"But God makes no mistakes; according to their service He divides the help, and those who are called to the holiest service are those who can have least assistance."

"At home you can never know what it is to be alone – absolutely alone, amidst thousands, as you can in a Chinese city, without one friend, one companion, everyone looking on you with curiosity, with contempt, with suspicion or with dislike. Thus to learn what it is to be despised and rejected of men – of those you wish to benefit, your motives not understood . . . and then to have the love of Jesus applied to your heart by the Holy Spirit . . . this is worth coming for."

"And he who in all things recognises himself as the servant of GOD may count on a sufficiency from GOD for all manner of need, and look with confident expectation to GOD to really prosper him in whatever he does."

"An easy-going non-self-denying life will never be one of power."

"Brighton, 25 June 1965: “All at once came the thought – If you are simply obeying the LORD, all the responsibility will rest on Him, not on you! What a relief!! Well, I cried to God – You shall be responsible for them, and for me too!”"

"After proving God’s faithfulness for many years, I can testify that times of want have ever been times of spiritual blessing, or have led to them."

"A little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in little things is a great thing."

"Argument almost always leaves behind a sore feeling in the heart of the one who has been worsted. By loving teaching, by Christ-like living, we are to win this people for our Lord. They do not understand what disinterested love and unselfishness mean: you are to go and live it amont them."

"I so want you to realise this principle of working with God and asking Him for everything. If the work is at the command of God, then we can go to Him in full confidence for workers; and when God gives the workers, we can go to Him for means to supply their needs."

"Fruit-bearing involves cross-bearing. We know how the Lord Jesus became fruitful – not by bearing His Cross merely, but by dying on it. Do we know much of fellowship with Him in this?"

"The vine . . . is not the root merely, but all - root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit: and Jesus is not only that: He is soil and sunshine, air and showers, and ten thousand times more than we ever dreamed, wished for, or needed."

"You do not need a great faith, but faith in a great God."

"You are not sent to preach death and sin and judgment, but life and holiness and salvation – not to be a witness against the people, but to be a witness for God – to preach the good news – Christ Himself."

"Work is the outcome of effort; fruit, of life."

"With GOD all things are possible, and no conviction ever takes place save by the almighty power of the HOLY GHOST. The great need, therefore, of every Christian worker is to know GOD."

"While unbelief sees the difficulties, faith sees God between itself and them."

"Where the need is greatest let us be found gladly obeying the MASTER’S command. For it is in the harvest-field, it is among the reapers, that we shall find Him."

"When you need it, rest in body; rest always in spirit."

"When the heart submits, then Jesus reigns When Jesus reigns, there is rest."

"What I have to watch against is impatience at waiting His time."

"We wish to see churches and Christian Chinese presided over by pastors and officers of their own countrymen, worshipping the true God in the land of their fathers, in the costume of their fathers, in their own tongue wherein they were born, and in edifices of a thoroughly Chinese style of architecture."

"We shall find that Separation to GOD is followed by Blessing from GOD; and that those who receive large blessing from Him, in turn render to Him acceptable Service; service in which GOD takes delight, and which He places in everlasting remembrance."

"We may fail, do fail continually, but He never fails."

"On September 13, 1888, Jonathan Goforth, famed Canadian pioneer Presbyterian missionary to China, made his first exploration tour of North Honan. Honan was considered one of the most anti-foreign and dangerous parts of China. Yet God had called Goforth to it. Hudson Taylor wrote him, “We have been trying, unsuccessfully, for ten years, to get into Honan. We’ve been beaten, stoned, and turned back time and again. Brother, if you would enter that province, you must go forward on your knees!"

"We have so often been disappointed that we must not be too sure of anything, save of God’s help and presence which He will never withhold."

"We believe that the time has come for doing more fully what He has commanded us; and by His grace we intend to do it. Not to try, for we see no Scriptural authority for trying. Try is a word constantly in the mouth of unbelievers, . . . far too often taken up by believers. In our experience, ‘to try’ has usually meant ‘to fail’. (The Lord’s) command is not ‘Do your best,’ but ‘DO IT’."

"We are taking our four little children, and I never need anyone to remind me that they need their breakfast . . . dinner . . . supper. And I cannot imagine that our heavenly Father is less able or less willing to remember His children’s needs, when He sends them forth to the end of the earth about His business."

"Wave after wave of trial rolled over us; but at the end of the year some of us were constrained to confess, that we had learned more of the loving-kindness of the Lord than in any previous year of our lives."

"True devotion will rather ask to be allowed to give, and will count as loss all which may not be given up for the Lord’s sake."

"To know and to do His will – this is our safety; this is our rest."

"Those who do not make God Lord of all, do not make Him Lord at all"

"There is great danger of not, in happiness, finding our delight in the Lord."

"There are three great truths, 1st, That there is a God; 2nd, That He has spoken to us in the Bible; 3rd, That He means what He says. Oh, the joy of trusting Him!"

"The work of a true missionary is work indeed, often very monotonous, apparently not very successful, and carried on through great and varied but unceasing difficulties."

"The work . . . is steadily growing and spreading – especially in that most important department, native help. . . . The future hope of China doubtless lies in them. I look on all us foreign missionaries as platform work round a rising building; the sooner it can be dispensed with the better; or rather, the sooner it can be transferred to other places, to serve the same temporary purpose, the better for the work sufficiently forward to dispense with it, and the better for the places yet to be evangelized."

"The use of means ought not to lessen our faith in GOD; and our faith in GOD ought not to hinder our using whatever means He has given us for the accomplishment of His own purposes."

"The sin of neglected communion may be forgiven, and yet the effect remains permanently."

"The more we rest on this fact, – that we do not know the way we are going, but that we have a GUIDE who does know; that we do not know how to accomplish our service, but that He never leaves us to devise our own service; – the more restful does our life become."

"The missionaries should be men of apostolic zeal, patience, endurance, willing to be all things to all men. May the Lord raise up suitable instruments, and fit me for this work."

"The highest service demands the greatest sacrifice, but it secures the fullest blessing and the greatest fruitfulness."

"The Apostolic plan was not to raise ways and means, but to go and do the work."

"Some are jealous of being successors of the Apostles. I would rather be a successor of the Samaritan woman, who, while the Apostles went for meat and forgot souls, forgot her water pot in her zeal to spread the good tidings."

"Self-denial surely means somethings far greater than some slight and insignificant lessening of our self-indulgences!"

"Satan may build a hedge about us and fence us in and hinder our movements, but he cannot roof us in and prevent our looking up."

"Real trust in God cannot be confounded."

"“Pray for those you send, shield them by prayer."

"Power with God will be the gauge of real power with men."

"Our eyes must be upon the Lord, not upon His people. His means – not ours, not theirs, but His means are large; and to a faithful steward He will prove a faithful master."

"One difficulty follows another very fast – but God reigns, not chance."