Stanley Peregrine Smith

A Gifted Cambridge Man

Stanley Peregrine Smith was born on March 19, 1861, in London, into a doctor's family. As a young man he studied at Repton School and then at Trinity College, Cambridge. Strong and athletic, he loved rowing; he served as stroke of the Cambridge boat and rowed in the famous Cambridge–Oxford Boat Race of 1882, winning a Cambridge Blue. He was one of the most promising young men on campus at the time.

Surrender to Christ

Although he had come to faith in Christ in his youth, at university he became absorbed for a time in sport and social life and felt empty inside. In 1882 the American revival preacher Dwight L. Moody came to Britain to preach. Smith was deeply moved and once again gave his life wholly to Christ. With his fellow students he promoted evangelism on campus, was active in the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU), and resolved to lay aside a brilliant worldly future and answer the call to take the gospel to China.

The Cambridge Seven

In 1885 he and six other Cambridge men were accepted and sent out by the China Inland Mission and set off for China. These seven young men of good family and outstanding talent, willing to deny themselves and go to a distant land, stirred the churches of Britain and became known as the "Cambridge Seven." They worked alongside James Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, and became an example that inspired countless students to give themselves to missions.

Rooted in Shanxi

After arriving in China, Smith was sent to Shanxi, a poor and harsh province that had just gone through a great famine. For many years he preached in the area of Linfen (Pingyang), Hongtong, Lu'an and Zezhou, often working hand in hand with the Chinese church leader Hsi Shengmo, going deep into the villages to evangelize, helping people break their opium addiction, and working hard to train local preachers. He studied Chinese diligently and became highly proficient; he preached with equal fluency and power in Chinese and English, deeply moving his hearers, and was praised as an outstanding linguist and evangelist.

Independent Ministry

At the end of the nineteenth century he came to differ with the China Inland Mission on doctrine, especially over whether those who had never heard the gospel would necessarily perish, and he therefore left the mission. He went on serving in Shanxi as an independent missionary while remaining on friendly terms with the China Inland Mission. He never left that land, continuing to preach and teach until he died in the Lord at Zezhou, Shanxi, on January 31, 1931, at the age of 69.

A Witness of Self-Denial

Smith's life is a picture in miniature of the self-denying witness of the Cambridge Seven. They gave up comfortable prospects and devoted their youth and talents entirely to China; their willing sacrifice and their faithfulness unto death have long inspired the believers who came after them.