Nothing Too Precious

Here's another gem from Hudson Taylor's biography.

It was in Mr. Frost's home town of Attica the incident had taken place, at one of the first farewell meetings [for missionaries leaving for China]. The father of a dear girl in the party, Miss Susie Parker, had come over from Pittsfield, Mass., and was sitting near the platform. Seeing a wonderful light on his face, Mr. [Hudson] Taylor invited him to say a few words.

"He told us with a father's feelings," Mr. Taylor loved to recall, "what his daughter had been in the home, to him and to her mother; what she had been in the mission-hall in which he worked, and something of what it meant to part with her now.

"'But I could only feel,' he said, 'that I have nothing too precious for my Lord Jesus. He has asked for my very best; and I give, with all my heart, my very best to Him.' 

"That sentence was the richest thing I got in America, and has been an untold blessing to me ever since. Sometimes when pressed with correspondence the hour has come for united prayer, and the thought has arisen, ought I not to go on with this or that matter? Then it has come back to me--'Nothing too precious for my Lord Jesus.' The correspondence has been left to be cared for afterwards, and one has had the joy of fellowship unhindered. Sometimes waking in the morning, very weary, the hour has come for hallowed communion with the Lord alone; and there is no time like the early morning for getting the harp in tune for the music of the day. Then it has come again--'Nothing too precious for my Lord Jesus,' and one has risen to find that there is no being tired with Him. That thought also has been a real help to me when leaving my loved ones in England: indeed, I could never tell how many hundreds of times God has given me a blessing through those words." 

--Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission: Volume II: The Growth of a Work of God by Dr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor, p. 454-455