China's Spiritual Need and Claims

China’s Spiritual Need and Claims (original title: China: Its Spiritual Need and Claims) is a book written by James Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission, in October 1865. It is arguably the most significant work regarding Christian missions to China in the 19th century. A manifesto of Taylor’s life and work, it describes in stark detail the desperate lack of Protestant Christian missionary endeavor among the people of China. The book was reprinted several times over thirty years and motivated uncounted numbers of Christians in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand to volunteer for service in east Asia. China’s Spiritual Need and Claims helped foster the widest evangelistic campaign since the time of Paul the Apostle. Charles Spurgeon noted in 1879:

China’s Spiritual Need and Claims was a prime recruitment tool for the newly begun China Inland Mission, but it also influenced men and women to apply for service with other mission agencies. Taylor compiled the book at the urging of his pastor, William Garrett Lewis, of Westbourne Grove Church, who thought that the topic was too weighty not to be printed.

Taylor's wife, Maria, helped him in the writing of the book. On Sundays, they worked together, and she mostly transcribed his words. They were both influenced by a book by Evan Davies (missionary) called China and her Spiritual Claims from about twenty years previously.

Taylor began by affirming the biblical teachings that all men are lost without Christ, that the Gospel is for all, and that the Great Commission specifies that the church is to “make disciples” of all peoples. He then identified those in China who had yet to hear the Gospel and believe in Jesus Christ. Indeed, Taylor's research uncovered

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