and believing this prayer to be answered. And he was not mistaken; for on the 26th of April, just one fortnight after Mr. Crombie's departure, Miss Skinner sailed for China in the Prince Alfred, Captain Ellison, her passage and outfit all provided by a prayer-answering God, through His believing people. She sailed, too, under the escort of a missionary and his wife, and in a vessel whose captain and chief officer were both Christian men. After a pleasant arid useful voyage she safely reached her destination, and was in due course united in marriage to Mr. Crombie.
FORMATION OF THE CHINA INLAND MISSION
When Miss Skinner had sailed, the prayer was fully answered which had been first offered to the Lord in China in the year 1859, for five additional labourers for the work in Ningpo and the province of Cheh-kiang; and we felt in 1865, that in going forward and seeking from the Lord twenty-four more labourers for the interior provinces, we were not entering on a new and untried path of service. The same God who raised up these five workers could raise up others to follow them, and to extend the work into every province of China. We believed that He could—that He would—raise up, "willing, skilful men" for every department of service. All we proposed to do was to lay hold on His faithfulness who called us to this service; and in obedience to His call, and in reliance on His power, to enlarge the sphere of our operations, for the glory of His name who alone doeth wondrous things.
The question, however, was sometimes raised as to whether the interior of China, though evidently needing the gospel, and nominally open to us by treaty-right, would, in point of fact, prove accessible. We met this question by another:—When the Lord Jesus gives a definite command, is it our place to ask whether it can be obeyed or not? The terms of His command are explicit,—in "all the world" and "to every creature." He would have the gospel preached; and He answers every objection and meets every difficulty in the very outset, by assuring us that all power is given unto Him in heaven and in earth; and that He who is true, and therefore can neither fail nor forget—who hath the key of David, to open or to shut as pleaseth Him—is with us alway, even unto the end of the world. The dangers and difficulties in the way we knew would be neither few nor small; but with Jesus for our leader we feared not to follow on. We expected that dangers, and difficulties, and trials, while leading to a greater realisation of our own weakness, and poverty, and need, would also constrain us to lean more constantly, to draw more deeply,
