The Cambridge Band and Shan-si 1. C. T. Studd 2. D. E. Hoste 3. W. W. Cassels 4. S. P. Smith 5. C. Polhill-Turner 6. A. Polhill-Turner 7. M. Beauchamp

The Cambridge Band and Shan-si

1. C. T. Studd   2. D. E. Hoste   3. W. W. Cassels    4. S. P. Smith 

5. C. Polhill-Turner   6. A. Polhill-Turner    7. M. Beauchamp

Eighteen months have passed since the death of Harold Schofield from typhus fever, far away in inland China. Instead of the early dawning of a long, hot summer day over a Chinese city, we stand in the gloaming of a chill, wet January night in London's busy Strand. Down pours the persistent rain. But crowds of people throng the entrances to Exeter Hall, regardless of weather, and the great area of the building is filled to its utmost limit, long before the hour fixed for assembly.

Evidently some deep interest and strong enthusiasm move this vast throng. What is it that has brought them thus together? Only a missionary meeting? Surely one of unusual interest!

Enter with the multitudes. It is a sight that even Exeter Hall, with its long roll of enthusiastic gatherings, rarely equals. Hundreds of young men throng the vast building, mingling with a representative gathering of all ranks and ages, of all sections of the Church and grades in social life. Upon the platform, amongst others waiting for the speakers, is a deputation of forty undergraduates from Cambridge.

It is not difficult to discover the centre of interest to-night. Across the hall large maps of China are suspended, showing the stations of the Inland Mission.

A missionary farewell has summoned this great multitude. Seven young men are upon the eve of starting for work in inland China. Who are they? And how comes it that their going has awakened such enthusiastic interest?

The answer is on every lip — "The Cambridge Band sail tomorrow. Tonight is their farewell. Five from the University, and two young officers from crack regiments, have together given themselves to the work of GOD in China; not only relinquishing brilliant prospects and social distinction, to become poor missionaries, but actually joining the China Inland Mission, which means so much! They are going to put on Chinese dress and braided tail; going to bury themselves, nobody knows where, in the heart of that strange land, to live in the people's houses and eat their food, and rough it in long, trying journeys and all sorts of other ways. Strange infatuation! and yet they seem intensely happy about it — count it quite an honour and privilege, and never can be got to say a word as to any sacrifice involved."

Silence steals over the vast assembly. The Chairman enters, and with him the outgoing band. Stanley P. Smith, and his friend, C. T. Studd, from Trinity College, Cambridge, both distinguished in the athletic world; the Rev. W. W. Cassels, of St. John's; Montagu Beauchamp and Arthur Polhill-Turner, from Trinity, and Ridley Hall; D. E. Hoste, late of the Royal Artillery; and Cecil Polhill-Turner, of the 2nd Dragoon Guards. Young all of them — in the full strength and vigour of their manhood — embodying all that is noblest and best in the estimation of their fellows, all that most readily stirs admiration, and wins regard. No wonder the heart of Christian England was moved. Consecration to the work of missions is not, thank GOD...

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W. T. P. Wolston, M.D. (1840-1917)

W. T. P. Wolston, M.D. (1840-1917) was an English medical doctor and preacher of the Gospel. He lived most of his life in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he had a large medical practice. A devoted servant of the Lord, he wrote many books and tracts, and it is said that for many years he preached the Gospel somewhere every day.

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Oliver B. Greene (1915-1976) was an American, independent Baptist evangelist and author. For thirty-five years conducted revival meetings in tents and in churches across America. Preached a daily radio broadcast on The Gospel Hour which he founded.

 Oliver B. Greene (1915 - 1976)

"See the river of blood that ran from the slit throats of innocent animals through four thousand years of time from Eden to Calvary. See the vast multitude of weary, sin-laden souls as they went to altars of sacrifice with their offerings...But now, see Christ, the Lamb of God...and the offering in His own blood made once for all....Only Jesus could make the announcement, 'It is finished!'"

"From disgrace to grace" is not our title for one of America's greatly used men of God-that was Oliver Greene's own appraisal of himself. He was born on February 14, 1915 in Greenville, South Carolina.

Oliver's youthful life was that of a wastrel, living in wanton wickedness. Drinking, stealing, bootlegging, immorality-he was a veteran of all those vices. But at age twenty, God saved that wayward youth when he attended a revival meeting (solely in an attempt to date a pure country girl) and heard a sermon on "The wages of sin is death."

That night he was convinced, convicted and converted! He got a mighty good dose of salvation! Five months later God called him to preach. To prepare for this, he attended North Greenville Baptist College but was expelled in his second year because of his reluctance to cooperate with the denominational program.

Early in life it was immediately evident Oliver B. Greene was an independent Baptist. Through all of his ministry he carried the honor of being one who "could not be bought." In 1939, the 24-year-old bought a tent, and for 35 years he conducted revivals all across America, until failing health forced him to stop.

Carefully kept records reveal that over 200,000 found Christ under his ministry. Perhaps his single greatest campaign was in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where 7,000 professions of faith were registered. He held his last tent revival in Bel Air, Maryland (this tent was 100 feet by 300 feet).  

Surely another genius of Greene's labors for Christ was his radio ministry, which grew from one station in 1939 to 180 stations at his death. The Gospel Hour is still heard coast to coast by his taped messages. He prepared these taped messages "to continue on the Gospel Hour hopefully until Christ comes back."

Dr. Greene was called Home to be with the Lord on July 26, 1976, but he "being dead, yet speaketh," not only by radio but by his writings. His books, pamphlets, tracts, totaling above 100 titles, are still mailed out by the thousands.

 Aye, DISGRACE TO GRACE, a fitting appraisal as well as a fitting epitaph for a great man of the Gospel and the greatly used messenger of the Gospel Hour-Oliver B. Greene!

David Brainerd (1718-1747) a missionary to the American Indians in New York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania.

David Brainerd (1718-1747) was a missionary to the American Indians in New York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania. Born in Connecticut in 1718, he died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-nine.

Missionary to the American Indians in New York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania. Born in Connecticut in 1718, he died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-nine in 1747. Jonathan Edwards preached the funeral sermon and published the diary which David had kept.

By almost every standard known to modern missionary boards, David Brainerd would have been rejected as a missionary candidate. He was tubercular — died of that disease at twenty-nine — and from his youth was frail and sickly. He never finished college, being expelled from Yale for criticizing a professor and for his interest and attendance in meetings of the "New Lights," a religious organization. He was prone to be melancholy and despondent.

Yet this young man, who would have been considered a real risk by any present-day mission board, became a missionary to the American Indians and, in the most real sense, "the pioneer of modern missionary work." Brainerd began his ministry with the Indians in April, 1743, at Kannameek, New York, then ministered in Crossweeksung and Cranberry (near Newark), New Jersey. These were the areas of his greatest successes.

Brainerd's first journey to the Forks of the Delaware to reach that ferocious tribe resulted in a miracle of God that preserved his life and revered him among the Indians as a "Prophet of God." Encamped at the outskirts of the Indian settlement, Brainerd planned to enter the Indian community the next morning to preach to them the Gospel of Christ. Unknown to him, his every move was being watched by warriors who had been sent out to kill him. F.W. Boreham recorded the incident:

But when the braves drew closer to Brainerd's tent, they saw the paleface on his knees. And as he prayed, suddenly a rattlesnake slipped to his side, lifted up its ugly head to strike, flicked its forked tongue almost in his face, and then without any apparent reason, glided swiftly away into the brushwood. "The Great Spirit is with the paleface!" the Indians said; and thus they accorded him a prophet's welcome.

That incident in Brainerd's ministry illustrates more than the many Divine interventions of God in his life — it also illustrates the importance and intensity of prayer in Brainerd's life. Believe it — Brainerd prayed! Read the Life and Diary of David Brainerd. On page after page one reads such sentences as:

Wednesday, April 21 ...and God again enabled me to wrestle for numbers of souls, and had much fervency in the sweet duty of intercession...

Lord's Day, April 25. This morning I spent about two hours in secret duties and was enabled more than ordinarily to agonize for immortal souls. Though it was early in the morning and the sun scarcely shined at all, yet my body was quite wet with sweat...

Saturday, December 15. Spent much time in prayer in the woods and seemed raised above the things of this world...

Monday, March 14 ...in the morning was almost continually engaged in ejaculatory prayer...

Thursday, August 4. Was enabled to pray much, through the whole day...

Thursday, November 3. Spent this day in secret fasting, and prayer, from morning till night...

Suffice it to say, it is not surprising to read then of the miraculous interventions of God on Brainerd's behalf, and of the mighty ministry and the unbelievable revivals he experienced among the iniquitous, idolatrous Indians in those short years. A volume such as this prohibits more than only mere mention of some of those supernal, supernatural scenes: "I have now baptized, in all, forty-seven persons of the Indians. Twenty-three adults and twenty-four children...Through rich grace, none of them as yet have been left to disgrace their profession of Christianity by any scandalous or unbelieving behavior" (Nov.. 20, 1743). What pastor or evangelist reading this can say the same?

Lord's Day, December 29 ...After public worship was over, I went to my house, proposing to preach again after a short season of intermission. But they soon came in one after another; with tears in their eyes, to know, "what they should do to be saved..." It was an amazing season of power among them, and seemed as if God had "bowed the heavens and come down..." and that God was about to convert the whole world.

His Diary and Journal are a brim with ministries and miracles that were akin to the acts of the Apostles. The Life and Diary of David Brainerd ought to be read — and read often — by God's people. It will do something for you spiritually. You will be convicted, challenged, changed, charged. It has had life-transforming effect upon many, motivating them to become missionaries, evangelists, preachers, people of prayer and power with God.

Brainerd died in 1747 in the home of Jonathan Edwards. His ministry to the Indians was contemporary with Wesley, Whitefield and Edwards as they ministered to the English-speaking people during the period called in English and American history, the "Great Awakening." Brainerd's centuries-spanning influence for revival is positive proof God can and will use any vessel, no matter how fragile and frail, if it is only sold out to souls and the Saviour!