By Wilfred’s eighteenth birthday on February 28, 1883, he was two weeks into his medical training and already very disappointed with what he saw. Older students told him that the London Hospital Medical School, which was actually part of London University, was no better or worse than most other medical schools in England. But Wilfred was dismayed by the experience. He had botany class first thing on Monday morning. At the first lecture, one student spilled a solution of carbon disulfide at the front of the room, and the smell of rotten eggs was so strong that the lecture had to be cancelled. The second Monday someone brought two pigeons to class and let them loose. Peashooters were passed around, and the students climbed on the desks trying to shoot the birds down from the rafters.
After that experience Wilfred decided not to bother attending any more botany classes. Instead he paid the record keeper who sat at the door recording attendance to mark him present. He did the same in many of his other classes, too, although he did like chemistry class, where the students concocted many flavors of eggnog.
He studied at home when he felt like it and relied on the old system of crammers to get him through his exams when the time came. Crammers were men who had been around the university for many years. They knew each of the professors, their pet subjects, and many of the questions that recurred in the tests they wrote. Some crammers, it was rumored, even paid professors for an advance copy of the exam papers.
Knowing that he could hire a crammer at the end of the semester, Wilfred felt at liberty to fill his university days doing the things he liked best: playing all kinds of sports. With so much spare time, he set out on an intense course of bodybuilding. He soon made the London University rowing team, the boxing team, both the university and the Richmond rugby teams, and the cricket team. His life had never been so much fun!
Wilfred was often up at the crack of dawn, plunging into the Serpentine River for a morning swim. Even on days when sheets of ice covered the water, he broke through the ice and jumped in anyway, enjoying the invigorating experience. It did not take long for him to make quite a name for himself as an excellent athlete.
With the help of a crammer, Wilfred passed his first semester exams. Then it was off to Parkgate for the summer holidays. It was a breath of fresh air to be at home by the water again. Algernon had just graduated from Oxford and returned to become the principal of Mostyn House School. However, all work was forgotten as the two brothers bought an old fishing trawler and refurbished her. Then they took her out into the Irish Sea on fishing excursions. At times Wilfred seriously considered ditching his studies and staying in Parkgate. But then he would remind himself that his father expected him to get a job and earn a living.
Thankfully, the second semester of medical studies was more engaging for Wilfred than the first. Second semester students were allowed to follow the doctors as they made their rounds of patients. London Hospital, with its nine hundred beds, was one of the largest and most diverse hospitals in the country. Wilfred was assigned to Dr. Fredrick Treves, who, although he was only thirty years old, was already well-known as a brilliant surgeon. Wilfred soon discovered that Dr. Treves was a strict and exacting mentor who followed the revolutionary ideas of Joseph Lister. Lister believed that infection was passed from person to person by invisible germs and that doctors who came in contact with an infectious person had to be very careful not to get those germs on themselves and transfer them to other patients. To ensure that these germs were not passed on, Lister promoted the application of purified carbolic acid on wounds to kill germs. He also insisted that surgical instruments and the surgeon’s hands be sterilized with carbolic acid before and after surgery.
Many of the doctors and students at London Hospital thought the idea of sterilizing things was a passing fad, but not Dr. Treves. He insisted that his students wear spotless frock coats and wash their hands after touching a patient. At first Wilfred found this tedious, but when he heard that many of the patients Dr. Treves had amputated limbs from had actually lived to go home, he changed his opinion. And when Wilfred learned that the doctor was also an avid sportsman, he grew to admire him even more.
Now Wilfred found that he wanted to attend classes and even go on house calls around the hospital. London Hospital was located in the middle of a slum. In fact, many of those who lived around the hospital did not even have a roof over their heads or anywhere to sleep. Thirty-three thousand people were homeless in the area, and another fifty thousand lived in workhouses. Because these people were so poor, the medical students were encouraged to practice their doctoring skills on them free of charge. It was after one of these house calls that Wilfred experienced something that would change him forever.
In the fall of 1884, during his fourth semester, Wilfred was called out to a maternity case in one of the poorest parts of the East End of London. He helped the woman deliver a puny baby, talked to her about keeping her hands clean when she handled the child, and then left. As he started the walk back to the hospital, Wilfred decided to take a different route than usual. He turned left and headed down a dimly lit street in Shadwell. A few minutes later he found himself confronted by a most unusual sight. Right in the middle of a trash-filled vacant lot someone had set up a huge red-and-white striped tent. The back of the tent was open to the night air, and as Wilfred walked slowly past, he could see hundreds of poor people sitting quietly. This seemed almost more extraordinary to Wilfred than the sight of the tent itself. He had never seen such a rabble of poor people behaving so courteously. He simply had to find out what was going on.
Wilfred stood at the back of the tent. Looking over the rows of people, he saw a powerful-looking man at the front. The man was standing on a low stage, and somewhere to his left someone else was talking—no, praying, Wilfred decided. As he listened to the prayer, which seemed to never end, Wilfred remembered that the famous American preacher D. L. Moody was holding meetings in London. Of course, he told himself, this was one of those rip-roaring American evangelistic meetings that were being reported on in the press. Wilfred stood at the back for another two minutes as the long prayer continued. Finally his curiosity was satisfied, and Wilfred turned to leave. It was then that he heard Moody’s booming voice.
“Let us sing a hymn while our brother finishes his prayer. Number twenty-three, ‘Rock of Ages.’”
As the hymn began, drowning out the man’s lengthy prayer, Wilfred laughed aloud. He had to admire the way Moody had moved the program forward.
A boy seated in the back row moved over and beckoned for Wilfred to sit down. Wilfred slipped into the seat. Soon the hymn was over, and D. L. Moody began to preach. Something about the message hit home with Wilfred, and though he did not go forward as Moody urged all “sinners” to do, he had plenty to think about that night. Despite the thousands of times he had been to church over the years, it was the first time Wilfred felt that he understood the gospel message.
As the weeks went by, however, Wilfred’s love of sports eventually crowded out his thoughts about God, and Moody’s words slowly dimmed in his mind.
Wilfred also had something else to occupy his mind. His father was sick, so sick, in fact, that he gave up his position at the hospital and was placed in a private nursing home in North Wales. Wilfred’s mother stayed in a boarding house nearby and visited her husband every day. Unfortunately there was little anyone could do, and the Reverend Algernon Grenfell died in January 1885.
It was a devastating blow to Wilfred, who found himself remembering D. L. Moody’s words once again. Then, a few days after his father’s funeral, Wilfred spotted a poster announcing that Moody was back in London, this time with a group of young men dubbed the “Cambridge Seven.” Every eager young sports fan in England knew about the Cambridge Seven—seven young men from wealthy homes who had each distinguished himself in sports or military service. One of the group had played cricket for England, other members had been on the Oxford rowing team, and one had been a dragoon guardsman and an officer in the royal artillery. Each of these seven men had turned the idea of missionary upside down by volunteering to work in China with Hudson Taylor and his China Inland Mission. Some people could not stop talking about how dangerous it was to go to China and what a pity it would be if they were all killed or died of diseases. Others lauded their actions as heroic acts of Christian service.
Wilfred was not sure what he thought of it all, but when he read the poster, he decided to go and hear the men speak. That night he found himself seated in a packed tent looking up at the Cambridge Seven.
All seven of the young men were introduced to the audience, and then C. T. Studd, the famous cricketer, stood up to speak. His voice was steady as he began.
“About a year ago my brother George was very ill. In fact, the doctor told us there was no hope for him. George and I had played together on the English cricket team against Australia. As I sat by his bedside hour after hour, watching him hover between life and death, thoughts tormented me. I wondered, Now, what is the popularity of the world worth to George? What can his fame do for him? What is the point of possessing everything the world has to offer, when it’s time to face eternity? And as I wondered, a voice seemed to say to me, ‘Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. Only what is done for Christ will last beyond the grave.’ Miraculously George did get better, but his illness left me with many questions about my own future.”
Although Studd stumbled over some of his words, Wilfred found himself riveted by what he was saying. Having just buried his own father, he had found himself thinking similar thoughts.
Studd went on. “I began to think about my own life. Of course I had attended church for as long as I could remember. I had even heard Moody speak before, but I had never thought about God having a claim on my life. Then one day I felt challenged to yield my whole life to Christ. I knelt down right where I was and asked God to take my life. I promised I would trust in Him and He could direct me to do whatever He wanted. From that time my life has been different. He has given me that peace that passes understanding and a joy unspeakable.”
Studd talked on some more, but Wilfred had heard enough. He wanted the same kind of faith that the cricket hero in front of him possessed. This time, Wilfred promised himself, I will not leave the Moody meeting until I find it.
As the meeting drew to an end, however, Wilfred found it surprisingly difficult to follow through on that promise. Studd called for those who wanted to profess their belief in Christ to stand up. Suddenly Wilfred felt like he was stuck to his seat. He could not will himself to stand up in a crowd of a thousand strangers. Then, in front of him, a teenage boy in a sailor’s uniform rose to his feet. Wilfred admired the boy’s courage, knowing that for taking such a stand he would be teased by his fellow sailors. But this admiration was soon followed by shame as Wilfred realized how much he was influenced by what strangers thought of him. He would quite happily plunge into icy water or scale a cliff, but he was acting like a coward when it came to Christ. With his heart beating wildly, Wilfred finally managed to clamber to his feet.
There, it’s done, he told himself. Like the Cambridge Seven in front of him, Wilfred Grenfell would follow wherever Christ led him. He just did not have the slightest idea where that might be.
Chapter 4
Something Quite Different
At the start of Wilfred’s fifth semester in medical school, in February 1885, his mother was still in London working out the last of her husband’s affairs before moving back to Parkgate to live with Algernon. It was to her that Wilfred turned for advice.
