The ship stopped at Brindisi, Italy, and Alexandria, Egypt, before passing through the Suez Canal. Then it was on to Colombo, on the island of Ceylon, and from there, Penang, Malaysia; Singapore; and Hong Kong. Whenever the ship docked, the enthusiastic young missionaries went ashore and preached to any group they could get together at such short notice. Early in the voyage the captain of the vessel was converted after talking with C.T., and he invited the young men to hold daily services on the quarterdeck.
The six-week voyage to China passed quickly, and on March 18, 1885, the Cambridge Seven arrived in Shanghai, China. As they walked down the gangplank and onto the bustling dock, a middle-aged Chinese man waved to them.
“Welcome to China!” the man yelled in perfect English.
It was only when the man was standing right in front of them that C.T. recognized him. It was Hudson Taylor! C.T. knew that the China Inland Mission had a policy of dressing like the Chinese people, right down to the impossibly wide-sleeved gowns and pigtails, but it was still a shock to see an English gentleman looking so Chinese.
Taylor escorted the seven men through immigration and then to the CIM hostel in Shanghai. He explained to them that their first task was to begin learning the Chinese language and start growing their hair long so that in three months they could begin their missionary travels.
Since Shanghai was a treaty port, one of China’s cities open to foreign trade and foreign residents, thousands of Europeans lived there. Taylor booked Temperance Hall, the largest hall in the city, in which to hold a meeting to introduce China Inland Mission’s newest missionaries to the English-speaking residents.
Just as in the Cambridge Seven’s meetings in England, many people were converted and challenged to spread the gospel after hearing the Cambridge Seven speak. But it was Chinese people that C.T. longed to reach, and he was eager to be out among them.
In the weeks ahead, language study progressed slowly. C.T. and the Polhill-Turner brothers struggled more than the others with their lessons. Everyone persevered, however, and they were soon ready to travel to their various mission stations.
It was also time to put on Chinese dress. C.T. roared with laughter when Monty and Stanley shaved off their mustaches. And when the men all had the front half of their heads shaved and the remainder of their hair braided into queues (long, Chinese pigtails), they looked quite the part—except that Monty, Stanley, and C.T. were a good foot taller than any Chinese man.
Shoes proved to be the biggest challenge. The first shoemaker declared that he had never been asked to take on such a “gigantic” task as making shoes for C.T’s large feet, and he fled in terror. A second shoemaker was warned before he reached the mission house of the large job ahead of him, and he accepted the challenge only after negotiating to be paid a good sum of money for his efforts. Finally C.T. got his shoes, but word of their size traveled quickly around the city, and whenever he went outside, Chinese people pointed at the shoes and laughed.
Still, C.T. had more important things to think about. It was time for the Cambridge Seven to split into two groups and travel inland. Stanley, Dixon, and William were assigned to go north to Shanxi province, while the Polhill-Turners and C.T. would head westward to Hanchung. Monty would stay in Shanghai, as he was not well.
On April 4, 1885, C.T. and Cecil and Arthur Polhill-Turner set out. They traveled seven hundred miles up the Yangtze River by steamer. The trip took four days, and C.T. spent most of that time on deck staring at the amazing scenery. Small villages dotted the riverbank, and all sorts of boats darted about on the river. Some carried fishermen, others ferried people from one side of the river to the other, and still others carried cargoes of grain and rice downriver to the market in Shanghai.
The steamer went no farther than Hankow, where the three missionaries transferred their belongings to a junk that would take them eleven hundred miles up the Han River to Hanchung. As C.T. stowed his baggage, he looked around at his new “home” for the next three months. He had to bend over to get into the three cabins, which were only six feet wide and seven feet long. One cabin was for him and the Polhill-Turner brothers, while the other two were for the captain and their Chinese language instructor. It was going to be a tight squeeze.
It was the first time that the three missionaries had been out of contact with any other Europeans, and C.T. soon found that there was a lot to get used to. The men were constantly stared at and poked by curious river folk, many of whom C.T. guessed had never seen a white person before. At first he did not mind this, but after a few days it became tedious to be the center of attention yet unable to answer a single question. There was another problem—rats. The rats overran the boat, nibbling everything in sight and stealing the men’s socks to make their nests. The three missionaries thought of setting traps for the rats but decided to ask God to rid them of the annoying creatures. Amazingly, they did not have any more difficulty with the rats.
This gave C.T. an idea. C.T. was having a lot of difficulty with something else—the Chinese language. Why not ask God to perform a miracle and make the three of them know Chinese without having to learn it? The more C.T. thought about it, the more the idea appealed to him. He suggested it to Cecil and Arthur, who also thought it was a great idea. After all, they pointed out, wasn’t God a God of miracles?
As the junk sailed up the Han River, the three missionaries stopped their language study and began to pray earnestly that God would pop the Chinese language into their heads while they slept. Each morning C.T. would wake up expecting Chinese words to be running through his mind, but they never were. Still, he kept praying and believing.
The hot, cramped voyage continued until they reached Hanchung, where they disembarked and set off northward for Pingyang-fu to meet Hudson Taylor. This time they traveled on foot. Their Chinese language instructor went with them, even though they no longer took language lessons from him. Two porters also accompanied them to help carry their luggage.
The group had many miles to cover, and C.T.’s days soon fell into a pattern. C.T. awoke at 2:00 am and read his Bible by candlelight until 3:30. Then he got up and packed his few belongings back into his bag so that they could all be on their way at 4:00 am. Normally they would walk eight or ten miles before stopping at a roadside inn for a breakfast of rice and soup. After breakfast they continued walking until they took a lunch break. Then they walked until the sun went down, when they finally stopped for the night. Most days they covered thirty miles. Soon the miles became agonizing to C.T., whose shoes wore out, forcing him to walk barefoot. When he was a child, C.T.’s mother had never let him run around without shoes and socks on his feet. As a result his feet were soft and tender, and they soon became swollen and infected. Despite his throbbing feet, C.T. would not allow his condition to slow the others down. They had a date with Hudson Taylor, and nothing was going to stand in their way, not even his blistered, bleeding feet.
The group finally reached Pingyang-fu on November 3. It had been seven months since they set out from Shanghai, and when they arrived, the three Europeans were suntanned and fit.
Taylor was eagerly awaiting their arrival, and one of the first things he asked was how their language study was going. C.T. was embarrassed as he told him they had given up studying in favor of waiting for a miracle.
Taylor nodded thoughtfully and then said, “If I could put Chinese into your heads with one wave of my hand, I would not do it.” He went on to explain how important the process of learning was. By submitting to a Chinese scholar and watching what he did and listening to what he said, they were not only learning the language but also gaining much wisdom and understanding about the culture of the people they wanted to reach with the gospel.
C.T. agreed that he had made a mistake, and once again he took up the arduous task of learning Chinese. His first assignment helped hurry him along.
Taylor asked C.T. to go on to the town of Chin-Wu to keep a China Inland Mission station open. C.T. was completely alone among the Chinese in Chin-Wu, and he had little choice but to learn how to communicate effectively with them.
On December 2, 1885, C.T. remembered that it was his twenty-fifth birthday, though he had no one in particular to celebrate it with. Christmas and New Year soon rolled by, and C.T. began to feel at home among the people of Chin-Wu. He worked hard at his Chinese studies, and soon he was reading the Bible in Chinese to his cook.
By July 1886, however, C.T. was eager for some contact with other Europeans, and he was delighted to learn that he had been invited to a missionary conference in Taiyuen, the provincial capital of Shanxi province. He especially looked forward to seeing Stanley, William, Dixon, and Monty again.
As it happened, William really needed C.T. He was critically sick with smallpox, and the Chinese servants were not properly tending to the “white devil” in their care. C.T. stepped in right away, and together with Monty, he insisted on assuming the nursing duties. C.T. and Monty took turns looking after William and attending the conference meetings, at which both Hudson Taylor and his oldest son, Herbert, spoke. Thankfully, William made a speedy recovery.
At the end of the conference, C.T. and Taylor were scheduled to travel together to Chungking in Szechwan province to visit the CIM missionaries working there. However, before they set out on the journey, news reached them that riots had broken out in Chungking and all foreigners had been expelled from the city. When he heard this, C.T. immediately volunteered to go to Chungking and reopen the mission station there. It was agreed that another missionary, John Phelps, would accompany him.
The journey to Chungking was treacherous. Because of the riots, no inn was willing to accommodate “foreign devils,” and so on several occasions C.T. and John found themselves sleeping for the night with the pigs in pigsties. When they finally reached Chungking, the two missionaries had to sneak into the city under the cover of dark, because Chinese guards had been posted to keep all foreigners out.
Inside the city C.T. And John found that the only European left was the British consul, Mr. Bourne.
“How did you get in here?” a surprised Mr. Bourne asked when he laid eyes on C.T. and John. “All Europeans who were not killed in the riots were forced to evacuate the city. I was allowed to stay because I am the British consul.”
“We sneaked in after dark,” C.T. said with a grin. “We have come to reopen the mission station.”
“I am afraid you can’t stay here. No foreigners except me are permitted to stay in the city at present. I can issue you a passport to travel up or down the river in safety, but you must leave,” Mr. Bourne said.
“But we cannot leave. God has brought us safely this far, and we believe that that is because He wants us here. We will not go,” C.T. answered.
Mr. Bourne looked startled. “You are a very stubborn man, Mr. Studd. I have a small room here in my house, but it is big enough for only one man to live in. I will allow one of you to stay, but the other must leave.” Then he studied both of them and announced, ”Studd, you will stay with me.”
C.T. moved into the room in Mr. Bourne’s house. After he had seen John Phelps off, he set about locating the local Chinese Christians, setting up meetings to encourage them in their faith.
Time in Chungking passed quickly for C.T. He was surprised when one morning he received a thick letter in the mail. The letter bore the watermark of Messrs. Coutts & Co, the Studd family’s solicitor. As C.T. tore the envelope open, he realized that it had been two weeks since his twenty-sixth birthday, the day he was to inherit the money his father had left him. Sure enough, the envelope contained copies of stocks and bank deposits that now belonged to him.
