The majority of pioneer missionaries had their start in rather humble and obscure circumstances, with limited financial resources and few opportunities for an adequate education. But C. T. Studd is an exception to the pattern. His father, Edward Studd of Tidworth, England, had made a fortune in India and had retired to England to spend it.
After attending some meetings with D.L. Moody, Edward Studd was saved. He rejected his race horses, card houses, and gambling, and started focusing on soul winning. He became greatly concerned about the conversion of his sons. He took them to hear the evangelist D. L. Moody. His son, C.T. Studd, and the rest of the brothers, were saved through that ministry. Prior to this, C.T. Studd had attended church, but he compared church to a bad toothache. He said, “I never met a real converted person.”
After salvation, C.T. Studd started reading God’s Word and one verse kept going over in his mind (Psalm 2:8). He felt he was being called to the mission field. About his calling, he is recorded as saying, ““God doesn’t tell a person first by his head; He tells him first by the heart. God put it in my heart and made me long to go to China.” C.T. Studd met with Hudson Taylor and ended up going to China.
Before leaving for China, he gave his inheritance away. C.T. Studd inherited much wealth and would’ve been considered a millionaire today. He kept the equivalent of $50,000 today and traveled to China to serve. Three years after arriving in China, C. T. married a young Irish missionary from Ulster named Priscilla Livingstone Stewart. Just before the wedding he presented his bride with the remaining money from his inheritance. She, not to be outdone, said, “Charlie, what did the Lord tell the rich young man to do?” “Sell all.” “Well then, we will start clear with the Lord at our wedding.” And they proceeded to give the rest of the money away for the Lord’s work.
Their ministry stretched from China, to India, to Africa and he lived by this motto, “If Jesus Christ is God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.”
C.T. Studd warned believers of being Chocolate Christians rather than soldiers of God. A soldier of Christ counts hardship, disease, danger, and death as his dearest friends. C.T. Studd described Chocolate Christians as, “Dissolving in water and melting at the smell of fire. “Sweeties” they are! Bonbons, lollipops! Living their lives on a glass dish or in a cardboard box, each clad in his soft clothing, a little frilled white paper to preserve his dear little delicate constitution.” A Chocolate Christian says, “I’ll go,” but goes not. He tells others to go, and yet will not go themselves.
In a letter written shortly before his death, C. T. Studd reviews his life with this summary:
“As I believe I am now nearing my departure from this world, I have but a few things to rejoice in. They are these:
“1. That God called me to China, and I went in spite of utmost opposition from all my loved ones.
“2. That I joyfully acted as God told that rich young man to act.
“3. That I deliberately at the call of God, when alone on the Bibbly liner in 1910, gave up my life for this work, which was to be henceforth not for the Sudan only, but for the whole unevangelized World.
“My only joys therefore are that when God has given me a work to do, I have not refused it.”
Only one life twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.