HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

22 THE MAN WHO BELIEVED GOD
centre, where Robert Morrison had laboured for twentyseven
years, could be and was marked upon the map of
Asia. But Morrison had been dead five years, and practically
nothing more had been attempted since by any
British Missionary Society, for China was then deemed
a closed land.
It was about this time that Hudson Taylor and his
sister Amelia became deeply interested in a book known
as Peter Parley's China. This book they read again and
again, until the sister, too, resolved to accompany her
brother to that strange and distant country.
When about eleven years of age young Hudson first
went to school, but even then his health did not allow
him to attend with any regularity. Yet it was doubtless
good for him to be brought into touch with the life and
discipline of school, though he knew little of the benefit
of games and sport. During this brief school period he
attended a camp meeting held in a park near Leeds, and
there heard Mr. Henry Reed relate some of his personal
experiences in Tasmania. These made a deep and lasting
impression upon him, though they were unattended at
that time by any definite spiritual decisions.
But these brief school-days ceased just before Christmas,
r845, when he was only thirteen years of age. Now
he began to assist his father in his shop, and spent his
time between the enjoyments of his father's library and
the study of dispensing. In r846, when fourteen years of
age, he made his first definite surrender of himself to
God. This was brought about through the reading of a
leaflet published by the Religious Tract Society, and concerning
this experience he wrote some few years later:
"From my earliest childhood I have felt the strivings- of
the Holy Spirit, and when about fourteen years of age I
gave my heart to God."