At first Hudson felt angry at Mr. Vaughan. Why did he say yes to the marriage in the first place? Why didn’t he say what he really felt in the beginning? But the more he thought about it, the more he could sympathize with the way Mr. Vaughan felt. Over and over in his mind he played an imaginary conversation with Mr. Vaughan. The conversation went like this:
Mr. Vaughan: “Where are you going to live once you are married?”
Hudson: “China.”
Mr. Vaughan: “What part of China? After all, China is a very big country.”
Hudson: “I don’t know yet, God hasn’t shown me. But I believe it will be somewhere in the interior, somewhere where foreigners have never been.”
Mr. Vaughan: “What means of support will you have?”
Hudson: “The Chinese Evangelization Society might send me out, but I have not fully decided to take up their offer, nor are they financially stable. In short, we will go with nothing except what God supplies.”
Mr. Vaughan: “How often will you bring Marianne home to visit her family?”
Hudson: “I can’t promise you that you’ll ever see her again.”
When Hudson thought about things this way, it was easy to see why Mr. Vaughan was not eager for them to marry. But he loved Marianne. He was convinced she would make a wonderful wife. Of course, he could always not go to China. Marianne was always telling him that he could help many people at home in England as a doctor. Yet as much as he loved Marianne, he loved God more, and God had called him to China, with or without a wife. There was nothing left to do but end the engagement.
Although he was depressed over the breakup with Marianne, he was excited by the stories of the Taiping Rebellion that continued to be reported in The Gleaner. There was great optimism among churches and missionary societies that this could be the break they were all looking for, the break that would once and for all let missionaries penetrate into Inland China. With his head full of the events taking place in China, Hudson sometimes found it hard to focus on his medical studies.
It was at this time a major thought occurred to him. Yes, he loved medicine and the idea of being a doctor, but medical knowledge was simply a tool. He was called to be an evangelist, and if his medical training helped him to evangelize more effectively, then well and good. But one thing was for sure, he knew he wasn’t called to China to just start a hospital in one of the Treaty Ports. He was called to evangelize Inland China. And now the Taiping Rebellion seemed to be providing a wonderful opportunity to finally get where he knew he was called, deep into the very heart of China. So why should he continue on with his medical training when it was training him to be something he knew God hadn’t called him to be? No, it was time for him to be on his way to China.
At the same time that Hudson was having these thoughts, the Chinese Evangelization Society decided that the present opportunity in China was too good to miss. They decided to send two missionaries there immediately. When the society found out that Hudson Taylor was available, they soon decided that he should be the first to go. The Chinese Evangelization Society would pay for his trip to China and would send him money each month to meet his living expenses. He would go first to Shanghai and wait there until opportunities opened up for him to move farther inland.
Hudson was delighted.
The Chinese Evangelization Society booked him passage to China on the Dumfries, a two-masted sailing ship leaving from Liverpool on September 19 headed for Shanghai. Hudson quickly set about gathering the supplies he needed to take with him. Finally, several days before the Dumfries was due to sail, he arrived in Liverpool, where his family was waiting for him. Mr. Pearse from the Chinese Evangelization Society also joined them, as did Aunt Hannah. They all spent several wonderful days together.
Finally, September 19, 1853, arrived. The crew were just stowing the last of the cargo when Hudson arrived at the dock. Hudson went aboard, and the steward showed him to his cabin in the stern of the ship. The cabin had been freshly painted in honor of the only passenger of the trip. His family, Mr. Pearse, and a local minister all accompanied him to his cabin, where they prayed and read Psalms together. Finally, they had to leave the ship, as it was about to set sail. Hudson hugged his mother one last time, and when she was safely back on the dock, the mooring ropes were let go and the Dumfries slid away from the dock out into the Mersey River. Captain Morris gave the order to hoist the sails, and as the wind caught them, the ship began the three-mile trip down the Mersey to the Irish Sea. Hudson waved as hard as he could at his family on the dock, and as they began to fade from sight, he climbed into the rigging in hopes of getting one last look. He was twenty-one years old and on his way to China at last.
Four days out from Liverpool, the Dumfries ran into the fierce storm that nearly wrecked it and its crew on the rocks of the Welsh coast. It took Captain Morris and his crew nearly two weeks to repair all the damage done to the ship by the storm. Some of the crew had been injured in the storm, and Hudson was able to tend to their wounds. Finally, with all the damage repaired, the ship was able to get back under full sail as she headed down the west coast of Africa.
After the excitement of the storm in the Irish Sea had passed, the voyage soon become monotonous. At Christmastime, three months after leaving Liverpool, the ship reached the southernmost point on her voyage: the Cape of Good Hope. The Dumfries’ log showed that the ship had traveled 14,500 miles so far, but there was still a long way to go before she reached China.
By early January 1854, the Dumfries had begun the long haul across the Indian Ocean. She passed 120 miles off the northwestern tip of Australia and headed out among the tropical islands of the western Pacific Ocean for the last, slow leg of her voyage to Shanghai. Occasionally, she came close enough to an island for the inhabitants to paddle out to the ship to offer coconuts and shells in exchange for knives or blankets.
Days and nights in the tropics settled into a pattern. During the day the sea was calm and there was no wind, so the sailors would play cards, carve scrimshaw, and entertain each other with stories of what they would do when they got ashore. Occasionally, one of them would slip away from the group and stop by Hudson’s cabin. His door was always open, and he had many interesting discussions with crew members about aspects of the Sunday services he held on deck. At sunset the wind usually began to blow. If they were lucky, it would continue blowing until dawn. Some nights, though, the wind didn’t come at all. On those nights, the Dumfries covered less than seven miles. Captain Morris faithfully entered the distance covered each day into the ship’s log.
If their journey had begun with near disaster because of the overactivity of the wind and waves, it nearly ended in disaster for the exact opposite reason.
It was Sunday, and Hudson was holding his regular service on the aft deck of the Dumfries. Many crewmen sat around on barrels and coils of rope, listening as he preached, but Captain Morris didn’t seem to be paying attention to the service. This was unusual. The captain was a Methodist and thoroughly enjoyed having a young missionary aboard his ship. After the final hymn was sung, the captain walked to the side of the ship and peered worriedly into the water. Hudson joined him and asked what he was looking for. The answer was not comforting. They were becalmed and headed for disaster. The current was stronger than usual, about four knots, and it was carrying them towards a sunken reef. With no wind expected until nightfall, Captain Morris feared it would be too late, and the Dumfries would hit the reef and sink before then. This information sent shudders up Hudson’s spine. He had seen many sharks around the ship in the past few days, and he did not like the thought of having to swim for his life.
Becalmed is one word that strikes fear into the hearts of men on sailing ships. A storm, even a hurricane, can often be outrun, but a becalmed ship goes wherever the current takes it, and there is nothing that can be done about it. In the Irish Sea, the Dumfries had nearly been lost because of too much wind. Now, it seemed, she would be lost because of too little wind. It was a desperate situation. And even though Captain Morris knew that nothing could be done about the wind, his crew begged him to let them try something. So he allowed them to put to sea in the longboats. They connected heavy ropes from the Dumfries to the longboats and then strained at the oars, trying to row the ship against the current. But she would not be swayed and continued to drift.
Silently, the crew climbed the rope net back on board the Dumfries. Their best efforts had done no good. It was hopeless. By the time the evening breeze came, it would be far too late for the ship and her crew.
How strange to meet death on such a calm and beautiful day, Hudson thought as he peered over the side of the Dumfries. Then Captain Morris broke into his thoughts. “We’ve done everything we can,” he said. “We can only wait and see what happens next.”
The captain’s words echoed in Hudson’s head. We’ve done everything we can…but had they?
An idea came to him. Enthusiastically, he turned to Captain Morris and said, “There is one thing we have not done yet.”
“And what is that?” asked the captain, surprised that Hudson would think he knew something about rescuing becalmed ships.
“Four of us on board are Christians. Let’s each go to his own cabin and agree together to pray and ask God to give us wind right away. He can just as easily send it now as at sunset.”
Captain Morris agreed, since no one but God could help them now. He hurried off to his cabin while Hudson located the ship’s Swedish carpenter and the steward, the other two Christians aboard.
In his cabin, Hudson prayed hard for a few minutes and then felt as though some burden had been lifted from him. He was confident that God had heard their prayers and would answer them. Getting up off his knees, he strode back up on deck. The first officer was standing, smoking a pipe on the foredeck.
“Hurry, let the mainsail down all the way,” Hudson told him.
The first officer sneered at him, “What would be the point of that?”
“The Christians on board have been praying for wind, and it will come any moment now. I suggest you get ready for it.”
The first officer laughed heartily. A young missionary was telling him how to run a ship. There would be no wind until sunset, and to make his point, he turned toward the sail. Did it flutter a little? Perhaps. But a flutter would do them no good.
As the first officer stood there, a much stronger gust of wind swept across the ship. This time he wasted no time. “All hands on deck,” he yelled, as he grabbed hold of one of the halyards. The crew came running, and not far behind them was Captain Morris, who had heard all the commotion from his cabin. It was a wonderful, strong breeze that blew. Within minutes the Dumfries was ploughing through the Pacific Ocean at seven knots. Each minute that passed took them farther away from the dangerous reef and closer to Shanghai.
Chapter 8
China at Last
Hudson looked over the side of the Dumfries and saw Chinese soil. Not dry land, but soil—tons of it, mixed with water and tumbling out of the Yangtze River. Captain Morris had told him they were at anchor in the river mouth. Hudson would not have otherwise known, because a cold damp fog pressed so tightly around the ship that it was impossible to make out land on either side. They had dropped anchor to wait for the harbor pilot to arrive and guide them first to Woo-sung, then fifteen miles on up the Hwang-poo River to the docks of Shanghai.
Like the rest of the crew, after five and a half months at sea, Hudson was eager to hear any news the pilot might have of England and the situation with the Taiping Rebellion. But there wasn’t much to do while he waited for the harbor pilot to arrive. So he packed and repacked his trunk several times, then went up and paced the well-worn decks of the Dumfries. He peered into the foggy whiteness, hoping to catch a glimpse of land. It was so frustrating. He had been preparing for five years to come to China, and now that he was here he couldn’t even see it.
