HUDSON TAYLOR The man who believed God by Marshall Broomhall

A MEMORABLE FRIENDSHIP 75
well. He was no stranger to hardship, as we have seen,
and yet he wrote of Swatow:
"I think I never was in such a wicked place." And again:·
"It is much more difficult to itinerate here than it was
around Shanghai. ... It is an entirely new line of things to
me and requires far,more faith and self-denial than anything
I have ever known." And again: "The hatred and
contempt of the Cantonese was very painful, 'foreign devil',
'foreign dog', or 'foreign pig', being the commonest appellations;
but all this led us into deeper fellowship than I had
ever known before with Him Who was 'despised and rejected
of men'."
From one so inured to roughing it, and so willing to
endure hardness, these words meant much. But he felt
that God was training him for something, though he
knew not what, and was content.
In the height of summer, an official whom Chinese
doctors could not aid, but who had been healed through
Hudson Taylor's ministry, gratefully offered to help
them rent a house. This was indeed welcome news, not
only because it met a pressing personal need, but because
it afforded a prospect of wider usefulness. And so,
in order to start medical work on a larger scale, Hudson
Taylor agreed to go to Shanghai to fetch his medical
equipment. As a free passage was offered him for this
purpose, he set forth with a glad heart, thankful also for
a short sea trip, as the almost insufferable heat of their
small attic had injuriously affected his health. But little
did he know when he said farewell to his friend William
Burns, that he would never see his face again.
Unknown to both, dark clouds of war were shortly to
gather in the south, and were to purst into an armed
conflict that was to last for years. This was occasioned
by the Chinese Government seizing the lorcha Arrow,