Faith
Studd was a son of retired merchant Edward Studd. Edward became a Christian during a Dwight L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey revival meeting in England, and a visiting preacher to the Studd home, Tedworth House in Wiltshire, converted Charles and two of his brothers to the faith while they were students at Eton. According to his conversion narrative, the preacher asked him if he believed God's promises to give believers eternal life, and as Charles would only go so far as to profess he believed Jesus Christ died, the guest pressed the point, and Charles then believed on the Lord Jesus for salvation. Charles later recalled the moment:
"I got down on my knees and I did say 'thank you' to God. And right then and there joy and peace came into my soul. I knew then what it was to be 'born again,' and the Bible which had been so dry to me before, became everything."
Studd continued from Eton to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1883. In 1884 after his brother George was taken seriously ill Charles was confronted by the question, "What is all the fame and flattery worth ... when a man comes to face eternity?" He had to admit that since his conversion six years earlier he had been in "an unhappy backslidden state". As a result of the experience he said, "I know that cricket would not last, and honour would not last, and nothing in this world would last, but it was worthwhile living for the world to come."
Studd emphasised the life of faith, believing that God would provide for a Christian's needs. His father died while he was in China, and he gave away his inheritance of £29,000, specifying £5,000 to be used for the Moody Bible Institute, £5,000 for George Müller mission work and his orphans, £5,000 for George Holland's work with England's poor in Whitechapel, and £5,000 to Commissioner Frederick Booth-Tucker for the Salvation Army in India. For the rest of his life, he lived as a ‘faith missionary’, with no fundraising.
Studd believed that God's purposes could be confirmed through providential coincidences, such as a sum of money being donated spontaneously at just the right moment. He encouraged Christians to take risks in planning missionary ventures, trusting in God to provide. His spirituality was intense, and he mostly read only the Bible. Another work that influenced him was Hannah Whitall Smith's The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life. Although he believed that God sometimes healed physical illnesses through prayer and the anointing of oil, he also accepted that some ailments were chronic.
Studd also believed in plain speaking and muscular Christianity, and his call for Christians to embrace a "Don't Care a Damn" attitude to worldly things caused some scandal. He believed that missionary work was urgent and that those who were unevangelised would be condemned to hell.
