Not prepared to trust Him without

What follows is an excerpt from Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret. It has rebuked me and encouraged me many a time:

After concluding my last service about ten o'clock that night, a poor man asked me to go and pray with his wife, saying that she was dying. I readily agreed, and on the way asked him why he had not sent for the priest, as his accent told me that he was an Irishman. He had done so, he said, but the priest had refused to come without a payment of eighteen pence, which the man did not possess as the family was starving. Immediately it occurred to my mind that all the money I had in the world was the solitary half -crown, and that it was in one coin; moreover that while the basin of water-gruel I usually took for supper was awaiting me, and there was sufficient in the house for breakfast in the morning, I certainly had nothing for dinner on the coming day.

Somehow or other there was at once a stoppage in the flow of joy in my heart. But instead of reproving myself I began to reprove the poor man, telling him that it was very wrong to have allowed matters to get into such a state as he had described, and that he ought to have applied to the relieving officer. His answer was that he had done so, and was told to come at eleven o'clock the next morning, but that he feared his wife might not live through the night.

'Ah,' thought I, 'if only I had two shillings and a sixpence instead of this half-crown, how gladly would I give these poor people a shilling!' But to part with the half-crown was far from my thoughts. I little dreamed that the truth of the matter simply was that I could trust God plus one-and-sixpence, but was not prepared to trust Him only, without any money at all in my pocket.

My conductor led me into a court, down which I followed him with some degree of nervousness. I had found myself there before, and at my last visit had been roughly handled. . . . Up a miserable flight of stairs into a wretched room he led me, and oh what a sight there presented itself! Four or five children stood about, their sunken cheeks and temples telling unmistakably the story of slow starvation, and lying on a wretched pallet was a poor, exhausted mother, with a tiny infant thirty-six hours old moaning rather than crying at her side.

'Ah!' thought I, 'if I had two shillings and a sixpence, instead of this half-crown, how gladly should they have one-and-sixpence of it.' But still a wretched unbelief prevented me from obeying the impulse to relieve their distress at the cost of all I possessed.

It will scarcely seem strange that I was unable to say much to comfort these poor people. I needed comfort myself. I began to tell them, however, that they must not be cast down; that though their circumstances were very distressing there was a kind and loving Father in heaven. But something within me cried, 'You hypocrite! Telling these unconverted people about a kind and loving Father in heaven, and not prepared to trust Him without a half-crown.'

I nearly choked. How gladly would I have compromised with conscience, if I had had a florin an sixpence! I would have given the florin thankfully and kept the rest. But I was not yet prepared to trust in God alone, without the sixpence.

To talk was impossible under these circumstances, yet strange to say I thought I should have no difficulty in praying. Prayer was a delightful occupation in those days. Time thus spent never seemed wearisome and I knew no lack of words. I seemed to think that all I should have to do would be to kneel down and pray, and that relief would come to them and to myself together.

'You asked me to come and pray with your wife,' I said to the man; 'let us pray.' And I knelt down.

But no sooner had I opened my lips with, 'Our Father who art in heaven,' that conscience said within, 'Dare you mock God? Dare you kneel down and call Him "Father" with that half-crown in your pocket?'

Such a time of conflict then came upon me as I had never experienced before. How I got through that form of prayer I know not, and whether the words uttered were connected or disconnected. But I arose from my knees in great distress of mind.
The poor father turned to me and said, 'You see what a terrible state we are in, sir. If you can help us, for God's sake do!'

At that moment the word flashed into my mind, 'Give to him that asked of thee.' And in the word of a King there is power.

I put my hand into my pocket and slowly drawing out the half-crown gave it to the man, telling him that it might seem a small matter for me to relieve them, seeing that I was comparatively well off, but that in parting with that coin I was giving him my all; but that what I had been trying to tell them was indeed true, God really was a Father and might be trusted. And how the joy came back in full flood time into my heart! I could say anything and feel it then, and the hindrance to blessing was gone - gone, I trust, forever.

Not only was the poor woman's life saved, but my life as I fully realised had been saved too. It might have been a wreck - would have been, probably, as a Christian life - had not grace at that time conquered and the striving of God's Spirit been obeyed.

I well remember that night as I went home to my lodgings how my heart was as light as my pocket. The dark, deserted streets resounded with a hymn of praise that I could not restrain. When I took my basin of gruel before retiring, I would not have exchanged it for a prince's feast. Reminding the Lord as I knelt at my bedside of His own Word, 'He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord,' I asked Him not to let my loan be a long one, or I should have no dinner the next day. And with peace within and peace without, I spent a happy, restful night.

Next morning my plate of porridge remained for breakfast, and before it was finished the postman's knock was heard at the door. I was not in the habit of receiving letters on Monday, as my parents and most of my friends refrained from posting on Saturday, so that I was somewhat surprised when the landlady came in holding a letter or packet in her wet hand covered by her apron. I looked at the letter, but could not make out the handwriting. It was either a strange hand, or a feigned one, and the postmark was blurred. Where it came from I could not tell. On opening the envelope I found nothing written within, but inside a sheet of blank paper was folded a pair of kid gloves from which, as I opened them in astonishment, half-a-sovereign fell to the ground.

'Praise the Lord,' I exclaimed, 'four hundred per cent for a twelve hours' investment! How gladly would the merchants be if they could lend their money at such a rate of interest!' Then and there I determined that a bank that could not break should have my savings or earnings as the case might be, a determination that I have not yet learned to regret.

I cannot tell you how often my mind has recurred to this incident, or all the help it has been to me in circumstances of difficulty. 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. (Taylor, Dr. and Mrs. Howard. "Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret." London: China Inland Mission. 1935, p25-27)

I have never been in the situation of having all my worldly savings in my pocket, and yet how often have I begrudged giving because I had a big bill and not a smaller one in my wallet!