Day 12
The Mind of a Missionary Devotional
A Lone Prayer Warrior
Dr. Harold Schofield
“If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” — John 15:7
The streets of Taiyuan were alive with activity in the summer of 1883. Hawkers haggled with passersby, and a continual hum of conversations filled the air. Chinese instruments and traditional songs pervaded the ambiance in Shanxi’s capital. Old women sang in piercing tones while men strummed pipas, bowed erhus, clacked paibans, and blew gourd flutes.
A considerably calmer sound, unfamiliar to Taiyuan locals, permeated the inner courtyard of a little house nearby. Dr. Harold Schofield was in his own world, kneeling in prayer in his small study. His heart broke for the millions of lost souls around him. “To me, it seems unutterably sad,” he wrote, “that now, more than eighteen hundred years after the ascending Saviour gave His Great Commission to ‘go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature,’ there should be hundreds of millions in this vast empire who have never so much as heard of Christ.”
The young British doctor, once a shining star at the University of Oxford, had surrendered the prospect of a brilliant career in England just three years prior. Now a member of the China Inland Mission (CIM), founded by Hudson Taylor, Schofield was one of the first Protestant missionaries permitted to venture into China’s interior. “There is a peculiar joy such as I have never felt before in being permitted to bear the name of Jesus to those who have never heard it,” Schofield said. “I can conceive no higher privilege on earth.” But China’s needs were immense, requiring more willing Christian workers.
Day after day, the doctor poured out his heart to God, forgoing meals as he interceded for his mission field. He was specific in his request for more missionaries. He asked God to send “men of culture, education, and distinguished gifts, intellectual as well as spiritual.” However, he would not live to see more missionary recruits arrive. Dr. Schofield died of Typhus on August 1.
“On the morning before he passed away, his face was so radiant with a brightness not of earth,” Schofield’s wife wrote, “and how clearly can I trace [Jesus’] living likeness on that dying face.” He had once shaken the heavens with thunderous prayers; now, all was quiet in the small study. Nonetheless, his quiet appeals for “men of culture, education, and distinguished gifts” echoed around the world, halting seven men in their tracks.
Just months after Schofield’s passionate plea, God moved Stanley Smith, the head of a renowned rowing team at Cambridge University. Smith felt drawn to missionary service and contacted Hudson Taylor, indicating a desire to serve in China. This was only the beginning. Six of Smith’s friends, including England’s most famous athlete, C. T. Studd, joined the call to China. This band of influential brothers, known as the Cambridge Seven, inspired a wave of missionaries to China and beyond. The social landscape of twentieth-century Great Britain would never be the same, nor would China.
Schofield’s prayers set in motion a series of events that led to a spiritual awakening. Before departing their homeland, the Cambridge Seven toured the campuses of England and Scotland for one month in early 1885. Their testimonies and revival meetings drew large crowds, changing lives and altering ambitions.
Leaving behind all that was familiar, they set sail for China, arriving in Shanghai on March 18, 1885. Hudson Taylor and the Seven immediately traveled inland to Shanxi, reaching Taiyuan in May. They stood together in Dr. Harold Schofield’s courtyard two years after the doctor was called away from earthly service.
Marveling at God’s mighty workings, the missionary recruits were the tangible evidence of God’s providence, a testament to the Apostle James’ words, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:16).
The work of Dr. Harold Schofield has largely been forgotten in the annals of missions history. Yet, God used his prayers and untimely death to ignite a wave of revival throughout England and the Orient. His humble requests on earth elicited a powerful response from Heaven, setting in motion the opening of China to the Gospel.
The men of the Cambridge Seven were the fruits of Schofield’s labor, a testament that when we pray according to God’s will, He listens and responds in ways beyond our comprehension.
Over the following decades, the young men pioneered new pathways among unreached communities in China, Tibet, India, and Central Africa. Scores of people responded to the Gospel message, unaware that its bearers were the fruit of a lone prayer warrior in Shanxi, China, called Dr. Harold Schofield.
– Personal Response –
Passage: If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. (John 15:7)
Point: One small prayer from one surrendered life can spark revival across nations.
Ponder: Are you praying boldly and specifically for God to raise up laborers for His harvest, desiring that Jesus will be glorified in the nations?
Prayer: Lord, give me faith like Dr. Schofield’s, to pray with passion, persistence, and confidence in Your power to answer. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Proclamation: I will believe that my prayers matter, even when I cannot see the outcome. I will continue to pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
Practice: Choose one specific mission field or unreached people group, and commit to pray daily that God would send laborers and bring revival.
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