Phyllis Thompson

D. E. Hoste Phyllis Thompson

D. E. Hoste was one of the "Cambridge Seven" who went to China as missionaries in 1885. In 1900 he succeeded Hudson Taylor as the general director of the China Inland Mission, now known as OMF. He was chosen to be the leader of the Mission because he had served the people of China and his fellow missionaries in a spirit of love, humility, and self-discipline. He was also a man of deep prayerfulness. He believed, like Hudson Taylor before him, that "it is possible to move men, through God, by prayer alone." "Patient, persevering prayer," wrote Mr. Hoste, "plays a more vital and practical part in the development of the Mission's work than most people have any idea of." Sample quotations from the book: How important for us so to be walking with God that the senses are exercised to discern between good and evil, and thus be preserved from the allurements that would turn us from the path of the divine will. May every child of God ever remember him who on the cross put us first, and now pleads that we should do the same for him, whether in respect of our means, our time, our strength, or the whole disposal of our lives! It is a commonplace to say that prayer and secret devotion are important: too often, however, we virtually contradict the words by adding that it is impossible to find time for them.