“I soon found that I could live upon very much less than I had previously thought possible. Butter, milk and other luxuries I ceased to use, and found that by living mainly on oatmeal and rice, with occasional variations, a very small sum was sufficient for my needs.” In this way he was able to use two thirds of his income for other purposes. He wrote, “My experience was that the less I spent on myself and the more I gave to others, the fuller of happiness and blessing did my soul become.”
Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) missionary to China, in Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret by Howard Taylor (Chicago: Moody, 1932) 26, cf. Richard Foster in Freedom of Simplicity (New York: HarperCollins, 1981) 84-85.