From a message delivered by Hudson Taylor

Now the moment had come. Trembling from head to foot as he rose, Hudson Taylor could only grasp the rail of the platform and command voice enough to ask his hearers to unite with him in prayer to God. To Him it was easy to speak; and, unusual as this beginning was even for a missionary address, it arrested attention and opened the way to many a heart. For there was about that prayer a peculiar reality and power. More simple it could not have been, and yet it revealed a sacred intimacy that awakened longing for just such confidence in and certainty of God. A strange hush came over the people before the prayer ended, and then all else was forgotten in scenes to which they found themselves transported.

For the missionary came at once to the heart of his message. Back again in thought in the land of his adoption, he was traveling by native junk from Shanghai to Ningpo. Among his fellow-passengers, one Chinese, who had spent some years in England and went by the name of Peter, was much upon his heart, for, though not unacquainted with the gospel, he knew nothing of its saving power. Simply he told the story of this man’s friendliness and of his own efforts to win him to Christ. Nearing the city of Sung-kiang, they were preparing to go ashore together to preach and distribute tracts, when Mr. Taylor in his cabin was startled by a sudden splash and cry that told of a man overboard. Springing at once on deck, he looked round and missed Peter.

“Yes,” exclaimed the boatmen unconcernedly, “it was over there he went down!”

To drop the sail and jump into the water was the word of a moment; but the tide was running out, and the low, shrubless shore afforded little landmark. Searching everywhere in an agony of suspense, Mr. Taylor caught sight of some fishermen with a dragnet; just the thing needed.

“Come,” he cried as hope revived, “come and drag over this spot. A man is drowning!”

“Veh bin,” was the amazing reply: “It is not convenient.”

“Don’t talk of convenience! Quickly come, or it will be too late!”

“We are busy fishing.”

“Never mind your fishing! Come! Only come at once! I will pay you well.”

“How much will you give us?”

“Five dollars! Only don’t stand talking. Save life without delay!”

“Too little!” they shouted across the water. “We will not come for less than thirty dollars.”

“But I have not so much with me! I will give you all I’ve got.”

“And how much may that be?”

“Oh, I don’t know. About fourteen dollars.”

Upon this they came, and the first time they passed the net through the water brought up the missing man. But all Mr. Taylor’s efforts to restore respiration were in vain. It was only too plain that life had fled, sacrificed to the callous indifference of those who might easily have saved it.

A burning sense of indignation swept over the great audience. Could it be that anywhere on earth people were to be found so utterly callous and selfish? But as the earnest voice went on, conviction struck home all the more deeply that it was unexpected:

“Is the body, then, of so much more value than the soul? We condemn those heathen fishermen. We say they were guilty of the man’s death because they could easily have saved him, and did not do it. But what of the millions whom we leave to perish, and that eternally? What of the plain command, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,’ and the searching question inspired by God Himself, ‘If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it? and He that keepeth thy soul doth not He know it? And shall He not render to every man according to his works?’”

“Do you believe that each unit of these millions has an immortal soul,” he questioned searchingly, “and that there is ‘none other name under heaven given among men’ save the precious name of Jesus ‘whereby we must be saved’? Do you believe that He and He alone is ‘the Way, the Truth, and the Life,’ and that ‘no man cometh unto the Father’ but by Him? If so, think of the condition of these unsaved souls, and examine yourself in the sight of God to see whether you are doing your utmost to make Him known to them or not.

“It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China.* With these facts before you, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home. If in the sight of God you cannot say you are sure that you have a special call to stay at home, why are you disobeying the Savior’s plain command to go? Why are you refusing to come to the help of the Lord against the mighty? If, however, it is perfectly clear that duty—not inclination, not pleasure, not business—detains you at home, are you laboring in prayer for these needy ones as you might? Is your influence used to advance the cause of God among them? Are your means as largely employed as they should be in helping forward their salvation?”

Recalling an experience, the pain of which could never be forgotten, Mr. Taylor went on to tell of a Ningpo convert who, full of joy in his new-found faith, had inquired:

“How long have you known this Good News in your country?”

“We have known it a long time,” was the reluctant answer, “hundreds of years.”

“Hundreds of years!” exclaimed the ex-Buddhist leader, “and you never came to tell us?”

“My father sought the Truth,” he added sadly, “sought it long, and died without finding it. Oh, why did you not come sooner?”

“Shall we say that the way was not open?” continued the speaker. “At any rate it is open now. Before the next Perth Conference** twelve million more in China, will have passed forever beyond our reach. What are we doing to bring them the tidings of Redeeming Love? It is no use singing as we often do: ‘Waft, waft ye winds the story.’ The winds will never waft the story; but they may waft us.

“The Lord Jesus commands us, commands us each one individually, ‘Go,’ He says, ‘Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.’ Will you tell Him that you are busy fishing…have bought a piece of land, purchased five yoke of oxen, married a wife, or for other reasons cannot obey? Will He accept such excuses? Have we forgotten that ‘we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body’? Oh, remember, pray for, labor for the unevangelized millions of China,* or you will sin against your own soul! Consider again whose Word it is that says:

“ ‘If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, “Behold, we knew it not;” doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it? and He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it? And shall He not render to every man according to his works?’ ”

China* might be far off and little known; we might silence conscience by saying that its vast population was largely inaccessible; but every one of those men, women, and children was a soul for whose salvation an infinite price had been paid; every one of them had a right to know that they had been ransomed by the precious blood of Christ, and to have the offer of eternal life in His Name. While we were busy about other things (quite profitably occupied it may be), they were living, dying without God and without hope…a million every month in that one land passing beyond our reach.

Rapidly, then, Hudson Taylor arrayed before his hearers facts that recent prayer and study had burned afresh upon his soul. Not the coast-board provinces only, to which the little band of Protestant missionaries was confined, but the great unreached interior; every part indeed of the mighty empire passed in review. To most if not all present, it was a revelation. Millions upon millions of their fellow-creatures, unknown, unthought-of, were brought out of the dim mists of forgetfulness, and put before them in such fashion that their claim upon Christian hearts could never again be disregarded. Missionary addresses were not wont to be of that order. It was not speaking, so much, about these startling facts as letting the light of God fall upon them—making those present see as the speaker saw, hear as the speaker heard, God’s view, God’s verdict upon the matter.

And what a verdict that was!

In Scotland, with its population of four million, several thousand ministers were needed to care for the spiritual interests of people already flooded with Gospel light. China, with a hundred times as many precious, immortal souls, had not even one Protestant missionary, on an average, to every four million. Moreover, its ninety-one missionaries of all societies were not by any means evenly distributed. They were gathered in a few, a very few, centers near the coast. Confined to the treaty ports, they were in touch with a mere fringe of the population of the provinces in which they were found; while beyond lay the vast interior, inhabited by two hundred million of our fellow-creatures, amongst whom no voice was raised to tell of salvation, full and free, through the finished work of Christ. Yet we believe that “the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” Amazing inconsistency, appalling indifference to the revealed will of Him Whom we call Master and Lord, and to the deepest needs of the human soul!

It was for these inland provinces and dependencies the speaker pleaded…populous regions as large as all the countries of Europe put together, in which no Protestant missionary was yet to be found. ?

Used by permission of OMF International from the book The Growth of a Work of God.

* Mr. Taylor just used China because that is where God had called him. I’m sure he would agree if we were to broaden this to the whole world.
** This was the name of the conference at which Mr. Taylor preached this sermon.