Morning Moments

Matthew 26:42
42 He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.

“How I wish that burning soul-stirring words could be written, words that would induce wrestling prayer and earnest effort. . . . How few are those who live for souls as worldly men live for riches, from year end to year end, first thing in the morning, last thing at night, every obstacle made to give way by persevering effort. . . . People speak of the progress of truth being slow, and in the half-truth hide the Church’s guilt.”

Those were the words of Jennie Taylor, wife of Hudson Taylor which burn in the hearts of untold numbers who have a heart for missions.

As a young woman, she attended the weekly prayer meeting at the home of Hudson & Maria Taylor in the East End of London in 1865. She was influenced by the Taylors and their book: "China's Spiritual Need and Claims” that spoke of the desperate need for the Gospel message to be brought to the Chinese before they died “without God and without hope in the world”.

When the Taylors were recruiting missionaries to go with them back to China, Jennie volunteered to accompany the 15 other candidates who were all as inexperienced as herself. She was the junior member of the Lammermoor Party, the largest party of Protestant missionaries ever to sail to China in 1866, but she quickly proved herself useful.

After the new arrivals had weathered 2 typhoons and arrived nearly shipwrecked in China, they donned Chinese clothes and ventured down the Grand Canal, looking for a place to settle down to mission work. It caused a scandal among the other Westerners in China to see a young single woman like Jennie adopt the Chinese dress, which was considered a compromise with an idolatrous culture. However, Taylor was undeterred in encouraging his missionaries to “adopt all things not sinful that were Chinese in order to save some”. In Hangzhou, Jennie proved the value of being an unmarried female, as her daily walks around the neighborhood gave her opportunities to be invited in by the Chinese women who did not feel threatened as they might have by a foreign man. After she had been in China for five years, she was given a furlough at the request of her parents that Hudson Taylor honored. Taylor accompanied her home in 1871. She had keenly felt the loss of Maria Taylor the year previously, her friend and mentor. On the way back to England, Hudson proposed marriage. She accepted on the condition of her parent’s approval – which was not easily obtained.

Finally in November of the same year they were married. She instantly became the stepmother to Taylor’s four surviving children and a successor to Maria as the “Mother of the Mission”. Together, they had 2 children of their own and adopted an orphaned daughter of a missionary.

On July 30, 1904 she whispered to her husband, “Ask Him to take me.” Five minutes later she spoke her last words:
“He will not fail.”