings, no matter how small, was
part of his religion. To keep a man waiting one day for
the payment of a debt was in his view to rob the man of
money. And although he was a chemist, his gifts in
matters of finance, his scrupulous regard for detail, and
his exactitude in the realm of mathematics, led his
townsmen to appoint him as Manager to the Barnsley
Permanent Building Society. The man who had been
accustomed to weigh out his prescriptions to a gram, or
a grain, set himself to compile tables of interest, at different
rates, to four and five places of decimals, and to
prepare his own tables of logarithms to assist in his
calculations. Small wonder was it that the double duties
of chemist and manager became too heavy, so that he
ultimately sold his business, and devoted himself to the
work of the Building Society. 1 But this was after young
Hudson had left the home, but not before this precision
and ability in money and other matters had been inherited
and acquired by the son. And in all this one
recognises God's chosen school for Hudson Taylor, in
view of his future responsibilities.
It is easy to see how Hudson Taylor.was enriched by
1 James Taylor was one of the founde1'8 of the Barnsley Permanent
Building Society, and manager from 1853 to 1875. He retired
from his original busines11, as chemist, about 1865.
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