Hudson Taylor > Quotes

“Heart and flesh often fail. Let them fail! He faileth not.”
― Hudson Taylor

“I have but one candle of life to burn and would rather burn it out where people are dying in darkness than in a land that is flooded with light. I look upon foreign missionaries as the scaffolding around a rising building. The sooner it can be dispensed with, the better; or rather, the sooner it can be transferred to other places, to serve the same temporary use, the better.”
― Hudson Taylor

“So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has the right to do as He pleases with His own, and He may not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you”
― Hudson Taylor

“I am so weak that I can hardly write, I cannot read my Bible, I cannot even pray, I can only lie still in God's arms like a little child, and trust.”
― Hudson Taylor

“Unless there is an element of risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith.”
― Hudson Taylor

“Ah,' thought I, 'if only I had two shillings and a sixpence instead of this half crown, how gladly would I give these poor people a shilling of it!' But to part with the half-crown was far from my thoughts. I little dreamed that the truth of the matter simply was that I could trust in God plus one-and-sixpence, but was not yet prepared to trust Him only, without any money at all in my pocket.”
― Hudson Taylor, The Autobiography of Hudson Taylor

“Satan will always find you something to do when you ought to be occupied about that [regular, prayerful Bible study], if it is only arranging a window blind.”
― Hudson Taylor

“Truly there is a Living God, and He is the hearer and answerer of prayer.”
― Hudson Taylor, A Retrospect

“The inconsistencies of Christian people, who while professing to believe their Bible were yet content to live just as they would if there were no such book, had been one of the strongest arguments of my skeptical companions; and I frequently felt at that time, and said, that if I pretended to believe the Bible I would at ay rate attempt to live by it, putting it fairly to the test, and if it failed to prove true and reliable, would throw it overboard altogether. These views I retained when the Lord was pleased to bring me to Himself; and I think I may say that since then I have put God's Word to the test. Certainly it has never failed me. I have never had reason to regret the confidence I have placed I its promises, or to deplore following the guidance I have found in its directions.”
― Hudson Taylor, The Autobiography of Hudson Taylor

“There is a need for us to give ourselves for the life of the world - as He gave His flesh for the feeding of the lifeless and of living souls whose life can only be nourished by the same life-giving Bread. An easy-going non-self-denying life will never be one of power.
Fruit-bearing involves cross-bearing. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." We know how the Lord became fruitful - not by bearing His cross merely, but by dying on it. Do we know much of fellowship with Him in this? There are not two Christs - an easy-going one for easy-going Christians, and a suffering, toiling one for exceptional believers. There is only one Christ. Are you willing to abide in Him, and thus to bear much fruit?
Would that God would make hell so real to us that we cannot rest; heaven so real that we must have men there; Christ so real that our supreme motive and aim shall be to make the Man of Sorrows the Man of Joy by the conversion to Him of many concerning whom He prayed, "Father, I long that those whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory.”
― Hudson Taylor

“Would it not be well if the people of God had always tell-tale faces, evincing the blessings and gladness of salvation so clearly that unconverted people might have to call conversion "becoming joyful" instead of "becoming serious"?”
― Hudson Taylor, A Retrospect

“With God all things are possible, and no conversion ever takes place save by the almighty power of the Holy Ghost. The great need, therefore, of every Christian worker is to know God.”
― Hudson Taylor, A Retrospect

“The soul that is starved cannot rejoice in the Lord”
― Hudson Taylor, Hudson Taylor on Spiritual Secrets

“There are three stages to every great work of God; first it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done.”
― Hudson Taylor

“All God's giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them.”
― Hudson Taylor

“With the large majority of our fellow-men still destitute of the knowledge of salvation, how can we, owing everything to the sacrifice of the Son of God, remain comfortable and unconcerned in a life of self-please?”
― Hudson Taylor

“I little dreamed that the real truh of the matter simply was that I could trust in God plus one-and-sixpence, but was not yet prepared to trust Him only, without any money at all in my pocket.”
― Hudson Taylor, The Autobiography of Hudson Taylor

“God does not permit persecution to arise without sufficient reason...He was leading us by a way that we knew not; but it was none the less His way.”
― Hudson Taylor

“The cold, and even the hunger, the watchings and sleeplessness of nights of danger, and the feeling at times of utter isolation and helplessness, were well and wisely chosen, and tenderly and lovingly meted out. What circumstances could have rendered the Word of God more sweet, the presence of God more real, the help of God more precious?”
― Hudson Taylor, A Retrospect

“There are three great truths, 1st, That there is a God; 2nd, That He has spoken to us in the Bible; 3rd, That He means what He says.”
― Hudson Taylor

“There is a living God. He has spoken in the Bible. He means what He says and will do all that He has promised.”
― Hudson Taylor

“The work of God does not mean so much man's work for God, as God's own work through man.”
― Hudson Taylor, A Retrospect

“A few nights after his conversion he asked how long this Gospel had been known in England. He was told that we had known it for some hundreds of years.
"What!" said he, amazed; "is it possible that for hundreds of years you have had the knowledge of those glad tidings in your possession, and yet have only now come to preach it to us? My father sought after the Truth for more than twenty years, and died without finding it. Oh, why did you not come sooner?”
― Hudson Taylor, A Retrospect