Hudson Taylor gave his life up to be a footnote in God’s story of worldwide redemption. He first arrived in China in the spring of 1854 and founded the China Inland Mission in 1865. In total Taylor spent 51 years preaching and teaching in China. In contrast to other missionaries of the time who also brought a gospel of Western culture, Taylor immersed himself in Chinese culture. He wore Chinese clothes, ate Chinese food, and wrote and spoke in several Chinese dialects. 150 years later, thanks in no small part to one willing middle-class Englishman, there are as many evangelical Christians in China as there are in America.
This volume contains Hudson Taylor’s account of the early strategy and progress of the China Inland Mission, Three Decades of the China Inland Mission.
Taylor was known for his sensitivity to Chinese culture and zeal for evangelism. He adopted wearing native Chinese clothing even though this was rare among missionaries of that time. Under his leadership, the CIM was singularly non-denominational in practice and accepted members from all Protestant groups, including individuals from the working class and single women as well as multinational recruits. Primarily because of the CIM's campaign against the Opium trade, Taylor has been referred to as one of the most significant Europeans to visit China in the 19th Century. Historian Ruth Tucker summarises the theme of his life:
No other missionary in the nineteen centuries since the Apostle Paul has had a wider vision and has carried out a more systematised plan of evangelising a broad geographical area than Hudson Taylor.
Taylor was able to preach in several varieties of Chinese, including Mandarin, Chaozhou, and the Wu dialects of Shanghai and Ningbo. The last of these he knew well enough to help prepare a colloquial edition of the New Testament written in it
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