Hudson Taylor

James Hudson Taylor (Chinese: 戴德生; pinyin: dài dé shēng; 21 May 1832 – 3 June 1905) is regarded as one of the most "important and influential missionaries of all time." He was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission (CIM, now OMF International). Taylor visited or lived in China over a period of 51 years. The CIM that he founded in 1865 became the largest of many missionary organizations in China. By 1910, it had more than 800 missionaries to the country, created 125 schools, and converted more than 20,000 Chinese to Christianity, as well as establishing more than 300 stations of work with more than 499 local helpers based in all 18 provinces. Taylor was known for his zeal for evangelism and for mimicking Chinese culture. He adopted wearing native Chinese clothing even though this was very rare among missionaries of that time. Under his leadership, the CIM was singularly non-denominational and accepted members from all Protestant groups, including individuals from the working class and single women as well as multinational recruits. Historian Ruth Tucker summarizes the theme of his life: "No other missionary in the nineteen centuries since the Apostle Paul has had a wider vision and has carried out a more systematized plan of evangelizing a broad geographical area than Hudson Taylor." Taylor was able to preach in several varieties of Chinese, including Mandarin, Chaozhou, and the Wu dialects of Shanghai and Ningbo. The last of these he knew well enough to help prepare a colloquial edition of the New Testament written in it.