Hudson fit right back into work at the hospital with Dr. Parker. And with John Jones, he also continued to preach in and around Ning-po.
The weeks quickly rolled by, and soon it was Christmas. Everyone tried to have fun, because in the back of everyone’s mind was the thought that this could be the last Christmas spent together in Ning-po. Even as they danced and sang, the threat of another Opium War was never far from their thoughts.
The latest situation had started when the Arrow, which was actually a Chinese ship flying the British flag, was boarded and opium was found. The Arrow’s crew were dragged off and imprisoned by Chinese officials. The British were furious. How dare Chinese officials board a ship flying the Union Jack? Actually, the Chinese had every right to board the ship, since the Arrow had no right to be flying the British flag in the first place. The British, though, didn’t worry too much about that. To them it was the Chinese trying to interfere with their trade again. And it had to stop. The British demanded an immediate apology or they would bomb Canton. When the Chinese didn’t apologize, the British lit their cannons and bombarded the city.
Many foreigners, including Hudson, sided with the Chinese point of view. The British needed to remember that they were guests in a foreign country. But to the Chinese, all foreigners were the same. Some Chinese groups even offered to pay a bounty for the head of every foreign devil brought to them. This put all foreigners in China in a very difficult position. In Hong Kong, a baker put arsenic in his bread and sold the loaves only to foreigners. Thankfully, he didn’t use quite enough arsenic, and while many people got sick from eating the bread, no one died. In Ning-po itself, a group of Portuguese merchants were attacked and killed. Many missionaries were beginning to think they should leave Ning-po; China didn’t seem to be a safe place any more.
The missionaries knew they were most likely to be attacked when they were all in one group, but they continued to meet for church and prayer meetings anyway. What they didn’t know was that a band of angry Chinese men had asked the local magistrate for permission to kill all the missionaries in Ning-po. The magistrate had given his permission, and all that remained was to wait for the missionaries to gather for church on Sunday. It was arranged that the largest group of men would attack the church service, while a smaller group would round up and kill any missionary who wasn’t at church.
One of the men planning the attack had a friend who worked for a missionary. He knew that when they carried out their plan, his friend might well be killed along with the foreigners, so he warned him of the attack. The man then told the missionary that employed him about the plan. News spread quickly among the missionaries. They decided to pray about the situation and called a special prayer meeting.
At the same time, a junior mandarin heard about the plan to kill the missionaries and went to the magistrate. He pointed out that if all the missionaries in the city were killed, it would anger foreigners so much that Ning-po would be attacked just as Canton had been. He pointed out that the British had the power to kill every Chinese person in Ning-po and level every building in return for the attack. The magistrate had not thought about this, and when he did, it scared him. He quickly sent out an order canceling the attack.
The prayers of the missionaries had been answered. But even though their lives had been spared this time, things were still very tense in Ning-po. Some missionaries hired bodyguards, but what was to stop the bodyguards from killing the missionaries?
Finally, it was decided that the women and children should go back to Shanghai and wait there until things settled down in Ning-po. Hudson and John Jones were asked to escort them.
The Dyer sisters, though, refused to go. They felt they needed to stay behind and help Mrs. Bausum keep the orphanage and school open.
Two boats were hired to take the women and children to Shanghai. As they sailed up the Grand Canal away from Ning-po, Hudson had the strangest thought. He wondered whether he would ever see Maria again.
Back in Shanghai, he couldn’t get Maria out of his mind. So finally he wrote a letter to her and asked if she would be willing to get to know him better, with the possibility that they might one day get married.
Maria was thrilled to get Hudson’s letter. She hadn’t even been sure he knew she cared about him. But her joy was over when she told Miss Aldersey about the letter. Miss Aldersey was shocked. How dare Hudson Taylor, the silly little man parading himself around like a Chinaman, think he could marry one of “her” girls. He could barely support himself. What hope did he have of supporting Maria or making her happy? Such a marriage would be an embarrassment. It was unthinkable, and she was going to make sure it never happened.
She immediately wrote a letter to Mr. Tarn, Maria’s uncle and guardian in London, and warned him that some undesirable missionary had fallen in love with his niece. Having written that letter, she called Maria into her study and made her write a letter telling Hudson she did not want to marry him and asking him never to mention the subject again.
Hudson was disappointed by Maria’s letter, but even he’d begun to wonder exactly what he had to offer a wife. He put the letter aside and turned his attention to another troubling matter.
Since being in Shanghai, Hudson and John Jones had discovered that the Chinese Evangelization Society was borrowing the money they were sending to their missionaries. This worried both men. Hudson did not believe in borrowing for himself, and he found it difficult to accept someone else borrowing for him. He and John Jones prayed about what they should do. Finally, they both decided they should resign from the Chinese Evangelization Society.
Hudson now had no missionary society backing him and no other source of income. He was alone and was relying on God to meet all his needs, just as he had done in Hull and London.
While in Shanghai, Hudson also thought a lot about the challenge foreign missionaries faced in China, and he came to a conclusion: China was not going to be reached with the Gospel if the job was left to foreigners alone. There were too many difficulties to be overcome. The best thing for foreigners to do was train Chinese people to take the Gospel deep into China to their own people.
Hudson shared his insights with John Jones, and the two of them decided that when they got back to Ning-po they would throw their energy into starting a church in the house on Bridge Street, where they could train up Chinese Christians to go and share the Gospel.
After two months in Shanghai, the situation in Ning-po settled down, and the women and children were able to return.
After he got back, Hudson would sometimes see Maria at a friend’s house, but they did not speak to each other more than they had to. But as he continued to think about things with Maria, Hudson wondered if Miss Aldersey might be at the bottom of Maria’s letter of rejection. So he decided to pay her a visit. It was not a pleasant visit, but he did find out that she had made Maria write the letter to him. He also found out a few other things. Miss Aldersey made it very clear to him that she did not think he was fit to ask anyone to be his wife. Her comments reminded him of the letter from Marianne’s father three years earlier.
After his visit, things got worse for him. Miss Aldersey started rumors around the community about Hudson. But despite her efforts, Hudson would not give up. He had to know how Maria felt about him. The opportunity to ask her came not long afterwards, when there was a women’s prayer meeting at the Bridge Street church. Hudson had gone out for the evening so as not to disturb the women. When he returned, he saw that not all the women had left. His heart beat faster. He opened the door, and sure enough, Maria was still there, sitting by the window. Mrs. Bausum sat beside her, but Miss Aldersey had already left. This was Hudson’s chance. He asked Mrs. Bausum if he could talk with Maria, and soon the three of them were alone in one of the upstairs rooms. Hudson pretended Mrs. Bausum was not there, as he told Maria that he loved her. Maria smiled and nodded; she loved Hudson, too. Within minutes, things were settled. Hudson would write to Mr. Tarn and ask his permission to marry Maria.
When Miss Aldersey found out that Maria and Hudson had met and talked together, she was furious. She wrote Hudson a rude letter, telling him he ought to be ashamed to call himself a Christian, going around luring young missionary girls who did not know any better. But all her ranting did no good. Mr. Tarn wrote back and gave his permission for Hudson and Maria to be married. And so they were.
On January 20, 1858, one year after Hudson had taken the women and children away from Ning-po to safety in Shanghai, he was standing at the front of a church with Maria, who wore a gray silk dress with a long wedding veil. He, himself, had freshly dyed his queue and bought a new suit of Chinese clothes for the wedding. As he stood at the front of the church, he felt that he was the luckiest man alive to have such a beautiful bride.
Hudson and Maria had their honeymoon in a wonderful old monastery in the hills overlooking Ning-po. They were very happy together. Unfortunately, after only two weeks of marriage, Maria became very ill. She had typhoid, a disease that was often deadly. Hudson took care of her, but just as she was beginning to get better, Hudson came down with the disease himself. Mrs. Bausum kindly looked after them both, and it was April before Hudson and Maria were well enough to move into the Bridge Street house together. Indeed, it would be many years before Hudson was completely well again.
A year went by, and Hudson continued to work hard at establishing a church in the Bridge Street house while Maria opened a small school for girls. Those were happy times for Hudson and Maria, but during the second year of their marriage, some changes took place. In July a baby daughter was born. They named her Grace Dyer Taylor. She was a pretty little girl, and everyone loved to make her laugh.
The next change was a sad one. In August, Dr. Parker’s wife became ill with cholera and died within two days. Everyone was stunned by her sudden death, and Dr. Parker was too upset to go on with his medical work. He decided to take their four children back to Scotland, where his parents could help him raise them.
But who would run the hospital he had labored so hard to establish? There was no other qualified doctor in all of Ning-po to take it over. The hospital would have to close. But what about the dispensary? Here, all eyes fell on Hudson. It wasn’t possible for him to keep it open, Hudson protested. Dr. Parker treated private, foreign patients to make money to keep the hospital and dispensary open. Since Hudson was not a qualified doctor, he couldn’t do that.
Still, he agreed to consider it, and he and Maria fasted and prayed. After several days, Hudson felt that he should take over not only the dispensary but also the hospital. Somehow, with God’s help, they would make it work.
Dr. Parker left them with enough money to run the hospital for a month, and then, eight days after burying his wife, he left for Scotland.
The hospital turned out to be a wonderful place for the Chinese Christians from the Bridge Street church to learn how to serve each other. The church had decided that the hospital should be its project. Members of the congregation worked day after day at the hospital without pay. They cleaned and washed, sang and preached. Hudson could not have been happier than to see the Chinese people he had trained reaching out to others.
But they still needed money to run the hospital. Everyone watched eagerly as the money ran out. They wondered if Hudson was right. Would God send more money?
The situation became serious. A year and a half earlier, Hudson didn’t know if he could support a wife, and now he had a wife, a child, and a hospital to pay for.
