Excerpt from Hudson Taylor’s letter to his sister, Amelia, dated October 17, 1869

My dear sister…The last month or more has been, perhaps, the happiest of my life; and I long to tell you a little of what the Lord has done for my soul. I do not know how far I may be able to make myself intelligible about it, for there is nothing new or strange or wonderful – and yet, all is new! In a word: “Where I was blind, now I see.”

My mind had been greatly exercised for months, feeling the need personally, and for our Mission, of more holiness, life, and power in our souls. I felt the ingratitude, the danger, the sin of not living nearer to God. I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for retirement and meditation – but all was without avail. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me. I knew that if I could only abide in Christ, all would be well, but I could not. I began the day with prayer, determined not to take my eye off Him for a moment; but pressures of duties, sometimes very trying, constant interruptions apt to be so wearing, often caused me to forget Him. Then one’s nerves get so fretted in this climate that temptations to irritability, hard thoughts and sometimes unkind words are all the more difficult to control.

How could I preach with sincerity that to those who receive Jesus, “to them gave He power to be the sons of God” when it was not so in my experience? Instead of growing stronger, I seemed to be getting weaker. I hated myself. I felt I was a child of God; His Spirit in my heart would cry, in spite of it all, “Abba, Father”; but to rise to my privileges as a child, I was utterly powerless. The more I pursued and strove after faith, the more it eluded my grasp. Sometimes there were seasons not only of peace but a joy in the Lord. But they were transitory, and at best there was a lack of power. Oh, how good the Lord has been in bringing this conflict to an end!

All the time I felt assured there was in Christ all I needed, but the practical question was how to get it out. He was rich, but I was poor; He was strong, but I was weak. I knew full well there was in the root abundant fatness; but how to get it into my puny little branch was the question.

When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never known it before: “But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.”

I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed!) that He had said, “I will never leave you.” Ah, there is rest, I thought. I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I’ll strive no more. For has He not promised to abide with me – never to leave me, never to fail me?

How great seemed my mistake in having wished to get the sap, the fullness, out of Him. I saw not only that Jesus would never leave me, but that I was a member of His body. Oh, my dear sister, it is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Savior; to be a member of Christ! Can Christ be rich and I poor?

The sweetest part…is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything…for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me. I am no better than before; but I am dead and buried with Christ – aye, and risen too and ascended; and now Christ lives in me.

May God give you to lay hold on these blessed truths. Do not let us consider Christ as afar off, when God has made us one with Him. Nor should we look upon these truths as for the few. They are the birthright of every child of God. The only power from sin or for true service is Christ.

Your affectionate brother, Hudson