In this excerpt from The Cambridge Seven we see a brief glimpse into the life of China missionary Harold Scofield, which illustrates the spirit principle that "except a corn of wheat fall to the ground and die, it cannot bring forth fruit." In the prologue to J.C. Pollock’s biographical account of the famous "Cambridge Seven," we see the fruit of Scofield’s intercession: men who forsook wealth, family, and social position to carry the Gospel to inland China.

On a spring evening in 1883 a man was riding slowly through the crowded streets of Taiyuan, capital of the province of Shansi in northern China, four hundred miles inland from the sea. As his pony threaded its way among the coolies and beggars and merchants, or stood aside for a mandarin’s chair to pass, the rider would now and again acknowledge greetings from passers-by or smile patiently at the scowls of the ill-disposed. He wore a plain Chinese gown and cap, with his hair done in the customary pigtail, and only a second glance showed him to be a westerner– Harold Schofield, a brilliant young Oxford doctor who had sacrificed his prospects and immured himself in China for the sake of Christ. 

Schofield dismounted at the door of the unimpressive house of the China Inland Mission and went inside. After a quick look at the dispensary, lest urgent cases had come while he had been out in the villages, he went across to the living room and greeted his wife. A meal was ready but he declined it, and after a few moments’ talk Schofield climbed the rickety stairs to the bedroom. 

For a few moments he looked out on to the street, crowded, noisy, and with that constant stench of dung and offal, of unwashed bodies and the mingling smells of the shops and houses. As his eye travelled down the street towards the river, and then across to the distant hills, he thought once again of the teeming life of the city and province–nine million Christless inhabitants, and only five or six missionaries among them. He thought of the peasants, toiling in the wheat and rice fields, of the aristocratic mandarins in their palaces and estates, of the women and their cramped, cheerless lives, of the countless temples, and gods of plaster, stone or wood. And then his mind turned to home, so far away–twenty days to the coast, six weeks by sea and land to England. The Church in Britain cared little for these millions in the vast Chinese Empire, slowly waking from the sleep of ages. Few enough were ready to leave comfort and security to bring them the gospel. And of those who had come, and had penetrated inland, scarcely one was a university man, trained in mind and body of leadership. Yet Schofield, a prizeman of Manchester, London and Oxford, knew from his own experience how greatly such men were needed. 

And thus, as the evening light faded in the little bedroom, Schofield was still on his knees, pouring out his soul for that which he would never live to see. 

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On 4th February, 1885, a wet winter’s night in London, a large crowd were making their way into the Exeter Hall in the Strand. Inside, the hall was rapidly filling with men and women of all ages and ranks. Well-dressed ladies, in silks and jewelry, whose carriages would be waiting afterwards to carry them back to Belgravia or Mayfair, mingled with flower-girls and working women in plain dark dresses who had found their way on foot from East End slums. Smart young city men were sitting beside drab shopmen and kindly rogues who, on a superficial glance, might have seemed more at home in the gallery of a music hall.

On the platform were forty Cambridge undergraduates. Above their heads hung a large map of China, stretching from side to side of the hall. On the table lay a small pile of Chinese New Testaments. At the stroke of the hour the Chairman entered, followed by seven young men, slightly older than the undergraduates but all, from their dress and bearing, evidently men of education and position. After prayer, a hymn, and some introductory remarks the seven young men, whom the world had already dubbed the Cambridge Seven, each rose and told the crowded hall why they were leaving England the next day to serve as missionaries in inland China. 

One by one they spoke–Stanley Smith, of Repton and Trinity, a former stroke-oar of the Cambridge boat; Montagu Beauchamp of Trinity, a baronet’s son; D. E. Hoste, till lately a gunner subaltern, son of a major-general; W. W. Cassels of Repton and St. John’s, a Church of England curate; Cecil Polhill- Turner, an old Etonian, who had resigned his commission in the Queen’s Bays to join the others; his brother, Arthur Polhill-Turner, of Eton and Trinity Hall. And lastly C. T. Studd, the Eton, Cambridge and England cricketer, acknowledged as the most brilliant player of the day. One by one they told how in the past year or eighteen months God had called them to renounce their careers and give themselves for Christian service overseas. 

The Cambridge Seven struck with force the consciousness of a generation which set much store on social position and athletic ability. In this different age the story of how the Seven was formed, and the prayers of Harold Schofield overwhelmingly answered, is still relevant. Any account of God’s working on the human soul is timeless. But the Cambridge Seven provide particular evidence on the Christian s growth in grace and on God’s calling to a life’s work, whether at home or overseas. And if China is again a closed land, though not now without its Christian witness, other lands are open, and fields at home are waiting. 

The Cambridge Seven emerged when British universities had been stirred to the depths by the work of D. L. Moody, the American evangelist. That seventy years later, in similar circumstances, God may call forth similar bands is the prayer of many. 

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The gospel of Christ is unchanged and His call is unchanged. The Cambridge Seven illustrate how that call may be heard. It is a call to "lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest." It is a call to dedication. Above all it is a call to the consecration of the whole man, as the prelude to fruitful service.

The message of the Cambridge Seven echoes down the years from 1885: "God does not deal with you until you are wholly given up to Him, and then He will tell you what He would have you do." 

The Cambridge Seven, by John Pollock Inter-Varsity Press