a tract written by an unknown
atheist. It was while C.T. Studd was studying
at Cambridge University in 1833 that he came across the following
tract written by an anonymous atheist. If I firmly believed, as millions
say they do, that the knowledge and practice of religion in this
life influence destiny in the eternal world, then religion
would mean everything to me. I would cast away all earthly
enjoyments as dross, earthly cares as follies, and earthly
thoughts and feelings as vanity. I would esteem one soul gained
for heaven worth a life of suffering. Earthly consequences would never
stay my hand nor seal my lips. Earth, its joys and its griefs,
would occupy no moment of my thoughts. I would strive to look
upon eternity alone and on the immortal souls around me, soon
to be everlastingly happy or everlastingly miserable. I would
speak to my fellow men in season and out of season, and as far
as my influence reached, I would strive to save them from eternal
doom. Yet you Christians who profess
to believe this truth and who say that you have been saved
from eternal damnation, you do nothing. You profess to believe
that the unconverted are going to hell, yet you are as unconcerned
about your fellow men as if they were only brutes. If I believed
what you claim to believe, I would not rest day or night until I
had ensured that everyone I met heard and had the opportunity
to be saved. My text would be, What shall
it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own
soul? Mark chapter 8 verse 36 The tract's argument was that
if Christians truly believed in the reality of heaven and
hell, then their lives should reflect an urgent and relentless
commitment to evangelism. This tract had a powerful impact
on Studd, and deeply convicted him about the urgency of evangelism.
It reinforced his belief that he could not live for worldly
comforts, while souls perished without Christ. It helped propel
him into radical missionary work, first in China, then in India,
and later in Africa.