Hudson Taylor Books: A Guide to All 6 and Where to Start
J. Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) was the English missionary who founded the China Inland Mission in 1865 and carried the gospel into China's inland provinces. He's remembered for the way he worked: no debt, no appeals for money, and every need taken to God in prayer. He didn't write many books, and the ones he did write are short. TheWay Library has six of them, all free to read: his own story, his great appeal for China, and four Bible studies on living close to Christ. For his life, see who was Hudson Taylor.
Where to start
Start with A Retrospect, his own account of his conversion, his years of learning to trust God in England, his first years in China and the birth of the mission. You can read it in an evening.
Then read Union and Communion, his best-loved devotional book. It shows the inner life that kept him going.
After that:
- For his heart for the lost: China's Spiritual Need and Claims.
- For a short Bible study: Separation and Service, A Ribband of Blue or Unfailing Springs.
- For the full story of his early life: Hudson Taylor in Early Years, the biography by his son and daughter-in-law (see below).
For memorable lines from all of these, see our Hudson Taylor quotes.
His own story
A Retrospect
Taylor drew these chapters from talks he gave to his missionaries in China, so they read as a plain story told for encouragement. He tells of his conversion as a teenager in answer to his mother's and sister's prayers, and his call to China. Then come the years in Hull and London when he set out to learn to trust God alone for money before he sailed, including the story of his last half-crown. The middle chapters cover his voyage, early work around Shanghai, his travels with William Burns, the loss of his medicines in a fire, and timely help in times of want at Ningpo. The last chapters explain why he believed inland China needed a new mission, his surrender to God at Brighton, and the founding of the China Inland Mission.
How important, therefore, to learn before leaving England to move man, through God, by prayer alone.
A Retrospect, chapter 3
To see how he handled money, read Hudson Taylor on faith and money. Read A Retrospect.
His appeal for China
China's Spiritual Need and Claims
Taylor first wrote this in 1865 to stir Christians in Britain, and this is the seventh edition. He sets out the facts: China's size, its vast population, and how few missionaries there were, province by province, with whole inland provinces that had none. At the center is "Rescue the Perishing," the story of a Chinese man named Peter who drowned while fishermen haggled over the price of saving him. Taylor asks whether Christians who won't go are any different. The last chapters tell how prayer for workers led to the China Inland Mission.
Should we say, "Behold, we knew it not," God will not justify our leaving them to perish on the ground of that excuse.
China's Spiritual Need and Claims, The Dependencies of China
It's a book to read if you want your heart moved for missions. This edition was restored from a scan, so the tables of figures run into the text and there are misread words in places. Read China's Spiritual Need and Claims.
Bible studies on the Christian life
These are short. Each one grew out of Taylor's own reading of the Bible in regular course, and each one aims at the same thing: a life with no cloud between the believer and Christ.
Union and Communion; or, Thoughts on the Song of Solomon
Taylor reads the Song of Solomon as a picture of the believer and Christ, the Bridegroom, in six stages. The bride longs for more than she has, and finds the remedy in full surrender to the King. She drifts back into the world and finds He won't follow her there, until she goes out to seek Him. Then comes unbroken communion, then a second failure when self creeps back and she's slow to open the door, and finally the fruit of a settled union and a love secured by His love for her.
Our love to God is secured by God's love to us.
Union and Communion, Section VI: Unrestrained Communion
Separation and Service; or, Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII
A study of the Nazarite vow and the offerings of Israel's princes. The first part works through the law of the Nazarite as a picture of a believer set apart to God: no wine, no razor, no touching the dead. The second dwells on the priestly blessing, "The LORD bless thee, and keep thee." The third, "Princely Service," reads the princes' wagons, oxen and gifts for the tabernacle as a call to generous, practical service.
Our true self-denial, self-emptying, and giving for Christ's cause practically show our real estimate of the value of the Cross of Christ
Separation and Service, Part III: Princely Service
A Ribband of Blue, and Other Bible Studies
Eight short studies. The title study takes the blue cord God told Israel to wear on their garments (Numbers 15:38) as a badge of heaven to carry into the field, the shop and the kitchen. Others are on the blessed man of Psalm 1, Job's adversity, the Queen of Sheba coming to Solomon, Ruth's full reward, the Shepherd's care, bearing the cross and God's all-sufficiency. Each one takes about ten minutes. Read A Ribband of Blue.
Unfailing Springs
A single short meditation on the living water Jesus offered the woman at the well in John 4. Taylor argues that "shall never thirst" is meant to be taken at its word, for those who keep coming to Christ.
Note carefully He does not say, Whosoever has drunk, but "drinketh": He speaks, not of one isolated draught, but of the continuous habit of the soul.
Unfailing Springs
Books about Hudson Taylor
- Hudson Taylor in Early Years: The Growth of a Soul, by his son and daughter-in-law, Howard and Mrs. Howard Taylor. It tells his story in full from his family background to his return to England in 1860, drawing on his letters. See our summary of Hudson Taylor in Early Years.
- Pastor Hsi of North China, by Mrs. Howard Taylor: the life of a Confucian scholar and opium addict who came to Christ and became a leader of the church in North China, linked with the mission Taylor founded.
Why read Hudson Taylor today
Taylor's books are small, but they come from a man who tested what he wrote. He trusted God for the needs of hundreds of missionaries and never went into debt. Read A Retrospect to see that faith at work, and Union and Communion to see where it came from.
Begin with A Retrospect. All his books are on the J. Hudson Taylor author page, and more lives like his are in our list of the best missionary biographies.