Born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, England, Hudson Taylor felt a divine call to China by age 17. He equipped himself with knowledge about China and medical skills.
From 1853-1860, he served southeast China with a Chinese evangelization society. He married Maria Dyer in 1858, who supported him until her demise in 1870.
Despite health challenges forcing him to return to England in 1860, Taylor’s commitment to untouched Chinese provinces remained strong. In 1865, he articulated his vision in “China’s Spiritual Need and Claims.”
That year, despite financial constraints, he established the China Inland Mission (CIM) to evangelize all of China.
By 1905, the CIM boasted 825 missionaries, 300+ stations, 500 local helpers and 25,000 converts.
Taylor emphasized a self-funded approach, local adaptation, in-country management, nondenominational evangelism and widespread gospel distribution.
Amidst significant administrative roles, Taylor extensively traveled, promoting China’s spiritual needs and enlisting missionaries. He significantly contributed to Missionary Conferences in Shanghai in 1877 and 1890.
Taylor retired in 1901 and passed away in 1905 in Changsha, Hunan, later interred in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu.
I have picked the top quotes by Hudson Taylor.
Best Hudson Taylor Quotes
A little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in little things is a great thing. ~ Hudson Taylor.
God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply. ~ Hudson Taylor.
But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Dream a dream so big that unless God intervenes it will fail. ~ Hudson Taylor.
One difficulty follows another very fast – but God reigns, not chance. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Believing prayer will lead to whole-hearted action. ~ Hudson Taylor.
If I had 1,000 lives, I’d give them all for China. ~ Hudson Taylor.
If we are faithful to God in little things, we shall gain experience and strength that will be helpful to us in the more serious trials of life. ~ Hudson Taylor.
I often think that God must have been looking for someone small enough and weak enough for Him to use, and that He found me. ~ Hudson Taylor.
There are three indispensable requirements for a missionary: 1. Patience 2. Patience 3. Patience. ~ Hudson Taylor.
In nothing do we fail more, as a Mission, than in lack of tact and politeness. ~ Hudson Taylor.
I have seen many men work without praying, though I have never seen any good come out of it; but I have never seen a man pray without working. ~ 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.
Whatever is your best time in the day, give that to communion with God. ~ Hudson Taylor.
All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on God being with them. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Our joy in Him may be a fluctuating thing: His joy in us knows no change. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Top Hudson Taylor Quotes
The missionary spirit is the spirit of Jesus, the spirit of the incarnation and the cross. ~ Hudson Taylor.
I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help Him to do His work through me. ~ Hudson Taylor.
There has never been a successful social movement for any minority without the support of the majority. ~ Hudson Taylor.
The less I spent on myself and the more I gave to others, the fuller of happiness and blessing did my soul become. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Power with God will be the gauge of real power with men.
If it is true in anything, it is especially true of divine things, what costs little is worth little. ~ Hudson Taylor.
When I get to China, I will have no claim on any one for anything. My claim will be alone in God and I must learn before I leave England to move men through God by prayer alone. ~ Hudson Taylor.
God is not looking for men of great faith, He is looking for common men to trust His great faithfulness. ~ Hudson Taylor.
When the heart submits, then Jesus reigns. When Jesus reigns, there is rest. ~ Hudson Taylor.
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.
Let us see that we keep God before our eyes; that we walk in His ways and seek to please and glorify Him in everything, great and small. Depend upon it, God’s work, done in God’s way, will never lack God’s supplies. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Famous Hudson Taylor Quotes
Many Christians estimate difficulties in the light of their own resources, and thus attempt little and often fail in the little they attempt. All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His power and presence with them. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Fruit-bearing involves cross-bearing. There are not two Christs – an easygoing one for easygoing 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? ~ Hudson Taylor.
Christ is either Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Devotion to God is still a voluntary thing; hence the differences of attainment among Christians. ~ Hudson Taylor.
The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Unless there is the element of extreme risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith. ~ Hudson Taylor.
God’s work is not man working for God; it is God’s own work, though often wrought through man’s hands. ~ Hudson Taylor.
May we all, while living down here, in the world, but not of it, find our home in the heavenly places to which we have been raised, and in which we are seated together with Christ. Sent into the world to witness for our Master, may we ever be strangers there, ready to confess Him the true object of our soul’s devotion. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Would that God would make hell so real to us that we cannot rest; Heaven so real that we must have men there. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Satan, the Hinderer, may build a barrier about us, but he can never roof us in, so that we cannot look up. ~ Hudson Taylor.
God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Too often we attempt to work for God to the limit of our incompetency, rather than to the limit of God’s omnipotency. ~ Hudson Taylor.
We have heard of many people who trusted God too little, but have you ever heard of anyone who trusted Him too much? ~ Hudson Taylor.
I believe we are all in danger of accumulating – it may be from thoughtlessness, or from pressure of occupation – things which would be useful to others, while not needed by ourselves, and the retention of which entails loss of blessing. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Popular Hudson Taylor Quotes
Jesus is our strength, and what we cannot do or bear, He can both do and bear in us. ~ Hudson Taylor.
God isn’t looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Were it not for the consciousness of Christ in my life, hour by hour, I could not go on. But He is teaching me the glorious lessons of His sufficiency, and each day I am carried onward with no feeling of strain or fear of collapse. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Learn to move man, through God, by prayer alone. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Unless you intend your wife to be a true missionary, not merely a wife, home-maker, and friend, do not join us. ~ Hudson Taylor.
All our difficulties are only platforms for the manifestations of His grace, power and love. ~ Hudson Taylor.
When we work, we work. When we pray, God works. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Union with Christ, and abiding in Christ, what do they not secure? Peace, perfect peace; rest, constant rest; answers to all our prayers; victory over all our foes; pure, holy living; ever-increasing fruitfulness. All, all of these are the glad outcome of abiding in Christ. ~ Hudson Taylor.
The real secret of an unsatisfied life lies too often in an unsurrendered will. ~ Hudson Taylor.
It is not so much the greatness of our troubles, as the littleness of our spirit, which makes us complain. ~ Hudson Taylor.
If this is a real work for God it is a real conflict with Satan. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Let us give up our work, our thoughts, our plans, ourselves, our lives, our loved ones, our influence, our all, right into His hand, and then, when we have given all over to Him, there will be nothing left for us to trouble about, or to make trouble about. ~ Hudson Taylor.
At the timberline where the storms strike with the most fury, the sturdiest trees are found. ~ Hudson Taylor.
It does not matter how great the pressure is. What really matters is where the pressure lies – whether it comes between you and God, or whether it presses you nearer His heart. ~ Hudson Taylor.
I have found that there are three stages in every great work of God: first, it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done. ~ Hudson Taylor.
You do not need a great faith, but faith in a great God. ~ Hudson Taylor.
It matters not how great the pressure is, only where the pressure lies. As long as the pressure does not come between me and my Savior, but presses me to Him, then the greater the pressure, the greater my dependence upon Him. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Great Hudson Taylor Quotes
Do not have your concert first, and then tune your instrument afterwards. Begin the day with the Word of God and prayer, and get first of all into harmony with Him. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Do not work so hard for Christ that you have no strength to pray, for prayer requires strength. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Satan may build a hedge about us and fence us in and hinder our movements, but he cannot roof us in and prevent our looking up. ~ Hudson Taylor.
God means just what He says and He will do all that He has promised. ~ Hudson Taylor.
It is not lost time to wait upon God! ~ Hudson Taylor.
When I cannot read, when I cannot think, when I cannot even pray, I can trust. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and might things which thou knowest not. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Truly Jesus is the great need of our souls. ~ Hudson Taylor.
While unbelief sees the difficulties, faith sees God between itself and them. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Nothing can take the place of a real hunger for souls, or make up for the lack of it. ~ Hudson Taylor.
An easy, non-self-denying life will never be one of power. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Let us never forget that what we are is more important than what we do. ~ Hudson Taylor.
Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees. ~ Hudson Taylor.
All God’s giants have been weak men and women who have gotten hold of God’s faithfulness. ~ Hudson Taylor.
The harvest here is indeed great, and the laborers are few and imperfectly fitted, without much grace, for such a work. And yet grace can make a few feeble instruments the means of accomplishing great things – things greater even than we can conceive. ~ Hudson Taylor.
So these were the 73 top Hudson Taylor quotes and sayings.