On Saturday 24 June 1865, James Hudson Taylor visited a friend in Brighton, England. Six years of missionary service in China had intensified his burden for the interior of that great land and its 300 million people.
But there was no mission organisation prepared to launch out into the inland provinces. He was burdened by the fact that every hour of the day a thousand Chinese were dying without Christ.
On 25 June 1865, Hudson Taylor went to a church service but, as he wrote in his journal, ‘unable to bear the sight of a congregation of a thousand or more Christian people rejoicing in their own security, while millions were perishing for lack of knowledge, I wandered out on the sands alone, in great spiritual agony; and there the Lord conquered my unbelief, and I surrendered myself to God for this service. I told Him that all the responsibility as to issues and consequences must rest with Him; that as His servant, it was mine to obey and to follow Him – His, to direct, to care for, and to guide me and those who might labour with me. Need I say that peace at once flowed into my burdened heart? There and then I asked Him for 24 fellow-workers, two for each of 11 inland provinces which were without a missionary, and two for Mongolia; and writing the petition on the margin of the Bible I had with me, I returned home with a heart enjoying rest such as it had been a stranger to for months.’
