HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

IX
IN JOURNEYINGS OFT
THOUGH feeling at times a sense of utter isolation and
helplessness, and though tried by cold and even hunger,
with watchings and sleepless nights, there was one thing
Hudson Taylor would not do, and that was he would
never allow adversity to paralyse his activities. When
most beset by trial his policy was advance. And so,
despite the harassing failure of the friends at home, he
showed his faith in God by aggressive evangelism.
"Useful we must and will be, if the Lord bless us, at any
cost", was his resolve.
And so, within a few weeks of Dr. Parker's arrival,
we find him commencing a series of evangelistic journeys
into areas seldom or never visited before by Protestant
missionaries. Sometimes he was alone, sometimes accompanied
by Dr. Parker, at other times he went in company
with senior workers of other Societies, such as Mr. Edkin
and Mr. Burdon. Without attempting to follow in detail
his many itinerations, it must suffice to say that between
December, 1854, and the autumn of 1855, he had made
no fewer than eight longer and shorter journeys, one of
these extending to nearly two hundred miles up the
southern bank of the river Y angtse. On this occasion
he came to within sixty miles of Chinkiang, travelled in
all nearly five hundred miles, entered no fewer than fiftyeight
cities, towns and villages, fifty.:one of which had
never been visited before by preachers of the Gospel.
63