August 8. John Scudder. Scudder was the first American medical missionary in India.
He was the first Scudder missionary in India, which went on for 1,100 combined years of missionary service. Forty-two members of four generations of Scudders.
That run began when he was visiting a patient and saw a tract on the table that talked about the responsibility of the Church for 600 million unsaved souls in the world. Scudder was a man who knew how to tend to his responsibility.
It’s not the power of persuasion that leads men to Christ, but the power of the gospel.
When the crew of the steamship Indus heard they would be escorting American missionaries to India, some smirked, some laughed. Among its belligerent crew were haters, mockers, and blasphemers—men willfully opposed to being “changed.”
The men who were the most hardened sinners had already resolved not to allow those missionary zealots on board to affect them one bit. One called Parker boasted he had “blasphemed enough to damn a thousand souls.”
Beyond hope? The one called Parker thought so.
But the Captain was a believer.
When the ship set sail one day in June, Captain Wills allowed Scudder and the other missionaries to arrange religious meetings on deck. The Captain expected his crew to attend. And the nice missionary ladies made sure every seaman got his own Bible. How could the sailors say no?
Soon cursing yielded to songs of praise and Bible lessons. This left little room for the seamen to escape—other than choosing to jump ship, which some may have been tempted to do, but nobody actually did.
Then mysteriously, everybody felt something intangible. The Indus seemed to have taken on a new presence. It was as if a celestial wind had carried the Holy Spirit aboard. The sailors grew studious and interested in the gospel. Hardened seamen began to feel the weight of their sins and the terrible consequences of remaining an enemy of Christ.
Incredibly, one by one, they turned their hearts to the Lord.
The cook in the galley, a sullen man who swore constantly, tried to brush off the holy influence. He poked fun at the revival and mockingly said, “May God grant that the Spirit of God may light upon every soul on board this night.”God was listening.
Scudder wrote about the cook’s encounter in his journal. “He awoke that night in a fearful agony. The Holy Spirit lit upon him, and he was in deep distress on account of his sins….”
The foul-mouthed chef cast his soul upon the Savior and became a new man. No longer sullen and morose, he became a happy soul.
Scudder resolved to win the one named Parker, who had “blasphemed enough to damn a thousand souls.” He had sunk to an increasingly wretched state. Captain Wills confronted him about his belligerent attitude, but Parker stomped off cursing. Whoever dared to cross Parker again might get a black eye.
Believers gathered in the cabin to pray privately as Scudder sought Parker out to share the gospel. And Scudder approached Parker with the easy bedside manner of a trusted physician. Every gospel word spoken was applied forcefully but kindly with surgical skill.
To his astonishment Parker didn’t explode in anger like he had done the day before. Instead “he was humbled in the dust before God—convinced of his wretched situation—that he was lost and undone and that there was no salvation for him except through the Lord Jesus Christ.”
In God’s good time the Great Physician intervened to heal. Believers on board could only say, “The LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes” (Psalm 118:23 NIV).
Scudder had become willing to be “anything or nothing” for the cause of Christ. Is there anything you are holding back from him today? It’s not the power of persuasion that leads men to Christ, but the power of the gospel.
Waterbury, Rev. J.B., D.D. Memoir of the Rev. John Scudder, M.D., Thirty-Six Years Missionary in India. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1870.
Ambalavanar, Dr. D.C. “Dr. John Scudder and the First Western Medical Centre in South Asia” PDF. October 29, 2017. https://250.ps.columbia.edu/scrapbook/dr-john-scudder-and-first-western-medical-centre-south-asia.
Story read by: Stephen Holcomb
Introduction read by: Daniel Carpenter
Audio production: Joel Carpenter
Story written by: Toni M Babcock, https://www.facebook.com/toni.babcock.1
Editor: Teresa Crumpton, https://authorspark.org/
Project Manager: Blake Mattocks
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