So many conversions followed as a result of these conversations that visitors to Ooty were warned, “Don’t go to the Union Church unless you want to get converted!” This was exactly the way C.T. liked things, and he was especially pleased when his own daughters came to him and asked to be baptized.
The problem C.T. had was where to baptize the girls, since none of the streams or rivers around Ooty were deep enough to use for a baptism. Finally C.T. came up with a solution. He ordered the gardener to dig up one of the flower beds to a depth of about four feet. Once the hole was dug, C.T. went to town and bought a huge, zinc-lined shipping crate, which he placed in the hole. On the morning of the baptism, the zinc-lined box was filled with water. It was a particularly cold day, and many kettles of boiling water were brought from the house to make the water in the makeshift baptistery tepid. However, the box leaked, and water had to be constantly added to it to maintain the water level.
A number of missionaries and Christian friends, among them Amy Carmichael, who ran a thriving mission in Dohnavur, at the southern tip of India, gathered to witness the baptism. Amy asked the girls many questions about the faith and their desire to be baptized and told C.T. how impressed she was with their answers. After the baptism everyone moved inside the Studd house, where they held a communion service.
Everything about living in Ootacamund was wonderful, except for one thing. The damp, cool climate that attracted so many people to the town was exactly the wrong climate for someone with asthma. At first C.T. was not greatly affected by it, but as the years went by, his asthma began to flare up once again. In fact, it got so bad that Priscilla wrote home describing C.T. as a “wreck.” C.T. had to give up playing cricket, and he puffed and wheezed when walking even the short distance from his house to the church. Eventually, he had to face the fact that he was too ill to continue his duties as pastor. As well, by 1906 the girls had been through three governesses, each one sent out from England by C.T.’s mother, and a fourth could not be found. This combined with C.T.’s broken health made him start to think about going home. As he prayed about it, C.T. realized that his time in India was over.
As Priscilla helped him onto the steamer bound for England, C.T. had no idea what the future held. He asked himself if at forty-six this was the end of his missionary service. Would his health improve enough for him to continue with the work he loved?
Chapter 9
For Want of a Christian Missionary
Back in London the Studd family once again settled in with C.T.’s mother. She was an old woman by now and glad to have the company of her four lively granddaughters. However, they did not stay with her for long. C.T.’s sister, Dora, and her husband, Willie Bradshaw, offered to send the three oldest girls off to school in Switzerland, where it was hoped that they could make up for time lost in India. C.T. and Priscilla thought this was a good plan, and so they sent Grace, Edith, and Dorothy away to school.
The girls’ departure meant that Priscilla was under less stress and C.T. could recuperate from his asthma. Sure enough, with rest, C.T.’s asthma began to settle down, and as soon as he was well enough, C.T. began traveling and preaching again. Everyone, from police institutes to the YMCA and Wesleyan chapels, seemed to want him to speak. C.T. accepted every invitation he could possibly fit into his schedule, and over the course of the next two years, he challenged tens of thousands of English people to respond to the gospel and to take up the challenge of becoming missionaries.
Even the secular press lauded C.T.’s straightforward way of speaking. At the end of one of his meetings at Handsworth, C.T. challenged his audience by saying,
We Christians today are indeed a tepid crew. Had we but half the fire and enthusiasm of the Suffragettes of the past, we would have the world evangelized.… Had we the pluck and heroism of the men who go on Polar expeditions or climb Everest, or for any ordinary daredevil enterprise, we could have every soul on earth knowing the name of Jesus Christ in less than ten years. To your knees, man! And to your Bible. Decide at once. Don’t hedge. Time flies, cease your insults to God. Quit consulting flesh and blood. Stop your lame lying and cowardly excuses.
Reporting on this meeting, a Birmingham newspaper wrote,
Mr. Studd is a missionary to emulate. And so all that band of college men from Handsworth thought as they cheered him to the echo, this man with the red tie and slim athletic body and young face. After more than twenty years in the harness he is bubbling over with life and humor; no pessimism about him, no lukewarmness; he loves and he follows, he teaches what he believes, he keeps a brave sunshiny face through it all. No subtleties appear to puzzle him; his faith is as brave as his speech is clear and straight.
Soon so many people were asking for copies of C.T.’s teachings that he compiled them into a booklet, which he entitled The Chocolate Soldier. The booklet encouraged Christian men and women not to melt like chocolate when times got hard but to press on with God. The book was an instant success.
The girls lasted eighteen months at school in Switzerland before they convinced their father that they would never master the French language. C.T. allowed them to come home and enroll in Sherborne School, one of the best girls’ schools in England. Once again Dora and Willie generously paid for their nieces’ tuition.
Whenever possible, Priscilla would accompany C.T. on his tours. But as they traveled, both of them longed to be back on the mission field, even though this seemed unlikely. Still, C.T. hoped and prayed that God would allow him and Priscilla to go back to China. Over the years he had followed the lives of the other members of the Cambridge Seven. In 1900 Cecil Polhill-Turner had returned to England because of ill health. Montagu Beauchamp had been evacuated during the Boxer Rebellion but was now back working in China. And Dixon Hoste was now director of the China Inland Mission. He had taken over the position when Hudson Taylor resigned as director.
By 1908 C.T. had toured England so many times that he was wondering what his future held. He seriously considered returning to India and living on the plains, where the climate would be better for his asthma. That is, he did until one particular day in Liverpool, where he was preaching. After lunch, as he strolled down the main street of the city, he noticed in the window of a building a large placard that read: “Cannibals want missionaries.” I am sure they do! Missionaries must be as tasty as anyone else, C.T. laughed to himself. But his interest had been aroused, and he decided to go inside and see who had put up the placard.
Inside he was directed into a large meeting room, where a man with a thick German accent was speaking. C.T. recognized him immediately; it was Dr. Karl Kumm. Dr. Kumm was well known in England as the missionary who had walked across Africa. C.T. took off his hat and slipped into a seat at the back of the room.
“When I reached the middle of the continent,” Dr. Kumm was saying, “I came across a number of tribes who had never heard the story of Jesus Christ. I asked one of the chiefs if he had ever seen a white person before, and he said that he had seen many of us. Some were big-game hunters, others were traders, officials, and scientists, but not one of them had ever been Christian enough to tell them the good news. My friends, we have to go soon. The Muslims are sweeping down from the north with their false religion, and no one is speaking up for Christ.”
Karl Kumm’s words sank deep into C.T.’s heart. C.T. prayed silently, Lord, why have no Christians gone?
He felt God reply to him, Why don’t you go?
The doctor won’t allow it, C.T. said, continuing the inner dialogue.
Am I not the Good Physician? Can I not see you through and keep you there? the voice came back.
There was nothing more to say; out of the blue, C.T. felt a clear challenge to go to Africa. It did not matter that he was forty-eight years old and in poor health and had no money. Somehow he knew he had to go to the continent known as the White Man’s Grave.
When the meeting was over, C.T. spoke with Dr. Kumm, and the two men decided to travel together across northern Africa from east to west. They planned to preach and check out sites for mission stations along the way.
C.T. returned to London with a new purpose for his life—evangelizing Africa! But he met a wall of resistance when he mentioned his new goal to his wife and his mother. His mother could hardly believe her ears. As soon as she was convinced that her son was serious about this new venture, she burst into tears and pleaded with him to be more sensible.
Priscilla was just as horrified. “How could you?” she sobbed. “This will break up the family, and you will never survive out there.”
But C.T. was unmoved. He had felt God’s call to Africa, and that held all his thoughts captive. To his disappointment, his body did not cooperate, and he was too sick to leave England. He was in bed with a raging fever when Dr. Kumm set sail alone for Africa.
C.T. was devastated, but there was little he could do. He simply did not have the strength to climb out of bed and pack his clothes. His wife and mother hugged each other, assured that their prayers had been answered.
Life continued on in the Studd household. Dorothy was courted by and then married Gilbert Barclay, and the two of them moved to the north of England, where Gilbert became the pastor of a church. A year later Grace followed Dorothy’s example. She married an elderly widower named Martin Sutton and moved to a luxurious home called Wargrave Manor.
After he recovered from his sickness, C.T. continued to travel around the British Isles, preaching two or three times a day. However, at the World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1910, his faith was stirred again. John R. Mott was one of the speakers at the conference. As a young man, he had been converted as a result of Kinny Studd’s evangelistic tour of the United States, and he now led the Student Christian Movement. One of the messages John delivered at the conference was titled “Carrying the Gospel to All the Non-Christian World.” John’s words deeply impacted C.T., and they were only reinforced when Karl Kumm took the podium. Dr. Kumm had just returned from Africa, and once again he challenged his audience.
“There are twenty-six separate tribes who have not been evangelized yet,” he said forcefully. “They range in size from five thousand members to two million. These tribes, which are along the borders of central Africa, stand in the way of the advance of Islam. It will be to our eternal shame if, for want of a Christian missionary, these people are converted to Islam.”
Once again C.T. felt the call to Africa.
The conference speakers inspired many others besides C.T., and by the end of the gathering, a group of businessmen had formed themselves into a committee to financially back missionaries who wanted to go to the tribes in Africa that were unreached with the gospel. The committee agreed to pay C.T.’s expenses so that he could go to Africa with Dr. Kumm. However, they put one condition on their support: C.T. must pass a medical examination.
Plans for the trip were quickly made, and a sailing date set. But as the departure date got nearer, C.T. dragged his feet on getting a medical exam. Finally the committee told him he had to go to a doctor, and so he did. The results, though, were not what he wanted to hear. The doctor agreed that it might be all right for C.T. to visit the north of the African continent. But under no circumstances, he warned, should C.T. travel south of Khartoum, Sudan, as that area was renowned for severe cases of malaria and sleeping sickness. C.T., however, could not make such a promise, and so the committee withdrew its support of him.
C.T. was resolute. If need be, he would go to Africa alone and make a survey of the areas that still needed missionaries. At the next meeting of the committee, C.T. told them, “Gentlemen, God has called me to go, and I will go. I will blaze the trail, though my grave may only be a stepping-stone that younger men may follow. Jesus tells us that ‘he that shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall find it,’ and I, if I lose my life following Jesus, so be it.”
