HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

74 THE MAN WHO BELIEVED GOD
needs of Swatow, and offered a free passage thither,
that Hudson Taylor and William Bums had each felt
the call, and, as they had not taken counsel together,
had each been prepared to respond although it appeared
to demand the pain of separation. It was only
when Hudson Taylor, with tears in his eyes, told his
friend that God had called him south that he found
that William Bums had been passing through a similar
experience.
Swatow was notorious as a centre of the opium trade,
and of the hateful coolie traffic, and here foreigners,
though it was not an open port, had bought land and
built houses. The opium trade alone was worth a
quarter of a million sterling monthly. And in this place,
a place of violence and vice, there was no witness for
Christ, the nearest missionary being one hundred and
fifty miles away.
Early in March these two keen souls left Shanghai
in Captain Bowers' steamer, and were thankful, when
Swatow was reached, to secure so much as a bare room
over an incense shop for residence. For some time it
appeared impossible to gain a foothold, so any pied-aterre
was welcome, even these rude quarters, which had
to be entered through a trap-door in the floor, and where
there was nothing but naked tiles between them and the
blazing sun.
"Not easily shall I forget", wrote Hudson Taylor, "the
long hot summer months in that oven-like place, where towards
the eaves one could touch the heated tiles with one's
hand. More room or better accommodation it was impossible
to obtain."
It was not strange that living in such a veritable oven
for the study of the language, Hudson Taylor should
find his health affected. And there were other trials as