HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

52 THE MAN WHO BELIEVED GOD
of comfort; and when words and embraces were impossible
he pencilled on the blank leaf of his pocket
Bible, "The Love of God which passeth knowledge.
J. H. T.", and flung the little book to her on the pier.
"Never shall I forget that day," he wrote long years
afterwards. "As we passed through the dock gates, and the
separation really commenced, never shall I forget the cry
of anguish wrung from that mother's heart; it went through
me like a knife. I never knew so fully until then what 'God
so loved the world' meant, and I am quite sure my precious
mother learnt more of the love of God for th@ perishing
world in that one hour than in all her life before."
These words reveal one of the secrets of Hudson
Taylor's power. He was a big human, with a large and
tender heart. Though believing in self-denial, and practising
it, he was no cold-blooded ascetic. He could endure
hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, and expect
others to do so too, but he never lost sight of, nor
despised,' the emotional element in men and women.
For five and a half months the Dumfries was his
home, and during all this time he and the ship's company
were cut off from the world without, for the vessel
never touched land. The Cape of Good Hope was rounded
in December; the nearest point to Australia, one hundred
and twenty miles away, was reached on January 5; and
the vessel finally dropped anchor at Woosung, ten miles
from Shanghai, on March r, 1854.
The voyage had been rich in experience. It had
opened with a prolonged and terrific storm, during which
a watery grave for the ship and crew seemed inevitable.
But by dint of great daring the Captain managed, as by
a miracle, to clear some dangerous rocks off the Welsh
coast, but only by the ship's length. Later on a dead
calm, with swift currents running towards sunken reefs,