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By the time Maria Dyer agreed to marry Hudson Taylor, two other ladies had already rejected his marriage proposals.

The soon-to-be-great missionary had recently arrived in China when he fell in love with the squinty-eyed Maria. She was young and her parents were dead. A group of English missionaries—one of whom was an old maid—had watch care over her.

When word got out of his letter proposing marriage to Maria, they were disgusted. “The nerve…!” Maria was a lady. Taylor was a young, poor, unconnected Nobody. She was proper. He was no gentleman, without a sufficient education and without position. She was tall. He was short, a “ranter”, a Plymouth Brethren. Worst all, he wore Chinese clothes and a long pigtail like his Asian neighbours. Marriage? Maria’s guardians wanted Taylor horse-whipped.