Hudson Taylor- Another hero of the past PART1

I started writing about Hudson Taylor’s life foolishly thinking I could put it all in one post. I also thought I knew a lot more about his life than I really did. This, then turned out to be a learning experience for me and, I hope, you as well. I will put his life in several posts over a period of time. This is Hudson Taylor, Part 1.

Hudson Taylor was born in England in 1832. He was born into a Christian Home and his father was a chemist and the local preacher. Missionaries would often stop and rest at his house. They would tell stories of their adventures and Hudson would sit wide-eyed on a bench nearby and listen. When he was 4 years old, He told his mother and father “when I grow up, I will be a missionary to China.”

However, soon Hudson became a man of the world. He began to listen to all his young “friends” and started to live for this life only. He worked in a local bank and listened to the other clerks talk lightly of religion.

When he was 17 he was converted, Like all Christians, by an act of grace on the part of God not by any spectacular work on the part of man. He had been looking for something to read and picked up a gospel tract. He only meant to read the story and skip the sermon but, he found himself compelled to read it all. Everything suddenly fell into place, He fell on his knees and accepted Christ as his own Lord and Savior. He later started to tell his mother the news. She looked at him and said “ I know my son” She had felt a burden for Hudson’s soul and had locked herself inside praying. When she left the building, she felt a complete assurance that Hudson's soul was now in God's Hands.

Hudson felt called to become a missionary to China. He started preparing to go, he studied the Chinese language, He borrowed books on China, and he started learning to trust on God for everything.

In the fall of 1852, he came to London under the auspices of the Chinese Evangelization Society, who arranged to pay for his training as a doctor at the London Hospital in the East End. Soon after, they urged him to drop his studies and leave at once to Evangelize in China.