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[Above: C.T. Studd with his usual expression of determination. public domain]

CHARLES (C. T.) STUDD sat at the bedside of his beloved brother George, who hovered between life and death. Both were Christians but each had made an idol of cricket. In fact, Charles Studd was probably the best all-around player in his day (combined bowling, batting, and fielding). But George’s illness forced C. T. Studd to re-evaluate his priorities.

As night after night I watched by his bedside as he was hovering between life and death, God showed me what the honor, what the pleasure, what the riches of this world were worth. All these things had become as nothing to my brother.

Trying to learn what God would have him do with his life, he queried Christian friends, but got no assurance. So he went straight to God. Then he read an atheist tract that scoffed at Christianity, charging that those who claimed it lived tepid, inconsistent lives unconcerned for the souls of others. The atheist spelled out how a consistent Christian would act. Such a person would care nothing for the world but only to save souls.

Those words galvanized Studd. He determined to follow Christ consistently and wholeheartedly but realized he needed Holy Spirit power to do so. That is when he picked up Hannah Whitall’s The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life. Realizing that he had kept himself back from God, he went down to his knees and submitted.

Soon his life’s work became clear. Attending the farewell of an acquaintance who was leaving for China to preach the gospel, he recognized that God would have him go, too. Hudson Taylor was in England recruiting for the China Inland Mission. Studd made an appointment to see him.

It was not long before I was off to Mr. Hudson Taylor, to tell him, if he was ready to take me, I was willing to go.

The two met on this day, 4 November 1884. What passed at the meeting seems not to have been recorded, but Hudson Taylor accepted Studd as an associate. Studd was one of seven notable Cambridge men who gave up secular careers to carry out Christ’s missionary mandate. Before they sailed, they held meetings throughout Britain; their fame drew large crowds to hear the gospel.

Studd worked in China for many years. There he met Priscilla Stewart, who accepted his offer of marriage (although he always insisted she proposed to him). Determined to live by faith, the pair divested themselves of Studd’s large inheritance, giving it all to support Christian work. They had four girls, a fact that became a testimony to the Chinese who had little regard for daughters and often killed female infants.

When the collapse of both Charles and Priscilla Studd’s health forced them to leave China, they returned to England to recuperate. They then worked seven years in India.

Finally, at an age when most people contemplate retirement, Studd went to inland Africa against the advice of doctors and friends and (hardest for him to bear) the pleas of Priscilla. Despite continual illness and severe asthma that often allowed him only a couple hours of sleep a night, he served there twenty years while Priscilla managed the work in England. They saw the gospel transform ethnic groups infamous for cannibalism, debauchery, and cruelty. Eventually, tribes that had warred ceaselessly against one another found peace in Christ and met together in huge outpourings of Christian fellowship.

Studd’s life was a continual banquet of faith and good humor. Once when he was desperately ill in Africa, he remembered the apostle James’s command that if anyone is sick he should have the elders anoint him with oil and pray. The only “elder” present was a twenty-year-old coworker. The only oil was kerosene, but the twenty-year-old anointed Studd with kerosene and Studd wrote joyfully,

How God did it I don’t know, nor do I care, but this I knew next morning, that whereas I was sick, nigh unto death, now I was healed. We can trust Him too little, but we cannot trust God too much.

The Studds and their friends founded the worldwide Evangelical Crusade. Without appeals for funds they were able to establish mission work on three continents. God provided workers and met their financial needs again and again.

—Dan Graves

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For more on Studd, watch C.T. Studd: Gifted Athlete and Pioneering Missionary at RedeemTV

(C. T. Studd can be purchased at Vision Video.)

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