The great evangelist C. T. Studd said, “Some wish to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.” - C. T. Studd.
After reading this quote you are probably interested in wanting to know more about Mr. Studd. Can you imagine going through life with a name like Mr. Studd?
His devotion was amazing. C.T. Studd has always been one of my heroes along with Jim Elliot. Enjoy the collection of information listed about his life from a variety of sources.
Elizabeth Elliot in her book, Passion and Purity, 1984, p. 43, shares this about C.T. Studd.
The first date Jim (Elliot) asked me for was to a missionary meeting at Moody Church in Chicago, late in April. Not surprising that he would choose an event like this rather than a concert or dinner out. The speaker was one of the daughters of the famous missionary to Africa C.T. Studd. She told of her father’s last hours. He lay on his cot, gazing around the little hut and at his few possessions. “I wish I had something to leave to each of you,” he said to the handful of people present, “but I gave it all to Jesus long ago.” [1]
C. T. Studd wrote from Cambridge in 1883: “I had known about Jesus dying for me, but I had never understood that, if He had died for me, then I didn’t belong to myself. Redemption means buying back, so that if I belong to Him, either I had to be a thief, and keep what wasn’t mine, or else I had to give up everything to God. When I came to see that Jesus had died for me, it didn’t seem hard to give up all for Him.” Studd also said, “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.”[2]
At the age of 16 C. T. Studd was already an expert cricket player and at 19 was made captain of his team at Eton, England. Soon he became a world-famous sports personality. But the Lord had different plans for him, for while attending Cambridge University he heard Moody preach and was wondrously converted. He soon dedicated his life and his inherited wealth to Christ and spent hours seeking to convert his teammates. Sensing God’s leading to full-time service, he offered himself to Hudson Taylor for missionary work in China.
While in that foreign country, he inherited a sum of money equivalent today to half a million dollars. In 24 hours he gave the entire inheritance away, investing it in the things of the Lord. Later he was forced to go back to England, for his health was failing and his wife was an invalid. But God called him again—this time to the heart of Africa. He was informed that if he went, he would not live long. His only answer was that he had been looking for a chance to die for Jesus. “Faithful unto death,” he accepted God’s call and labored until the Savior took him Home. [3]
The famous missionary C. T. Studd once traveled to China on a ship whose captain was an embittered opponent of Christianity and who often studied the Bible for the sole reason of arguing with the missionaries who frequently sailed on his ship. When he learned that Studd was aboard his ship, the captain lit into him. But instead of arguing with him, Studd put his arm around the captain and said, “But my friend, I have a peace that passeth all understanding and joy that nothing can take away.”
The captain finally replied, “You’re a lucky dog,” and walked away. Before the end of the voyage, he became a rejoicing believer in Jesus Christ.[4]
One man who had this gift was C. T. Studd. His biography contains a beautiful story. His father was extremely wealthy. He was to inherit a substantial amount of money—several hundred thousand dollars. This took place in the 1880s, and at that time it amounted to more than £29,000. The following is what the biography says:
“So far as he could judge, his inheritance was £29,000. But in order to leave margin for error, he decided to start by giving £25,000. One memorable day, January 13, 1887, he sent off four cheques of £5,000 each, and five of £l,000. As cooly 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.
“He sent £5,000 to Mr. Moody, expressing the hope that he would be able to start some Gospel work at Tirhoot in North India, where his father had made his fortune. Moody hoped to carry this out, but was unable to, and instead used the money to start the famous Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, writing, ‘I will do the next best thing and open a Training School with it, from which men and women will go to all parts of the world to evangelize.‘[5]
English missionary to China, India, and Africa
Son of a wealthy plantation owner who had been converted under D. L. Moody, Studd was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won fame as an all–England cricketer. Influenced by his father, he volunteered for missionary service; and as one of the “Cambridge Seven,” he helped to lay the foundation of the Student Volunteer Movement, with its special interest in recruiting college students as foreign missionaries. In 1885 Studd sailed for China under the auspices of the China Inland Mission. Giving away the fortune he had inherited, he sought to live in native Chinese fashion. In 1900 he went to India, where he served as minister of the Union Church of Ootacamund in southern India. Ill health compelled him to give up this work in 1906; but in 1910, contrary to medical advice, he sailed for central Africa, where he labored until his death. In 1912 he founded the Heart of Africa Mission, which later became the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade, taking as its watchword “the evangelization of every part of the unevangelized world in the shortest possible time.”[6]
[1]10,000 Sermon Illustrations, electronic ed. (Dallas: Biblical Studies Press, 2000).
[2]10,000 Sermon Illustrations, electronic ed. (Dallas: Biblical Studies Press, 2000).
[3]Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations : A Treasury of Illustrations, Anecdotes, Facts and Quotations for Pastors, Teachers and Christian Workers (Garland TX: Bible Communications, 1996, c1979).
[4]Robert J. Morgan, Nelson's Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations, and Quotes, electronic ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000), 499.
[5]John MacArthur, Spiritual Gifts, Includes Index. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1983).
[6]J. D. Douglas, Philip Wesley Comfort and Donald Mitchell, Who's Who in Christian History, Illustrated Lining Papers. (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1997, c1992).
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