LIFE ON THE ALTAR

This article is from Issue 5, “Called To Obedience”

The world famous English cricketer C.T. Studd shocked the sporting world and all who knew him when at the age of twenty four he turned his back on his success, reputation, wealth and prominence to become a missionary for Jesus Christ.

In February 1885, along with six other Cambridge students, Charles sailed to China with the sole intent of serving God by bringing the gospel to the lost millions who had never heard the name of Jesus. He was as consumed with this purpose as he had been with cricket, exchanging one passion forever for another.

Charles worked under Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission. Before China, he had seen hundreds come to Christ through his testimonial tours up and down England. Thousands had flocked to hear him and he had the joy of leading many to The Lord, but China was a very different mission field .

The voyage from England to Shanghai took two months; the arrival of the ‘Cambridge Seven’ amongst the English in Shanghai seemed to turn the city upside down! Filled with Holy Spirit power they brought spiritual dynamite to the church meetings.

After being transformed visually into ‘China men’ complete with shaved heads and pig tails, they travelled a further four months by river boat to Han-chung, followed by weeks of walking and mule trekking from one village to another before reaching Ping-Yang.

The first two years were spent learning the language, becoming accustomed to the Chinese way of life, and entering into wonderful and intimate fellowship with God.

Hours were spent daily devouring God’s Word, with an increased desire to put to death all things of the flesh. During that time Charles learned to be a nobody who apart from Christ could do nothing. His own fellowship with God became his chief joy, and confidence in God’s call despite appearances was being strengthened.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

No doubt Charlie’s father was an inspiration to him, he had passed over to glory before Charles even contemplated China. Two years before he died, the unconverted Edward Studd found himself at a D. L. Moody meeting, never to be the same again.

After believing on Jesus, to the surprise of his family and friends, his life of extravagant parties and race horse training came to an abrupt end, and was replaced with a joy and peace he had never known.

He was now entertaining preachers and using the grand family home of Tedworth House to facilitate evangelistic meetings. He was as much on fire for Christ as his sons were to be, though Charlie didn’t appreciate or know it at the time!

Charles and his brothers were mostly away at Eton while their father was busy challenging his staff to get right with God. During holidays the brothers were hit with the same impassioned questions by a loving father in earnest for their souls, to no immediate effect, though his prayers were greatly answered in time!

Edward Studd had made a large fortune as the owner of an indigo plantation in India, and when Charles turned twenty five while in China, he had access to his share of the inheritance.

The Lord’s call to “sell all that you have and follow Me” was taken quite literally when Charles gave away the bulk of his inheritance to various mission works, a figure which in today’s money estimates at three million pounds! Though marriage was far from his thoughts, he had kept an amount aside as provision for a possible future wife and family.

A SURPRISE IN SHANGHAI

Little did he know that just several months later, a visit to meet his brother in Shanghai would lead him right to his bride. The bustling port city was full of English people,  clubs and dinning lounges, churches and great ministry opportunities.

Drawn to the Mission to Sailors, his path crossed with an Irish red headed missionary called Priscilla, who was fired up with Salvation Army victory songs! She shared her testimony with great passion to anyone who would hear it, and was leading many of the English living in the city to Christ. Once heard, invitations came from all over for her to share her story and message.

She had been saved and Spirit filled for just two years, and like Charles, her call to China had come quickly and she responded in kind. She too came from high society and like Charles had willingly forsaken all. No wonder she caught his eye.

On first meeting, he couldn’t help but notice though how she struggled with the stairs and moved around quite slowly. She had a weak heart and had therefore been considered unfit to make the arduous journey to the inland mission stations where living conditions could be harsh. Charles wondered why someone with such poor health had come to work in China, of course forgetting that he himself suffered from weak lungs due to asthma!

However, the Spirit of God was moving in the sailor’s mission house meetings, and she received great blessings in the form of strength and power, and anointing for ministry. When Charles saw her running up and down the stairs, he saw the possibilities of a suitable help meet.

The short time in Shanghai was a great boost for Charles as he had been able to minister in his own language, and meeting the fiery Priscilla had brought a new dimension and vigour to his life. His heart though was for the lost Chinese natives, as was Priscilla’s. Charles journeyed back to his station, and with her new found energy, Priscilla also travelled inland to a station just three days journey from Charlie’s.

UNITED TO FIGHT FOR JESUS

Though no romance was evident at first, they stayed in touch through their letters, and Charles soon became convinced that they were a perfect match. Love was kindled as they shared their devotion to Christ, their hunger for God’s Word, and their passion for souls. With her heart fixed on serving Christ alone, she turned down Charlie’s first proposal, but after much prayer and fasting, Charles proposed again by mail.

“It will be no easy life, no life of ease which I could offer you, but one of toil and hardship; in fact, if I did not know you to be a woman of God, I would not dream of asking you. It is to be a fellow soldier in His Army. It is to live a life of faith in God, a fighting life, remembering that here we have no abiding city, no certain dwelling place, but only a home eternal in the Father’s House above. Such would be the life; may The Lord alone guide you.”

Priscilla finally accepted, and when opportunity unexpectedly came, they married in simple casual Chinese clothes, the bride adorning a white sash with the words “United to fight for Jesus” written across. The ceremony came to an end with them both kneeling before God with this promise, “We will never hinder one another from serving Thee.”

When Charles gave his bride the remainder of his inheritance, he was delighted when she chose to give it as an offering to The Lord’s work. It was Charles desire to truly live by faith in God alone, including for practical financial needs, and Priscilla had the same mind. They began as they meant to go on, trusting God as their treasurer.

LUNGAN

The newly wed couple returned to Charlie’s mission station in Lungan, a large city which had already been penetrated by Islam. 10,000 of it’s inhabitants were Muslims, the majority of the rest were spirit worshippers, and no one wanted the white missionaries there.

In need of a home, they acquired a simple bare floored brick house, which a China man was happy to sell to them because he believed it was haunted and no one else would live there! Together with Priscilla’s friend Miss Burroughs, and Charlie’s dear friends Mr and Mrs Smith, they slowly expanded the work that Charles and Mr Smith had begun.

While they dressed, ate, lived and spoke Chinese, the locals called them “foreign devils” and threw curses at them continually. It was far from an easy life, but with humility and boldness combined, they challenged the cruel customs and traditions of the time.

Between them, they were able to speak to the locals and share with them why they were there, The Holy Spirit giving them wisdom and words.

A trickle of conversions led to the building of a small chapel, and to reach a particular need in the community, a refuge for opium addicts was established. When the first brave entrants came out delivered, more followed, and this proved to be a wonderful way to show the love and the power of Christ. Sometimes there were as many as fifty people receiving care and prayer to break free from opium.

GRACE AND PAUL

Priscilla soon became pregnant, and her two months crash course on nursing at the Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in London was to come in handy. If they chose to travel to the hospital for delivery, they would be away from their mission station for five months, a length of time that neither of them were prepared to pay. They would have their child in their own home.

When the time came, with the help of her husband, Mr Smith and the grace of God, baby Grace was born healthy. Some days later much to the relief of all, a missionary nurse arrived. Priscila seemed to take a turn for the worst, her heart condition not helping. Charlie, ever honest and frank, wrote home to his mother.

“Something went wrong, and poor Scilla suffered fearfully. Miss Ker tried all she knew, but it was no use; poor Scilla got weaker and weaker, and it seemed she would die. Miss Ker said to me, ‘She is breaking up altogether and can never live in China. You had better take her home if she can come through this.’

This seemed to rouse me from a sleep, a sleep of sorrow and anxiety and fatigue, and I said ‘We will give our lies out here willingly, but we will not go home unless The Lord distinctly sends us.’ I felt The Lord must hear and heal, for we had trusted Him and He is so faithful; so I said, ‘Well, let us anoint Scilla and ask God to raise her up.’ Miss Ker did not see that she could do that, so it delved on me only.

Scilla was of the same mind, so I knelt down and in the name o The Lord anointed her with oil. Immediately the trouble ceased. So remarkable was it that in the morning, when Miss Ker came to nurse her, she said, ‘What has happened? Why, you are well.’ Scilla told her I had anointed her and prayed, ‘Well, it is marvellous.’”

Within a year, another child was born, this time a beautiful boy, but to the great sadness of this couple, and after another difficult delivery, he died shortly after.  While Charlie was out collecting a little box to bury baby Paul in, Scilla had a few precious moments with The Lord. She wrote this;

“I was left alone in my room. I shall never forget that experience. It has stuck with me throughout life. I felt absolutely heartbroken. The question was whether I was going to give in and the whole of my missionary life be wrecked. Whilst Mr Studd was away I made a mark in my  Bible. I made a covenant with my God that I was not going to let sorrow of any kind come into my life and ruin my life as a missionary. I was not going to let my husband see sorrow that would unhinge him.”

MORE GIRLS!

The Chinese culture of the day put little value on the life of girls. In a society used to cruel practises, they thought little of leaving a new born girl in a ditch for the wolves to take. Such was the darkness.

Though Priscilla had health issues, by God’s grace and His providence, the missionary couple had three more baby girls, all healthy, and all born at home without a doctor present. Seeing God’s hand in His choices for them, she wrote this;

“God gave me four little girls for a purpose. He wanted these people to learn a lesson. We called our first girl Grace, the others Praise (Dorothy) and Prayer (Edith). And the last one Joy (Pauline). They thought Mr Studd must be a strange man to call the fourth daughter Joy. We wanted them to learn that God loves little girls as well as little boys.”

FRUIT THAT REMAINS

After a few years, Mr and Mrs Smith were appointed by the CIM to another area to start a new mission station. Charles and Priscilla were the only couple there now, and to the surprise of many, preferring to be solely under the headship of their Heavenly Captain, they resigned from working under the CIM and continued their work alone; something most unheard of in those days. They trusted God for provision and guidance, and His hand on the work.

Life was hard with many difficulties, but Charlie and Priscilla were not ones to complain, knowing and loving The One Whom they served. The refuge for opium addicts was a full time work, seeing many delivered  from the drug and also brought into the Kingdom of God. Slowly a Christian community of sorts was formed, with some new believers taking on the challenge to be a messenger themselves to their own people for Jesus Christ.

Charlie wrote of one such person.

“At the end of a message on the text ‘He is able to save to the uttermost’, when the congregation had let, a single Chinaman remained behind at the back of the room. When we went to him, he told us we had been talking sheer nonsense. He said, ‘I am a murderer, an adulterer, I have broken all the laws of God and man again and again. I am also an opium smoker. He cannot save me.’

We laid before him the wonders of Jesus and His gospel and power. The man meant business, and was soundly converted. He said, ‘I must go to the town where I have done all this evil and sin, and in that very place tell the good tidings.’

He did. He gathered crowds, was brought before the mandarin, and was ordered 2,000 strokes with the bamboo, until his back was one mass of red jelly, and he himself was thought to be dead.

He was brought back by some friends, taken to hospital and nursed by Christian hands until he was able to sit up. He then said ‘I must go back again and preach this gospel.’

We strongly dissuaded him, but a short time after he went and started preaching in the same place. Once more he was brought before the court. They were ashamed to give him the bamboo again, so sent him instead to prison.

But the prison had small open windows and holes in the wall. Crowds collected and he preached out of these windows and holes; till, finding he did more preaching inside the prison than out, they set him free, in despair of ever being able to move one so stubborn and staunch.”

ENGLAND

From 1888 until 1894, they served the people of Lungan until Charlie’s asthma became intolerable. On hearing of his poor health, his mother had sent a sum of money for their journey home, though he was most  reluctant to leave. Eventually however, he and his wife, and their four young Chinese speaking daughters were to return to England, the youngest still a baby in arms.

When they began their journey leaving the city, they were escorted by a large convoy of natives affected by their ministry there, and they journeyed with them the first five miles to show their love, appreciation and sadness of their going. They certainly had not gone to China for nothing.

The base they had built was handed over to the care of Hudson Taylor to develop as he was so led to, and though Charlie fully expected to return after allowing his health to improve, they never did.

Charlie’s mother opened her arms and home to a son she hadn’t seen for ten years, and a daughter in law and four grand daughters she had never met. From their humble home in Langan to living at 2 Hyde Park Gardens was about as stark a contrast as you could get.

The girls who only spoke Chinese, were introduced to a very different world of high teas, silk ribbons and frilly petticoats, all of which they loved! Charlie had a harder time adjusting to dressing like a gentleman again, but the comfort, luxury and good food of his mother’s home helped to restore his health.

Despite having no money of their own, every provision for them was made, including a nanny for the children. A few wealthy friends who had supported them in China continued to, though not sufficiently to leave Hyde Gardens where they were to live for several years.

As soon as Charlie’s health permitted he was accepting invitations to speak up and down the country. Priscilla’s heart condition kept her at home with the girls, and for the first time they were no longer working side by side in the flesh, though most certainly in spirit, an arrangement that would in time become the norm.

To be continued…..

Taken from Life On The Altar Publications
Issue 5 Summer 2022

Called To Obedience