![]() To view this article as a PowerPoint, click here. To view this article as a video, click here. To listen to the audio, click here. Famous English cricketer turned pioneer missionary, Charles T. Studd (1860 – 1931), had captained the Eton and Cambridge cricket teams and then had played for the All English in Australia. He was converted during the Evangelical Revival of 1880 under the ministry of D.L. Moody. He gave up everything and went as a missionary to China in 1885. There he met Priscilla Stewart and all four of their children were born in the heart of China. ![]() Horse Racing C.T. Studd had been the third of four sons born to Edward and Dora Studd. Edward Studd was dead serious about horse racing. Not content with winning several steeplechases, he set his heart on the Grand National and won this race with his horse, Salamander. Cricket Aside from horse racing the Studd family engaged in hunting in the winter and cricket in the summer. Edward Studd had a first class cricket pitch made at the back of his house. His three eldest sons grew up to achieve fame at Eton by all being in the cricket eleven together. Charles, along with his two elder brothers, received the most exclusive education in the country at Eton, where they excelled at cricket, creating a record when each brother captained the Eton cricket team in succession. D.L. Moody In 1876, Edward was invited to hear American Evangelist D.L. Moody. Moody’s sermons were described as: “Very much to the point.” Edward Studd was 56 years old when he attended Moody and Sankey’s outreach in the Drury Lane theatre. It was a decisive experience. He experienced a radical religious conversion and his whole way of life changed: “in order to express his new faith with all the energy and enthusiasm of which he was capable.” He gave up all his questionable pursuits, particularly gambling. He invested his immense wealth and influence into winning others for Christ. Transformation The boys were shocked at: “the change they saw in their father.” He withdrew from horse racing, then “rode around the countryside to urge his neighbours to come in on Sunday evenings. They came in their hundreds, filling up the staircase to the first floor, leaning over the balconies to hear the fellows he got to come from London to speak to them. Moody himself came… As Edward had never done anything by halves, he now threw himself into saving the souls of his friends and relations. The Evangelical message of those Revival days was forthright, and as delivered by Edward was more like a sword thrust than a message: ‘Are you saved? If not, you will go to hell and that’s flat!’ He spoke fearlessly to anyone and everyone on Salvation through trusting in Christ …he gave generously wherever there was need. Even to the gift of a house in America to his friend Moody, when he contributed largely to the founding of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for the training of missionaries for the foreign field.” Wholehearted “Edward only lived for two years after his conversion, but it was said of him that in those two years he had worked wholeheartedly for the Kingdom of God on earth and accomplished more than most Christians do in a life time.” ![]() Cricket Champion Edith Buxton described her father, who was known by his initials “C.T.”: “He was the third son of Edward Studd. C.T. captained the Eton Eleven in 1879 and the Cambridge University eleven in 1882. Later, he was in the English team that went to Australia to retrieve The Ashes. C.T.’s team returned back to England in triumph with the Urn.” Charles’ fame grew and he was twice declared to be “the best all-round cricket player” in England. Charles Studd had the world at his feet. Considering Eternity While on a cricket tour in Australia, his brother George came close to death through a severe illness, and this affected Charles. “What is all the fame and flattery worth? Vanity of vanities. What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Edith remembers her father describing his conversion in these words: “I had the good fortune to meet a real live-play-the-game Christian. It was my own father. But it did make one’s hair stand on end. Everyone in the house had a dog’s life of it until they got converted …he was always asking about our souls and we did not like it.” Conversion Attending a meeting of D.L. Moody, C.T. Studd was brought to a position of full surrender to Christ. From this point on, his life was never the same and he was possessed by a consuming passion to lead people to Christ. Consecration His brother, George, did recover, but C.T. went to hear Moody once again. As a result he gave up cricket and dedicated himself to: “saving souls.” Charles now regarded the first six years of his Christian experience as “being in a backslidden condition.” Now, he yearned to be absolute in his service of the Lord. “I know that cricket will not last and nothing in this world will last, but it is worthwhile living for the world to come.” Called C.T. shocked his family when he became one of the famed Cambridge Seven missionary volunteers of the China Inland Mission. He met Hudson Taylor and answered the call to be a Missionary to China. In this, he was joined by six other Cambridge students, who made a huge impact on the secular and religious world, becoming religious celebrities known as “The Cambridge Seven.” He chose to join Hudson Taylor’s Mission to China. C.T. was described as: “no orator”, but he was tireless and “had a forthright manner of speaking.” ![]() The Cambridge Seven These seven young aristocrats, two of them famous athletes and another two military officers, forsaking the comforts of England to work with an, until then, unknown missionary society in the hinterland of China, was a story that the press could not pass up. The Cambridge Seven helped catapult the China Inland Mission from obscurity to “embarrassing prominence”, and inspired hundreds of other recruits for CIM and other missionary societies. China In China they were immediately struck by the degradation that opium had dragged so much of the population down to. Many people sold everything: furniture, roof tiles and agricultural tools, even their wives and children into slavery, to satisfy their craving for drugs! Ministering to Drug Addicts One of the strategies of the Cambridge Seven was to seek to reach these opium addicts for Christ. They established opium refuges, where addicts could come to stay for three to six weeks, and find deliverance from this addiction. Complete Dedication Charles Studd married an Irish Salvation Army officer, Priscilla Stewart. From the beginning they suffered severe persecution and he later reported that for the first five years in China, every time they stepped out of doors, they were greeted with curses. DCD As C.T. Studd said: “Had I cared for the comments of people, I should never have been a missionary!” He declared himself a member of the DCD (Do not Care a Damn!). All he cared about was the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ - not the fickle opinions of people! “He preached Christ as though he would never preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” Forsaking All Charles saw many people converted and numerous opium addicts delivered. His total dedication to CIMs principle of living by faith was seen when he inherited a fortune of over £25,000 (which would be several million dollars today) which he promptly invested in “the Bank of Heaven.” He gave away his entire inheritance as gifts to the Salvation Army, D.L. Moody’s Bible College in Chicago, and to George Műller’s orphanage. This enabled D.L. Moody to build the Moody Bible Institute and General William Booth to send 50 Salvation Army missionaries to India. ![]() China When after 10 years in China he was invalided home with typhoid, his friends doubted whether he would even reach England alive. “There goes a dying man,” they said. However, C.T. did recover, but he suffered with asthma for the rest of his life. In spite of his physical strength as an athlete, Charles did not enjoy good health in the field, and in 1893 he almost died and was forced to return to England with his wife and four daughters. Student Volunteer Movement He travelled around Britain stirring up interest in missions, and in 1896 was invited to the United States to help launch the Student Volunteer Missionary Union, out of which grew the Student Christian Movement. He stayed in the USA for 18 months, sometimes addressing as many as six meetings a day. Many hundreds offered themselves for missions as a result. Mission to India In 1900, C.T. Studd took his family to South India where he served as a missionary for five and a half years. It was there in India that each of the four girls were baptised, with missionary Amy Carmichael in attendance. Radical Change Ill health again forced him to return to England, where his sporting fame still enabled him to draw large crowds, whom he addressed in his usual blunt manner: “I once had another religion, mincing, lisping, bated breath, proper, hunting the Bible for hidden truths, but no obedience, no sacrifice. Then came the change. The real thing came before me. Soft speech became crude salt. The parlour game with the nurses became real cricket on the public ground. Words became deeds. 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!” Cannibals want Missionaries In 1908, in Liverpool, a notice caught his eye: “Cannibals want Missionaries.” Charles laughed “for more reasons than one!” C.T. Studd determined to take up the challenge. His doctors were against it, his wife was against it. His financial circumstances were against it, but he was convinced that God was for it, and that was enough. Blocking Islam’s Advance “Muslims were sweeping down over Africa, making converts and, unless a chain of mission stations were made across the centre of Africa, nothing else would stop them …Father wanted to start the first mission in the middle of this chain, plum in the heart of Africa.” ![]() Consternation As Edith described it: “It sent my grandmother crying and my mother weeping silently on the third floor of Hyde Park Gardens. Her helpless cries of ‘Oh, Charlie how could you’’ were of no avail. He set about speaking everywhere that he could get an opening in order to collect recruits …No offer of speaking did he turn down …he slept anywhere…” Crusade In 1910, at age 50, he left alone for Southern Sudan to explore the possibilities in Equatorial Africa, joining CMS (Church Missionary Society) missionary, Bishop Llewellyn Gwynne. Out of 29 donkeys that went on his expedition, 25 died. Out of this journey, the vision for the Worldwide Evangelisation Crusade (WEC.) was born. Chocolate Soldier He came back to England as a man on fire. Once more students were aroused by his meetings and he wrote booklets in his usual, hard-hitting, straight-from-the-shoulder style, including “The Chocolate Soldier.” As C.T. Studd wrote: “Christ’s call is to capture men from the devil’s clutches and snatch them from the very jaws of hell, to enlist and train them for Jesus and make them a mighty army of God. But this can only be accomplished by red-hot, unconventional, unfettered Holy Spirit religion ...by reckless sacrifice and heroism in the foremost trenches.” Sacrifice However, his doctor declared him unfit for any kind of missionary work. At this C.T. Studd wrote: “The Chocolate Soldier.” “It stirred up antagonism as well as inspiration.” His great saying was: “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, no sacrifice could be too great for me to make for Him.” In 1911, he presented his “Chocolate Soldier” message at Cambridge University. The Dons filed out in silent disapproval, but the undergraduates were “intrigued with his audacity.” Incomprehensible Edith comments: “To me my father’s goings on were quite incomprehensible. As a family we had had enough adversity. To go out and seek more was sheer madness …there is no doubt that he was a man of extraordinary vision and compelling presence. His messages were charged with challenge, humour and emotion. But it was his realism and living out his own message that attracted those who were looking for sincerity in a world of fashionable poses.” Alfred Buxton It was at this stage that Edith’s good friend, Alfred Buxton, who was studying at Cambridge to become a doctor, volunteered to join C.T. Studd’s Heart of Africa mission. “Naturally this caused a hue and cry from the Buxton family who said how unwise it was to go with this ‘hair brained man,’ as some called him.” To Africa At the Furville meeting in 1913 at which C.T. Studd and Alfred Buxton were to speak, C.T. “spoke with his usual aplomb and zest. The difficulties were great but he ‘didn’t care a brass button!’” As Edith commented, off to Africa they went: “One too old and one too young!” Congo In 1913, he set out for Central Africa, this time accompanied by his youngest daughter’s (by now) fiancé, young Cambridge graduate, Alfred Buxton. Together they were the pioneers of the Heart of Africa Mission. They followed in the footsteps of Henry Morton Stanley through Kenya and Uganda to North-Eastern Congo. Bicycles in the Bundu Landing at Mombasa, C.T. Studd and Alfred Buxton, travelled by bicycle through to the Congo. “Father had trained his mind from early days to look upon every problem as an opportunity. In fact, I have known him to say that he welcomed tight corners, if only to see how God would get him out of them!” “Bicycles!” cried the trader, “So you mean to say that you are going to cycle through the jungle!” “Certainly,” said C.T. “We will get to the other end more quickly. When they cannot carry us, we will carry them.” He had an answer for everything and a faith big enough for any situation. ![]() Cannibals On their incredible trek across the continent they faced “cannibals, wild animals and tropical diseases …the maddening zing of mosquitoes …strange night sounds …the fierce Balenda tribe who had killed Emin Pasha.” They were warned that they would never get through the Balenda tribe alive. Hair raising experiences, such as that of an English elephant hunter who had recently been shot with a poisoned arrow by the Balenda and died, failed to deter C.T. and Alfred. “They’ll be too interested in our bicycles to do anything to us.” Dense Jungle “Massive trees, so tall that they turned the midday sunshine to twilight, vegetation steamed with heat.” Monkeys swung and gibbered at them. “The myriad sounds of tiny insects, birds and creaking branches. They felt as though a thousand eyes were staring through the thick bushes watching them …They were lost in the primeval forest.” Ducked by the Devil They met cannibals with teeth filed down to sharp points. They suffered repeated bouts of fever. C.T. referred to fevers as: “like being repeatedly ducked by the devil… The fever mounted, the weakness increased, all medicines failed… If there are any sick, let him call for the elders of the church, and let them anoint him with oil… but where is the oil? Neither salad, olive, or even linseed oil, did we possess. What’s the matter with lamp oil? …’Why not? It is oil and that is all the Book says and we cannot afford to be narrow minded.’” C.T. then recorded: “This I knew next morning, that whereas I was sick, nigh unto death, now I was healed.” Ituri Forest They travelled through the Ituri Forest, where Stanley once travelled. “The forest was very beautiful in places, like marching through an endless cathedral.” They travelled through territory where a Belgian officer with a troop of soldiers had been massacred to the last man by the cannibals. To these very cannibals, C.T. and Alfred preached. Baptism Amongst Crocodiles Their first baptisms took place in a crocodile-infested river, and while the missionaries were baptising the candidates, they were also having to fire into the water to keep the crocodiles at bay! Chapel Bell As he suffered malaria and other attacks, he wrote: “Some like to live within the sound of Church or Chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell!” New Recruits In 1916, he left England for the last time, taking with him a party of eight missionaries, including his young daughter Edith, who was coming out to marry her fiancé, Alfred Buxton. Another daughter, Pauline, with her husband Norman Grubb, joined the Mission. Soon the number of missionaries had grown to 40. Reluctant Missionary Edith Buxton described herself as “a reluctant missionary indeed!” When she was 24, she joined her father on the SS Elizabeth to travel to the Congo and marry Alfred Buxton. “I’ll die, I know I will die. I shan’t be able to stick it.” At one of the first services in the Congo she remembers the words of one hymn: “Death cometh once; Hear now his tread, soon shall you and I be lying, each within our narrow bed.” She remembered wondering “which one of us death would pick on first?” Reunited “More than four years had passed since I had seen Alfred. Immediately I held my breath …so acute was the anticipation, the dread of what I might feel…” However, their reunion was warm and better than anything she could have ever expected. After their river journey, there was another month trek on foot. “If you were to draw a line through the centre of Africa from North to South and then again from East to West, there would be Nala.” They sometimes travelled by canoe and passed herds of hippopotamus. Nala She found Nala “A clean, tidy, well-spaced village. Avenues of palms grown years ago by the Belgians, interspersed with small and big houses, a church and a schoolhouse. They were built of mud and thatch in the simplest fashion. All this had been Alfred’s work. Into the bargain, he had completed the first stage of writing the Bangala vocabulary.” Wedding They then had to trek to Naingara where the Belgian District Commissioner was waiting to conduct “the first white wedding in the heart of Africa… So far the Belgian officials were not permitted to have their wives with them because this part of the country was not considered civilised enough.” ![]() Unconventional “Father was quite blatantly unconventional. The church at home he thought had become more a building than a way of life… He read in his Bible, which was his constant guide as to how the early Christians went about things, and he would do the same. So that he baptised, dedicated, married, gave communion, and buried them in a simple African village church…. Morning prayers were at 7am when the whole village would turn up. Work began at 7h30 or so…. They would raise the roof with the hymns of Moody and Sankey translated into Bangala.” Confession of a Cannibal “Once a man got up and told us a story of such relish, that every head turned in his direction. I was so interested that I whispered to Alfred, ‘What is he saying’ Alfred replied, ‘He has just told us he is sorry he has to confess that he has eaten his uncle!’” Prayer Meeting “The prayer meeting every Friday night was a thing to remember. Outside in the dark the palm trees rustled gently in the evening breeze. Inside one could see some 200 bowed figures, their oiled bodies shining in the light of the palm oil lamps. Gemisi, the converted cannibal and ex-soldier, was the churchwarden. He would take upon himself the duty of prowling around and if by any chance he caught anyone with their eyes open he would give their heads a good duck and told them ‘That was no way to behave in God’s House.’ When a man went on praying too long, carried away by the new wonderful experience of talking to God, my father would say, ‘Now we’ll sing a hymn while our brother finishes.’” Simple Living “Father always said that as long as we missionaries travelled first class, lived out of tins, ate bread and butter and drank tea, the world would never be evangelised…. We learned from the Africans how to make oil from flying ants… We also made sugar from sugarcane… we took to making packing cases into furniture… we were always warned not to get so posh that it would make more barriers between us and the Africans.” Occupational Hazards Aside from cannibals, there were occasional incidents with leopards, crocodiles and snakes. After a leopard seized someone, C.T. Studd took to sleeping with a pistol under his pillow. Susan At the end of her second year in Africa, Edith’s daughter, Susan, was born. C.T. Stud “took an original precaution. He had an arrangement with the drummer of each village between Nala and Naingara where the only doctor was.” After Susan was born, Africans “swarmed to see her, gazing popeyed on the first white baby they had seen.” Susan “was a very aware child …on one of our journeys by canoe, she shrieked like a 16 year old every time we shot the rapids and whirled into the cascading torrents.” Ganutu Ganutu was a big strong Azande who walked 200 miles to “come and hear about God… ‘I have always wanted to know about God. So my wife and I packed up at once and here we are… when is the first lesson?’ He never missed a meeting, whether the early morning one with the workmen, or the Friday night prayer meeting, or the Sunday services. He was always there, sitting quietly with an intent look on his face. Soon he was taking part in the prayer meetings…his prayers were short and eager words… I felt the presence of God among us in the quiet night.” He rose quickly to become a leader and finally became the head of the boy’s school. Ibambi Edith also related the story of the man at Ibambi who had died and was being carried to his grave, when he sat up and with cries of terror everyone scattered in every direction. The man told the story: “I have been with God…. He knew my name and that I had heard the Gospel at Ibambi… God said… You shall go back to your village for 10 days. Send for the preacher, accept the message and then you will come back to me.” Ten days later he declared: “Now I am going back to God.” Then he very simply lay down and died. Jabori Jabori, an Azande chief living near Nala related to Alfred that one night many years before the missionaries had arrived “God met him in his sleep and said ‘White people will come. They will come with a message from Me. Listen carefully and do what they tell you. Until then do only what is right.’” Miyeye Another man, Miyeye, had no ears. One day, Edith could restrain her curiosity no longer and she asked: “Miyeye, where are your ears?” “Madam, I have eaten them.” “Eaten them!” I exclaimed in astonishment. “Yes, eaten them,” said Miyeye calmly. “Long years ago I was a slave in a chief’s village. My life was hard. I did much work and was never paid. One day I talked with one of the chief’s wives and together we decided to run away…. The chief sent his soldiers after us… a big pot was put on to boil and I saw the woman laid on the ground and dismembered limb by limb, and limb by limb put into the pot to boil before her own still conscious eyes. Slowly she was quartered and boiled up to be eaten and it was my turn next. Suddenly into the circle comes the chief’s head wife. Gesticulating widely, she says, ‘Oh chief, it is not good to eat a child, curses will come upon us. We shall die.’ My fate was turned and instead the chief gives judgement that I am to eat my own ears. Ah Mama, it was terrible and I was very, very ill for days.” The Kidnapping of Nancy On one Sunday evening, word arrived that Nancy, from the girl’s school, had been caught by chief Abiangama on her way back to school. “He has kept her prisoner. We have already been to the village to demand her back, but he will not let her go.” Rescue “Nothing appealed to my father more than an adventure of this kind. He immediately ordered the alarm to be blown on the bugle in the centre of the parade ground. It was not long before all the Christians of the village poured out… Father, from the top of the steps, addressed the eager crowd. He was no pacifist, but on this occasion he ordered everyone to lay down their weapons and go to the rescue of Nancy as Christians and not as soldiers. There was a murmur of disappointment in the crowd… it must have been an hour’s trek through the forest before we came to the chief’s village. Attack! “But long before our arrival we had heard the drums beating and the grunting cries of the dancers. As we approached we saw a circle of about 200 men dancing, oiled bodies gleaming and a bunch of feathers on every head. They swayed in time to the drums. Father ordered his men to break through the circle and we all poured in after him. They stopped opposite the chief and father… seizing the chief by the beard, demanded the return of Nancy. The chief backed away, saying, ‘I’ll fetch her, I’ll fetch her!’ but father, not to be taken in, followed in pursuit… the Christians fell upon the tribesmen with their bare fists. There never was heard such a thumping and pounding. In the darkness, all you could see were the feathers of the warriors and the flying shirt tails of the Christians as they laid into one another… one of the chief’s wives made her way on all fours through the melee of legs until she reached father, when she quickly took his little finger in her teeth and bit it as only a cannibal can… I gave her a thump, which sent her sprawling in the dust. Nancy took advantage of the noise to escape back to Nala.” Peace with God As Edith says, “There is no place like Africa finding you out… An inner voice began to speak… What are you doing? When man listens, God speaks… God can speak to the human soul through the enlightened conscience… I began to put things right as far as I could see, and, with my obedience to what I believe God was trying to say to me, there came a change… a sense of God’s presence… I experienced… a new peace and relaxation in the battle of life.” Alfred She described Alfred as: “With such quick intelligence, able to work 16 hours a day, able to eat anything, sleep anywhere, do without anything… we had six years of complete and happy companionship. After his illness there followed 16 years of ever deepening anxiety, sleepless nights and further attacks.” Which Alfred took with “a silence and courage that was complete.” ![]() Conflict “Father had made such sacrifice of himself that it was in his nature to expect much from others, and most of us could not keep up with him. If missionaries did not come up to scratch, father felt we were better rid of them. Alfred played the part of a peacemaker… the same thing happened in cases where African Christians had fallen into sin. Father would demand the necessity of church discipline, Alfred would advocate patience and love. Each was representing the truth of the Gospel. But the differences became severe.” Inflexible “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord… father had been trained in law and his letters could be very severe… he would not be put off his calling by anyone, even his wife…. My father once said you needed only one inch of Theology to every foot of practical Christian living.” At 70, he mastered Kingwana and was able over the years to progress in the translation of the New Testament, the Psalms and extracts from the Proverbs. Reflection “In 1928, C.T. Studd wrote: ‘As I believe I am now nearing my departure from this world, I have but a few things to rejoice in; they are these: That God called me to China and I went in spite of utmost opposition from all my loved ones. That I joyfully acted as Christ told that rich young man to act. That I deliberately at the call of God gave up my life for this work, which was to be henceforth not only for the Sudan only, but for the whole unevangelised world.’” ‘My only joys therefore are that when God has given me work to do, I have not refused it.” Relentless To the end, Charles maintained a strenuous routine. He worked an 18-hour day. He undertook long journeys, preaching sometimes to congregations of 2,000. He read the Bible for hours each day and poured his heart into prayer. When he was approaching 70, he set himself the task of translating the New Testament. Then the news arrived that his wife, who had been left behind in England because of ill health, had died. Charles now suffered several heart attacks and gallstones. Called to Higher Service In July 1931, this gallant and unconventional cricketer’s innings came to an end. “In 1931, in the Ituri forest where he had once been entertained by cannibals, he died. He died the good soldier he had lived, surrounded by the African people he loved and whose lives he had done so much to change. It was a stormy day when they laid him to rest. 2,000 people from the surrounding forests came to his funeral, including chiefs.” ![]() Controversial In assessing this incredible, bold, abrasive and controversial Missionary, his co-workers, including his sons-in-law, Alfred Buxton and Norman Grubb, recognised that his energy, earnestness and single-mindedness made him a most difficult person to work with. He was stubborn and inflexible in what he required and demanded of others. He was eccentric. He wrote a booklet in which he said he “didn’t care a damn” about anything, except to serve Christ and to save souls. This kind of language was most offensive and unacceptable to many at that time. “I cannot abide cowardice. I refuse to make my God and Saviour a nonentity!” Inflexible He was ruthless in the standards he set for himself and others, and he interpreted leisure and recreation as idleness. He laid a powerful emphasis on the need for “holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” People were not sure what to make of a man, who in his 50s, could leave behind an ailing wife, while he went to be a missionary in the most inaccessible part of earth. His love for Jesus Christ was supreme, and to many of his contemporaries, he was a fanatic. Challenge The Mission he founded, WEC, has grown to be one of the largest Missions in the world today. The life of C.T. Studd will always remain a challenge to those who seek an easier path. Uncompromising His daughter Edith wrote: “C.T. Studd’s life stands as some rugged Gibraltar - a sign to all succeeding generations that it is worthwhile to lose all this world can offer and stake everything on the world to come. His life will be an eternal rebuke to easy-going Christianity. He has demonstrated what it means to follow Christ without counting the cost and without looking back.” Cavalry Charges “C.T. was essentially a cavalry leader and in that capacity he led several splendid charges… when C.T. and Stanley Smith went with the Cambridge Seven to China in 1885; ten years later when C.T. toured the American universities at the start of the Student Volunteers; and when in 1910 he initiated the campaign for the region between the Nile and Lake Chad (the largest unevangelised region in Africa at that time). These three things alone have effected Missionary history… he personified the heroic spirit, the Apostolic abandon… from him I learned that God’s ideal of saint is not a man primarily concerned with his own sanctification; God’s saint is 50% a soldier.” Perseverance “Anyone can be brave once, it is sticking to it that counts…. There is a price to be paid for dedicated selfless service such as father and Alfred gave to Africa.” As C.T. Studd declared: “Only one life, it will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” “And so I have made it my aim to preach the Gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man’s foundation.” Romans 15:20 ![]() Dr. Peter Hammond This article was adapted from a chapter of The Greatest Century of Missions book (224 pages with 200 photographs, pictures, charts and maps), available from: Christian Liberty Books, PO Box 358 Howard Place 7450 Cape Town South Africa Tel: 021-689-7478, Fax: 086-551-7490, Email: [email protected], Website: www.christianlibertybooks.co.za.
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