§ IV
1910s, At the Feet of the Master (1911)
Context: These three great crimes you must avoid, for they are fatal to all progress, because they sin against love. But not only must you thus refrain from evil; you must be active in doing good. You must be so filled with the intense desire of service that you are ever on the watch to render it to all around you — not to man alone, but even to animals and plants. You must render it in small things every day, that the habit may be formed, so that you may not miss the rare opportunity when the great thing offers itself to be done. For if you yearn to be one with God, it is not for your own sake; it is that you may be a channel through which His love may flow to reach your fellow-men.
He who is on the Path exists not for himself, but for others; he has forgotten himself, in order that he may serve them. He is as a pen in the hand of God, through which His thought may flow, and find for itself an expression down here, which without a pen it could not have. Yet at the same time he is also a living plume of fire, raying out upon the world the Divine Love which fills his heart.
The wisdom which enables you to help, the will which directs the wisdom, the love which inspires the will — these are your qualifications. Will, Wisdom and Love are the three aspects of the Logos; and you, who wish to enroll yourselves to serve Him, must show forth these aspects in the world.
“Let there be no reservation; give yourselves up fully and wholly to Him whose you are and whom you wish to serve in this work; and then there can be no disappointment.”
(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Four: Survivors’ Pact. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1984, 358).
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James Hudson Taylor 88
Missionary in China 1832–1905Related quotes
“To others never do
That which yourselves would wish undone to you.”
Book XXVIII, line 591
Translations, Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto (1773)
“To others never do
That which yourselves would wish undone to you.”
Non far altrui quel che patir non vuoi.
Canto XXVIII, stanza 82 (tr. J. Hoole)
Orlando Furioso (1532)
“When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.”
Source: A Farewell to Arms
Letter to Frances Stevenson (22 January 1929), quoted in My Darling Pussy: The Letters of Lloyd George and Frances Stevenson, 1913–41, ed. A. J. P. Taylor (1975), p. 114
Leader of the Liberal Party
Session 174, Page 171
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