HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

68 THE MAN WHO BELIEVED GOD
it is, 'Man's extremity is God's opportunity'. The change
from a large household, two families beside myself, to living
quite alone will, no doubt, have its trials, but I hope to be
rewarded by increasing fluency in the language leading to
greater usefulness.''
We have now reached an important stage in Hudson
Taylor's life. The way for residence and work in the
foreign settlement at Shanghai had been closed by the
definite decision of the Society he represented, and by
their failure to send out adequate supplies. This decision,
together with his own experiences, had caused him to
set his eyes as never before towards work in the interior,
and for this purpose he had adopted the Chinese dress.
This was a bigger step than appears upon the surface.
The sneers of the European community, and the disfavour
of some of the missionary body, which pained
him even more, helped to inaugurate a new departure.
But the larger liberty, and the greater freedom, he experienced,
in moving about among the people in the
land of his adoption, were not only an abundant compensation
for what he suffered, but a confirmation of the
wisdom of the decision.
And it was during his first J!!Onths in the Chinese city
that he was rejoiced beyond measure by his first convert's
request for baptism. "If one soul is worth worlds,"
he wrote to his mother, "am I not abundantly repaid,
and are not you too?"
But there was further encouragement. Mr. W. T.
Berger, who was to be among the staunchest and most
generous of his friends at home, had begun to take an
interest in his work, and to send him financial aid.
So here he rejoiced in the beginnings of his spiritual
harvest, and in God opening up to him of a new way
of supplies.