It was February 4th 1885. The meeting place, Exeter Hall in London was packed. Over 3,000 were present, with 500 in the overflow. George Williams, founder of the YMCA, entered to chair the meeting, behind him 40 Cambridge undergraduates, all prospective missionaries, in front of a huge map of China.
As the "Cambridge Seven" filed in they were received with great enthusiasm. When Stanley Smith, one of the seven, rose to speak he said, "We do not go to that far distant land to speak of doctrine or theory, but of a living, bright, present and rejoicing Savior." Stanley and C.T.Studd, the greatest cricketer of his day, had just finished a tour of the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cambridge and Oxford, challenging students at large meetings to follow Christ unreservedly. The nation was in shock because seven of its brightest young stars were about to leave the next day to go to China, sowing their lives into the mission field and might never return.
The departure of the Cambridge Seven ignited a missions movement in the UK and USA as hundreds of young people followed their lead into lifetime missionary service.
Here is their record:
• William Wharton Cassels worked in China for ten years and then returned to England in 1895 where he was consecrated as the new Bishop of a new diocese in Western China. He then returned to Western China — he lived here until his death in 1925.
• Stanley Peregrine Smith was sent to North China. Here he learned Chinese language and soon became as fluent a preacher in Chinese as he was in English. He died in China on 31 January 1931.
• Charles Studd, one of the famous Studd brothers, who was before his missionary work well known as an England cricketer was probably the best known of "The Cambridge Seven,". He was sent home because of ill health in 1894. Later he worked in India and Africa and was the founder of WEC. He died in 1931.
• Arthur Polhill-Turner was ordained as a minister in 1888 and moved to the densely populated countryside to reach as many people as he could. He remained in China throughout the uprisings against foreigners at the turn of the century and did not leave there until 1928, when he retired and returned to England. He died in 1935.
• Cecil Polhill-Turner stayed in the same province with the others for a while before moving to the northwest, in the direction of Tibet. During a violent riot there he and his wife were both nearly killed in 1892. In 1900, his health failed and he was sent home to England where he was strongly advised against a return to China. Despite this ban, his heart remained there and throughout the rest of his life, he made seven prolonged missionary visits. In 1908 he became the leader of the Pentecostal Missionary Union and was greatly used in the formation of the Pentecostal Movement in Britain. He died in England in 1938.
• In 1900 Montagu Harry Proctor Beauchamp was evacuated from China because of the uprisings but returned again to China in 1902. He then returned again to England in 1911 and served as a chaplain with the British Army. His son became a second-generation missionary in China and in 1935 he went back to China; he died at his son's mission station in 1939.
• Dixon Hoste succeeded Hudson Taylor as the Director of the China Inland Mission and for thirty years, he led the Mission. He retired in 1935 but remained in China until 1945, when he was interned by the Japanese. He died in London, in May 1946 and was the last remaining member of "The Cambridge Seven" to die.
