'An adventurous spirit, a courageous faith and a trailblazing call to China'
 

Until now little has been told of Jennie Hudson Taylor, the second wife of China Inland Mission (CIM) founder James Hudson Taylor.

Yet her background, her adventurous personality, and above all her unshakeable commitment to obedience to the call of God, all combined to prepare her to be a true pioneer 

Biographer Marion Osgood explains more

James Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission (CIM) are household names in most Christian circles. Some might have heard of ‘Hudson Taylor’s wife’. But that would be Maria of course, about whom much is written, but who sadly died at a young age.

Taylor remarried, and he was married to Jennie for almost three times as long. It could be said that, standing alongside her husband, the founder and leader of the Mission, she was the second most significant person in the CIM for over 30 years – yet she has not until now had her own story told.

Growing up within the Baptist church my parents attended, I was introduced early to the fascination of the mission field. I thoroughly enjoyed those jerky film strips with their uncoordinated soundtracks. And when I later came to read the stories of the CIM, and those of other mission societies, I developed a new seriousness, which made me consider my own position and availability. I little realised one day I would be contributing a new missionary biography myself.

Now later in life I find myself working as archivist for OMF International (UK). (Overseas Missionary Fellowship is the name which the China Inland Mission adopted when they escaped from Communist China in the 1950s, and started working elsewhere in south-east Asia.)

From the archives I learnt much about Hudson Taylor – and also discovered the brave and adventurous pioneering young lady who as a 22 year-old joined CIM’s first party to China, and who later became Taylor’s second wife.

Surely, I thought, if Jennie Taylor could survive two typhoons, cholera, and near-death in childbirth, if she could lead a small team of women hundreds of miles further into inland China than any western woman had ever previously gone (and further than her husband, at that point), then she must be worthy of her own book.

Miss Jane Faulding, as she was to start with, came from a middle-class, good Christian family, attending Regent’s Park Baptist Chapel with her parents and siblings.

Like many London ‘chapels’ of the Victorian era, Regent’s Park was of vast proportions. The interior, more like a theatre (which it had once been) than a place of worship, seated 1,500, and there was a Sunday school of 1,000 held underneath the tiered seating. The minister preached missionary sermons, and the needs of the poor were not forgotten either.

The church was outward-looking and generous – yet it was somehow just not thought possible, as in British churches generally, for the majority of either men or women to risk their lives in going abroad. Those who managed it were in a class of bravery which, with the safety of modern travel and healthcare, just does not exist nowadays. Young Jane Faulding was almost literally one in a million.

In writing Jennie’s incredible story I have not primarily sought to instruct. I enjoy the writing and researching process, and in fact I found her life so compelling I was just excited to realise no writer had got there ahead of me!

My aim was simply to craft the best possible page-turner, while being faithful to the facts of her life, and interpreting insightfully her inner world. It can be painful to learn lessons from the life of someone who appeared to suffer more than we feel we would ever be prepared to do. We are all created differently, with different capacities for hard work, and yes, even suffering. Sometimes we are called to be stretched, beyond what we thought possible; but more often we are called simply to obey in the every day.

At times Jennie faced challenges even her brave heart would not have chosen. Yet at other times she knew deep contentment in what to her (but maybe not to us!) were periods of comparative routine.

May this book be a blessing to you, at whichever level you identify, as you seek to obey God in living out the life which only you can live.
 

From a background in nursing, and in church ministry, Marion Osgood is now Archivist for OMF International (UK).

Her new book - Jennie Hudson Taylor - publishes on 14 February. Find out more about Marion and her other books here

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