C.T. and Scilla Studd
July 19, 2020
David Cloud, Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
The following is excerpted from The History and Heritage of Fundamentalism and Fundamental Baptists
The Cambridge Seven were students from Cambridge (one was from the Royal Military Academy) who were saved during their student years and volunteered to go to China with J. Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission. They made this commitment during the 1883 Moody-Sankey crusade at Cambridge.
The most famous of the seven was CHARLES THOMAS (C.T.) STUDD (1860-1931), a renowned cricketer and graduate of Eton and Cambridge. C.T.’s brothers were also cricket stars. C.T. was the captain of the famous Cambridge Eleven team in 1882. Their father, Edward, had made a fortune in India planting indigo and planned to spend the rest of his life playing. He lived in a mansion on a large estate and had his own cricket field. He gambled and raised race horses. His horse Salamander won the Grand National in 1866. This is a grueling four mile race with 30 jumps. It’s called a steeplechase. In 1877, at age 56, Edward attended a D.L. Moody meeting and was saved. He gave up gambling and sold his race horses and started hosting gospel meetings in his large house. His coachman said, “All I can say is that though there’s the same skin, there’s a new man inside.” One of his sons later wrote, “Father had been full of a thing that takes more possession of a man’s heart and head than anything else, the passion for horse racing, and in the evening he was a changed man.” That’s a real born again salvation, and there is no other kind. Edward lived only two years after he was saved, but it was said that he did more for Christ during that time than most do in a lifetime. C.T. and his brothers didn’t like the change in their father at first, but they were converted in 1878 through an evangelist associated with Moody. C.T. said, “I got down on my knees and I did say ‘thank you’ to God. And right then and there joy and peace came into my soul. I knew then what it was to be ‘born again,’ and the Bible which had been so dry to me before, became everything.” Over the next six years, through the influence of secular college and sports, he got into “an unhappy backslidden state,” but during his brother’s illness in 1884 C.T. surrendered his life unreservedly to Christ. He turned his back on a life of wealth, pleasure, and leisure and served as a missionary in China, India, and Africa until his death. He came to the realization that a life outside of God’s perfect will is meaningless. He said, “I know that cricket would not last, and honour would not last, and nothing in this world would last, but it was worthwhile living for the world to come.” He wrote the poem “Only one life, ’twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”
Studd described the change like this:
“The real thing came before me. ... The commands of Christ became not merely Sunday recitations, but battle calls to be obeyed, unless one would lose one’s self-respect and manhood. Assent to creed was born again into decisive action of obedience. Orthodoxy became reality. Instead of saying ‘Lord, Lord’ in a most reverent voice many times and yet continuing deaf to the simplest commandments, I began to look upon God as really my Father and to rely upon Him as a real Father and to trust Him as such. Instead of talking about fellowship, I enjoyed it. ... I talked of God and Jesus Christ as Real, Living, Personal Friends and Relations. They have never chided me for it. If a man is willing to obey and sacrifice, he soon learns what is the blessed reality of the fellowship of God’s Son Jesus Christ--familiar and social intercourse.”
Before C.T. Studd went to China as a missionary, he gave away his large inheritance. He believed Jesus’ promise to give him a hundredfold (Mt. 19:29), saying, “An hundredfold is a wonderful percentage; it is 10,000 percent.” He said the Bank of Heaven is safer than the Bank of England. He distributed the money to evangelistic and missionary endeavors: Moody Bible Institute, George Müller’s orphanages, the Salvation Army, and others. “As coolly and deliberately as a business man invests in some ‘gilt-edged’ securities, as being both safe and yielding good interest, so C.T. invested in the Bank of Heaven. This was no fool’s plunge on his part. It was his public testimony before God and man that he believed God’s Word to be the surest thing on earth, and that the hundredfold interest which God has promised in this life, not to speak of the next, is an actual reality for those who believe it and act on it” (Norman Grubb, C.T. Studd Cricketer and Pioneer).
In China, Studd married an Irish missionary named Priscilla Stewart, who was called “Scilla.” She had surrendered to missionary work after her conversion. But before she was born again, Scilla was a party girl. She said, “I am a missionary now, but I was not made that way. Had you asked me to come to a meeting when I was a girl, I would have said, ‘No, thank you, none of your religion for me’; for my idea of a person loving God was to have a face as long as a coffee pot.”
Before their engagement, C.T. wrote to his mother as follows, “She ain’t very big, and as regards her face, well, she has the beauty of the Lord her God upon her, which is worth more than all the beauty of the whole world. ... she can also play the harmonium or organ and sing a bit ... she doesn’t fear the face of man or woman a little bit, I do believe, but just fires away at everybody she meets about their souls.” Scilla was a Salvation Army “lassie” who participated in street evangelism.
Later, C.T. said, “I did not marry her for her pretty face; I married her for her handsome actions towards the Lord Jesus Christ and those He sent her to save. ... In fact, until this day I verily believe that of all God’s many good gifts, the least of all is good looks.”
Before they were married, C.T. gave Scilla 3,400 British pounds he had kept back from his inheritance. He kept this because of God’s Word which says, “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Ti. 5:8). She decided to give even that away. “She, not to be outdone, said, ‘Charlie, what did the Lord tell the rich young man to do?’ ‘Sell all.’ ‘Well then, we will start clean with the Lord at our wedding.’ She gave the money to the Salvation Army. In her letter to General Booth she said, “Henceforth our bank is in heaven. You see we are rather afraid--notwithstanding the great earthly safety of Messrs. Coutts and Co. and the Bank of England--we are, I say, rather afraid that they may both break on the Judgment Day.”
Of course, the Lord took care of them throughout their lives. One example will suffice:
“My own family knew nothing of our circumstances, only that we were in the heart of China. The last of our supplies was finished, and there was no apparent hope of supplies of any kind coming from any human source. The mail came once a fortnight. The mailman had just set out that afternoon, and in a fortnight he would bring the return mail. The children were put to bed. Then my wife came to my room. We had looked facts in the face. If the return of the postman brought no relief, starvation stared us in the face. ... We got on our knees for that purpose. I think we must have stayed there twenty minutes before we rose again. ... Our hearts were relieved; it did not seem to us either reverence or common sense to keep on talking to God as though He were deaf or could not understand our simple language, or the extremity of our circumstances ... The mailman returned at the appointed time. ... out came another letter ... I looked at the signature first, one wholly unknown to me. ‘I have,’ he said, ‘for some reason or other received the command of God to send you a check for 100 pounds. I have never met you, I have only heard of you, and that not often, but God has prevented me from sleeping tonight by this command.’”
C.T. and Scilla had four daughters: Salvation Grace Faith, Dorothy Catherine, Edith Mary, and Pauline Evangeline. C.T. believed that God gave them girls so they could show the value of females to the pagan Chinese people.
“One of the curses of China is not to let their little girls live. They say they have the trouble of bringing them up, and then when they are married, the dowry they receive does not make up for all that has been spent on them. I went into a mother’s house once and found her groaning, and asked where the baby was. It was born at daylight and immediately it was thrown into a moat, or perhaps into one of the pagodas--which are built for this purpose with a certain hole so that the wolves can jump in and get the baby when they want it” (Norman Grubbs, C.T. Studd).
All of their daughters lived to adulthood and married, and two were missionaries.
Studd believed in living by faith and trusting God to meet every need. He believed that all who die without faith in Christ will face eternal punishment. He said, “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.”
In 1885, before the Cambridge Seven left England, they toured university campuses of the United Kingdom. A booklet of their testimonies was published, and Queen Victoria expressed gratitude at the receipt of a copy. The Evangelisation of the World: A Missionary Band became a bestseller. It was distributed to every YMCA and YWCA in the United States and the British Empire. All seven men had successful missionary careers. Their example produced an explosion of student missionary volunteers. The China Inland Mission itself grew from 163 missionaries in 1885 to 800 by 1900.
Only One Life by C.T. Studd
Two little lines I heard one day,
Traveling along life’s busy way;
Bringing conviction to my heart,
And from my mind would not depart;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, yes, only one,
Soon will its fleeting hours be done;
Then, in ‘that day’ my Lord to meet,
And stand before His Judgment seat;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, the still small voice,
Gently pleads for a better choice
Bidding me selfish aims to leave,
And to God’s holy will to cleave;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, a few brief years,
Each with its burdens, hopes, and fears;
Each with its days I must fulfill,
Living for self or in His will;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
When this bright world would tempt me sore,
When Satan would a victory score;
When self would seek to have its way,
Then help me Lord with joy to say;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Give me, Father, a purpose deep,
In joy or sorrow Thy word to keep;
Faithful and true what e’er the strife,
Pleasing Thee in my daily life;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Oh let my love with fervor burn,
And from the world now let me turn;
Living for Thee, and Thee alone,
Bringing Thee pleasure on Thy throne;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, yes, only one,
Now let me say, “Thy will be done”;
And when at last I’ll hear the call,
I know I’ll say “twas worth it all”;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
And when I am dying, how happy I’ll be,
If the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee.
The Cambridge Seven were students from Cambridge (one was from the Royal Military Academy) who were saved during their student years and volunteered to go to China with J. Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission. They made this commitment during the 1883 Moody-Sankey crusade at Cambridge.
The most famous of the seven was CHARLES THOMAS (C.T.) STUDD (1860-1931), a renowned cricketer and graduate of Eton and Cambridge. C.T.’s brothers were also cricket stars. C.T. was the captain of the famous Cambridge Eleven team in 1882. Their father, Edward, had made a fortune in India planting indigo and planned to spend the rest of his life playing. He lived in a mansion on a large estate and had his own cricket field. He gambled and raised race horses. His horse Salamander won the Grand National in 1866. This is a grueling four mile race with 30 jumps. It’s called a steeplechase. In 1877, at age 56, Edward attended a D.L. Moody meeting and was saved. He gave up gambling and sold his race horses and started hosting gospel meetings in his large house. His coachman said, “All I can say is that though there’s the same skin, there’s a new man inside.” One of his sons later wrote, “Father had been full of a thing that takes more possession of a man’s heart and head than anything else, the passion for horse racing, and in the evening he was a changed man.” That’s a real born again salvation, and there is no other kind. Edward lived only two years after he was saved, but it was said that he did more for Christ during that time than most do in a lifetime. C.T. and his brothers didn’t like the change in their father at first, but they were converted in 1878 through an evangelist associated with Moody. C.T. said, “I got down on my knees and I did say ‘thank you’ to God. And right then and there joy and peace came into my soul. I knew then what it was to be ‘born again,’ and the Bible which had been so dry to me before, became everything.” Over the next six years, through the influence of secular college and sports, he got into “an unhappy backslidden state,” but during his brother’s illness in 1884 C.T. surrendered his life unreservedly to Christ. He turned his back on a life of wealth, pleasure, and leisure and served as a missionary in China, India, and Africa until his death. He came to the realization that a life outside of God’s perfect will is meaningless. He said, “I know that cricket would not last, and honour would not last, and nothing in this world would last, but it was worthwhile living for the world to come.” He wrote the poem “Only one life, ’twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”
Studd described the change like this:
“The real thing came before me. ... The commands of Christ became not merely Sunday recitations, but battle calls to be obeyed, unless one would lose one’s self-respect and manhood. Assent to creed was born again into decisive action of obedience. Orthodoxy became reality. Instead of saying ‘Lord, Lord’ in a most reverent voice many times and yet continuing deaf to the simplest commandments, I began to look upon God as really my Father and to rely upon Him as a real Father and to trust Him as such. Instead of talking about fellowship, I enjoyed it. ... I talked of God and Jesus Christ as Real, Living, Personal Friends and Relations. They have never chided me for it. If a man is willing to obey and sacrifice, he soon learns what is the blessed reality of the fellowship of God’s Son Jesus Christ--familiar and social intercourse.”
Before C.T. Studd went to China as a missionary, he gave away his large inheritance. He believed Jesus’ promise to give him a hundredfold (Mt. 19:29), saying, “An hundredfold is a wonderful percentage; it is 10,000 percent.” He said the Bank of Heaven is safer than the Bank of England. He distributed the money to evangelistic and missionary endeavors: Moody Bible Institute, George Müller’s orphanages, the Salvation Army, and others. “As coolly and deliberately as a business man invests in some ‘gilt-edged’ securities, as being both safe and yielding good interest, so C.T. invested in the Bank of Heaven. This was no fool’s plunge on his part. It was his public testimony before God and man that he believed God’s Word to be the surest thing on earth, and that the hundredfold interest which God has promised in this life, not to speak of the next, is an actual reality for those who believe it and act on it” (Norman Grubb, C.T. Studd Cricketer and Pioneer).
In China, Studd married an Irish missionary named Priscilla Stewart, who was called “Scilla.” She had surrendered to missionary work after her conversion. But before she was born again, Scilla was a party girl. She said, “I am a missionary now, but I was not made that way. Had you asked me to come to a meeting when I was a girl, I would have said, ‘No, thank you, none of your religion for me’; for my idea of a person loving God was to have a face as long as a coffee pot.”
Before their engagement, C.T. wrote to his mother as follows, “She ain’t very big, and as regards her face, well, she has the beauty of the Lord her God upon her, which is worth more than all the beauty of the whole world. ... she can also play the harmonium or organ and sing a bit ... she doesn’t fear the face of man or woman a little bit, I do believe, but just fires away at everybody she meets about their souls.” Scilla was a Salvation Army “lassie” who participated in street evangelism.
Later, C.T. said, “I did not marry her for her pretty face; I married her for her handsome actions towards the Lord Jesus Christ and those He sent her to save. ... In fact, until this day I verily believe that of all God’s many good gifts, the least of all is good looks.”
Before they were married, C.T. gave Scilla 3,400 British pounds he had kept back from his inheritance. He kept this because of God’s Word which says, “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Ti. 5:8). She decided to give even that away. “She, not to be outdone, said, ‘Charlie, what did the Lord tell the rich young man to do?’ ‘Sell all.’ ‘Well then, we will start clean with the Lord at our wedding.’ She gave the money to the Salvation Army. In her letter to General Booth she said, “Henceforth our bank is in heaven. You see we are rather afraid--notwithstanding the great earthly safety of Messrs. Coutts and Co. and the Bank of England--we are, I say, rather afraid that they may both break on the Judgment Day.”
Of course, the Lord took care of them throughout their lives. One example will suffice:
“My own family knew nothing of our circumstances, only that we were in the heart of China. The last of our supplies was finished, and there was no apparent hope of supplies of any kind coming from any human source. The mail came once a fortnight. The mailman had just set out that afternoon, and in a fortnight he would bring the return mail. The children were put to bed. Then my wife came to my room. We had looked facts in the face. If the return of the postman brought no relief, starvation stared us in the face. ... We got on our knees for that purpose. I think we must have stayed there twenty minutes before we rose again. ... Our hearts were relieved; it did not seem to us either reverence or common sense to keep on talking to God as though He were deaf or could not understand our simple language, or the extremity of our circumstances ... The mailman returned at the appointed time. ... out came another letter ... I looked at the signature first, one wholly unknown to me. ‘I have,’ he said, ‘for some reason or other received the command of God to send you a check for 100 pounds. I have never met you, I have only heard of you, and that not often, but God has prevented me from sleeping tonight by this command.’”
C.T. and Scilla had four daughters: Salvation Grace Faith, Dorothy Catherine, Edith Mary, and Pauline Evangeline. C.T. believed that God gave them girls so they could show the value of females to the pagan Chinese people.
“One of the curses of China is not to let their little girls live. They say they have the trouble of bringing them up, and then when they are married, the dowry they receive does not make up for all that has been spent on them. I went into a mother’s house once and found her groaning, and asked where the baby was. It was born at daylight and immediately it was thrown into a moat, or perhaps into one of the pagodas--which are built for this purpose with a certain hole so that the wolves can jump in and get the baby when they want it” (Norman Grubbs, C.T. Studd).
All of their daughters lived to adulthood and married, and two were missionaries.
Studd believed in living by faith and trusting God to meet every need. He believed that all who die without faith in Christ will face eternal punishment. He said, “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.”
In 1885, before the Cambridge Seven left England, they toured university campuses of the United Kingdom. A booklet of their testimonies was published, and Queen Victoria expressed gratitude at the receipt of a copy. The Evangelisation of the World: A Missionary Band became a bestseller. It was distributed to every YMCA and YWCA in the United States and the British Empire. All seven men had successful missionary careers. Their example produced an explosion of student missionary volunteers. The China Inland Mission itself grew from 163 missionaries in 1885 to 800 by 1900.
Only One Life by C.T. Studd
Two little lines I heard one day,
Traveling along life’s busy way;
Bringing conviction to my heart,
And from my mind would not depart;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, yes, only one,
Soon will its fleeting hours be done;
Then, in ‘that day’ my Lord to meet,
And stand before His Judgment seat;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, the still small voice,
Gently pleads for a better choice
Bidding me selfish aims to leave,
And to God’s holy will to cleave;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, a few brief years,
Each with its burdens, hopes, and fears;
Each with its days I must fulfill,
Living for self or in His will;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
When this bright world would tempt me sore,
When Satan would a victory score;
When self would seek to have its way,
Then help me Lord with joy to say;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Give me, Father, a purpose deep,
In joy or sorrow Thy word to keep;
Faithful and true what e’er the strife,
Pleasing Thee in my daily life;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Oh let my love with fervor burn,
And from the world now let me turn;
Living for Thee, and Thee alone,
Bringing Thee pleasure on Thy throne;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, yes, only one,
Now let me say, “Thy will be done”;
And when at last I’ll hear the call,
I know I’ll say “twas worth it all”;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
And when I am dying, how happy I’ll be,
If the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee.
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