HUDSON TAYLOR'S CONFESSION

"I prayed, fasted, agonised, strove, made resolutions, read the Bible more diligently, sought more time for retirement and meditation-but all without effect. Every day- almost every hour-the consciousness of sin oppressed me. Then came the question: 'Is there no rescue? Must it be this to the end-constant conflict, and instead of Victory, too often defeat?' I hated myself, I hated my sin, and yet I gained no strength against it. I felt I was a child of God, but how to
rise to my privileges as a child I was utterly powerless to see. I thought that holiness, practical holiness, was to be gradually attained by a diligent use of the means of grace. I felt there was nothing I so much desired in the world, nothing I so much needed. When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a latter was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed the truth of our oneness with Jesus."

What was this letter? What was the sentence? The letter runs: "By faith a channel is formed by which Christ's fullness plenteously flows down. The barren branch becomes a portion of the fruitful stem. He is most holy who has most of Christ within. It is defective faith, which clogs the feet and causes many a fall. Abiding-not struggling or striving: looking off to Him; trusting Him for present power; trusting Him to subdue all inward corruption; resting in the conscious joy of a complete salvation; a salvation from all sin: willing that He should be truly supreme. That is
NOT NEW, YET IT IS NEW TO ME. I seem to have got to the edge only, but to the edge of a sea that is boundless.

Christ literally ALL seems to me now the power-the only power-for service; the only ground for unchanging joy. Now, then, is this faith increased? Only by thinking of all that JESUS is and all that He is for us: His life, His death, His work, HIMSELF, as revealed to us in His Word, to be the subject of our constant thoughts. Not a striving to have faith, or to increase our faith, but a looking off to the FAITHFUL ONE seems all we need-a resting in the Loved One entirely for time and eternity. IT DOES NOT APPEAR TO ME ANYTHING NEW-only formerly
misapprehended."