4. A Deep Well
4.
A DEEP WELL
Shawlies came to Amy’s meetings in such great numbers that they could no longer be accommodated by the church that let her use its facilities. In the church magazine, The Christian, Amy read of a large hall, prefabricated from sheet metal, that could be erected for five hundred English pounds.
“Do I dare dream of building our own hall?” she asked.
She urged her girls to pray “unto him that is able to keep you from falling.” But she also recalled an experience from her past. She had been staying with Grandmother Filson in Portaberry. Amy, virtually a native of that village, went out to collect for the poor. She knew of one man who would surely give her some money. He had just built himself a fine house. But no! With a scowl, he shooed her away. He couldn’t love God. The implications were enormous.
“People who do not love God are just a distraction to my mission,” she told herself then. “I must pray to God to move people who do love Him to give me money for the poor.”
And so Amy prayed now that those who loved God would give her money for her mission hall. Almost miraculously Amy was invited to lunch with Kate Mitchell, an older and very wealthy matron. The butler served them lunch in a sunny room. To Amy, the older lady was a “white violet” in the sunshine. Amy explained, bolstered by the hope Christ can give, that the mill girls would certainly like to meet in their own hall. All they needed were the land and five hundred English pounds to build such a hall of sheet steel.
“Five hundred pounds?” The older lady blinked at the magnitude of Amy’s request.
Yet, within days, Amy received a letter from Kate Mitchell. “Build your hall,” she wrote. But Amy still needed property on which to build. She rushed to the office of a wealthy mill owner. “Can you not encourage the moral strengthening of the mill girls?” she argued. Had he known Amy’s father? Or was he overcome by Christ? He virtually donated the property for the hall. Soon construction was begun on the grounds at Cambria Street. Some dubbed the hall the “tin tabernacle,” but Amy named it “Welcome Hall.” The grand opening was set for January 2, 1889, which she announced in printed cards with the simple invitation:
COME ONE, COME ALL, AND COME IN YOUR WORKING CLOTHES.
Come one, Come all,
To the Welcome Hall,
And come in your working clothes.1
Amy had secured an affiliation with the Young Women’s Christian Association, known as the YWCA. For the opening of Welcome Hall, she hung a banner above the speakers’ platform to the glory of the Lord: THAT IN ALL THINGS HE MIGHT HAVE THE PREEMINENCE. They were Saint Paul’s words in his letter to the Colossians. Of course, Amy, the “Nobody,” was not on the speakers’ platform. She sat inconspicuously in the midst of her shawlies. But when the real work began, once again she was front and center.
The first Wednesday of every month was their Gospel meeting. Every Sunday they had Bible class, followed by a meeting of the Sunbeam Band. Monday was choir practice, Tuesday was night school, Wednesday was girls’ meeting, and so on throughout the week. Not one day lacked activity. With more than five hundred girls involved in the activities, Amy needed to enlist many helpers. And more money was needed. So the mill girls held bazaars in which they sold their own handiwork. Amy’s work was truly blessed now. Some things happened that seemed miraculous. Once during a meeting she prayed for funds so that her mill girls could all have a meal. A well-dressed man named Mr. Buchanan came into the meeting and dropped a gold coin on the table. She learned later that he was called “Sweetie” Buchanan because he was a very wealthy candy manufacturer from Glasgow. Amy’s Welcome Hall was now becoming known to Christians all over the British Isles. Letters came, too. One in particular was startling.
“Mr. Jacob MacGill of Manchester has invited me to come there to begin another ‘Welcome Hall’ for their mill girls,” Amy told her mother.
“Manchester? So far away…”
“That’s not all, Mother. He wants you to come to superintend a rescue mission for women.”
“Me!”
So in 1889, the same year Amy opened her first Welcome Hall, she traveled to Manchester, a great factory city in the west of England, to open another. The Welcome Hall in Belfast was left in the very deserving and capable hands of Kate Mitchell. In Scraps, Amy’s brothers reported that she candidly predicted she would never be a wife. She was twenty-two years old, and it wasn’t that she did not love men, but her love for men was agape, the Greek word for true Christian love, not physical love. In fact, Amy loved all people, men and women, with agape. Her agape was tested in Manchester, where she lived in the slums. Nighttime was the worst. Toughs fought in the streets. Women were molested. Hiding away in a room at night was no haven, either, because the rooms crawled with loathsome creatures of the night: roaches, ticks, bedbugs, rats.
“I do believe I could tolerate any place on earth now,” speculated Amy, wondering how significant such a thought might prove. Was “going forth” always in the back of her mind?
Once, Amy walked late at night through the slum to the train station. She intended to take a train to Cheshire, where her mother had a cottage. Suddenly she was surrounded by young men, loud and smelling of rum. She was calm, fending them off as a gentle lady would. But the hooligans goaded each other on in their evil intentions. It was soon apparent that Amy might suffer the same fate as many other shawlies. She weighed less than one hundred pounds, and the thugs could easily wrestle her down in the dark street.
“Oh, God, don’t let this terrible crime happen,” Amy prayed, trembling.
“Stop!” A door suddenly opened, and a woman hurled herself into the mob. She grabbed Amy’s hand and somehow the two muscled their way through the throng of young men. The woman shoved Amy inside her house and turned to face the mob. Amy heard the woman deliver a tongue-lashing; the words were indistinguishable, but the force was as violent as a storm. Whatever the brave woman said to the mob worked, and the hooligans were soon gone. Amy continued on to the train station in a daze. It was as if she had been rescued by one of Lot’s mighty angels. And who could say the fierce woman was not an angel? In either case, the Lord was faithful.
As her mystical experiences increased, so did her humility. Why did she deserve such grace? At the Manchester Free Library, she read for the first time Dante’s masterpiece, The Divine Comedy. When she discovered that the noble Beatrice was the love of Dante’s life and his guide through Paradise, Amy wondered whether she should continue to use Beatrice as her middle name. She thought herself undeserving.
AS HER MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES INCREASED, SO DID HER HUMILITY.
Norman and Ernest Carmichael, two of Amy’s brothers, had emigrated to America; but Robert Wilson often invited Amy and her sisters and younger brothers to Broughton Grange, his majestic estate near Cockermouth, in Cumberland, above the River Derwent. No more than ten miles to the west, Solway Firth yawned into the Irish Sea. To the east ranged the Cumbrian Mountains. About twelve miles upriver, hugging the high lakes, was Keswick. The area reeked of history. William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Cole-ridge both had lived and had written poetry in this lake country. But as much as Amy loved poetry, she was more impressed by church history.
“Up at Keswick where we hold our meetings is where John Wesley set out on his desperate ride on September 27, 1749,” explained Robert Wilson.
“Desperate ride?” his listeners asked raptly.
Robert Wilson explained that John Wesley had made a pact with his brother Charles to share their matrimonial plans, but John was secretly planning to wed Grace Murray. Charles found out and confronted John about his betrayal. Afterward, Charles was so angry, he stormed off on horseback to find Grace Murray in Hinely Hill. When it finally dawned on John what Charles had done, he, too, set off from Keswick on horseback, impulsively—not methodically at all—as revealed by a copy of his journal in Robert Wilson’s extensive library:
Wednesday 27th—I took horse at half an hour past three. There was no moon, or stars, but a thick mist; so that I could see neither road, nor any thing else; but I went as right as if it had been noonday. When I drew nigh Penruddock Moor, the mist vanished, the stars appeared, and the morning dawned; so I imagined all the danger was past; but when I was on the middle of the moor, the mist fell again on every side, and I quickly lost my way. I lifted up my heart. Immediately it cleared up, and I soon recovered the high road. On Alstone Moor I missed my way again; and what, I believe, no stranger has done lately, rode through all the bogs, without any stop, ’til I came to the vale, and thence to Hinely Hill….
“But Charles managed to prevent the marriage,” added Robert Wilson.
Amy’s desire to know more was kindled. Oh, how vast and intimate was Robert Wilson’s knowledge of things! What passion! Imagine, of all people, John Wesley—perceived to be dry and orderly—riding madly across these very vales and hills, coattails flying, clutching his three-cornered hat. Just the fact that he rode like that thrilled Amy because she, too, loved to ride. Perhaps she had a wrong idea of what it meant to be religious. Subduing the self didn’t mean removing all passion.
Amy went once again to the Keswick meetings as a guest of Robert Wilson, whom all the Carmichaels now referred to as “the D.O.M.,” for “Dear Old Man.” Never had he seemed more fatherly to her. Amy still wrestled with her thoughts of “going forth.” In the flyleaf of her Bible, she recorded for “Keswick 1889”:
How great is His Goodness,
and how great is His Beauty!
Jesus I am resting resting,
in the joy of what Thou art
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.2
Amy had taken Zechariah 9:17, “For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty!” and added her deepest belief that while she was resting, she was fathoming the Lord’s greatness. Unsaid was her conviction that all this was in preparation for some future endeavor.
But what?
When she returned to Manchester, she became ill. Others—like her very good friends Ella Crossley and Mary Hatch—blamed her poor eating habits. As often as not, Amy made a meal of an orange or a tomato, while her eyes were locked on the pages of a book. There weren’t enough hours in the day to do everything she wanted to do. And now she was sick. “Oh, you donkey!” Amy berated her wispy body. She did not regard her body as some regarded their bodies, as either a terrible prison of the soul or a thing of glory. No, Amy agreed with the saintly Francis of Assisi. Her body was like a donkey! Often it was sturdy and forbearing and lovable. But on the other hand, so often it was lazy and stubborn and exasperating!
“Oh, phooey on this donkey of mine!” Amy fumed.
Then came a development that stunned her.
In 1890, Robert Wilson asked Mrs. Carmichael if Amy could come to live with him at Broughton Grange. He would take her in as his own daughter. He had not only lost his only daughter, but he had also lost his wife. Broughton Grange was a lonely, unlovely place without the companionship and refinement of a lady. Could Amy come? Yes, agreed Mrs. Carmichael.
Mr. Wilson had been born a Quaker and the Friends’ Meeting House was nearby. Built in 1653, it was not quite as old as the nearby Baptist Chapel. Wilson and his two bachelor sons, William and George, were quite active in both churches. Once, after reading the Bible intensely, Robert Wilson had determined that baptism was a righteous thing. And although Quakers did not baptize, he had himself baptized.
“We must drop labels,” he said to Amy. “If our precious Lord came tomorrow, what use would we have of such labels?”
Amy had already begun to think similar thoughts. She had known Presbyterian ways from babyhood, but she had learned in Harrogate to appreciate the pious yearnings of Methodism. She had also learned to value the beautiful ritual of the Church of England. Now she would learn to enjoy the quietness of the Quakers and the earnest beliefs of the Baptists. Surely these were all good things, all meant to honor the Lord.
Robert Wilson instructed her like a father. “Be a deep well, daughter,” he told Amy.
He had become chairman of the Keswick Convention. Though he spoke with many people, he had learned never to divulge privileged conversations or repeat gossip. Amy was now privy to many of these same confidential talks. She, too, had to be a deep well who knew much but said little. Robert Wilson demonstrated a gentleman’s sensitivity for everyone. Many times he plucked a flower for Amy. He bought her a spirited pony to ride. He surprised her with a pup. She named the frisky black-and-tan terrier “Scamp.”
SHE HAD TO BE A DEEP WELL WHO KNEW MUCH BUT SAID LITTLE.
But Amy was hardly a coquette or an idler. She had to be busy for the Lord. She was active in the Children’s Special Service Mission in Broughton Grange. Tuesday nights at the mission hall belonged to the children. Amy appeared like a quiet force and soon ran the meetings. Although George and William Wilson participated, it was often Amy who delivered the talks. And more and more children flocked in to listen. She was so successful and the children were so demanding that Bible classes were added on Saturdays.
In 1890, Amy attended the Keswick meeting again, this time recording in the flyleaf of her Bible:
Thou hast put goodness in my heart.
Thou will perfect that which concerneth me.
Lord, let the glow of thy great love
Through my whole being shine.3
Amy often combined her own compositions almost seamlessly with verses from the Bible. Her own “Thou hast put goodness in my heart” she followed with “Thou will perfect that which concerneth me,” from Psalm 138, inserting her own thought once again of being prepared for some future mission.
Her heart told her that this time at the Grange was a preparation for her “going forth.” She was never idle. She reinforced her spiritual reading. She had a stable of favorite authors that she studied. Some were lesser known, like Brother Lawrence and Samuel Rutherford. To Amy, Rutherford, the seventeenth-century Scottish nonconformist, was very wise, very deep, a spiritual forerunner of her D.O.M. Others she read were widely known, like Thomas à Kempis and John Bunyan. Reading Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress was like reading the Bible. The eminent preacher Charles Spurgeon, whose sermons Amy’s father had treasured, had said “scratch Bunyan anywhere and he bleeds Bible.” How true it was. But Amy was fascinated by Bunyan’s Grace Abounding, too. In his autobiography Bunyan detailed how God had revealed Himself. Once. Twice. Yet, for a long time, Bunyan refused to believe the “miraculous.”
In fact, many of Amy’s favorites had one thing in common: God had revealed Himself to the writer. It was no surprise that she was attracted to the writings of the “English Mystics”—a medieval group that included Raymond Lully, Lady Julian of Norwich, and Richard Rolle. How passionate was Rolle’s love for God:
Oh beautiful Eternal Love that lifted us from the depths and revealed to us the wonder of your divine Magnificence. Come to me, my Love! I gave up everything I had for you. I spurned all that might have been mine, so my soul might house and comfort you. Do not forsake me when you know I am burning with desire for you; when you know that my most fervent desire is to be embraced by you. Grant me grace to love you and find rest in you, so that in your Kingdom I may see you forever….
Amy also passionately desired His love, His revelation! She read the mystical fire of Lady Julian of Norwich, too:
Our Lord uncovered my spiritual eye and it saw my soul in the middle of my heart. It was as immense as a whole kingdom. I understood it to be a splendid city, with Lord Jesus, true God and true man, enthroned in the middle.…He resides in the soul, in peace and repose, to reign over all things on earth and in heaven.… He will never abandon this place in our soul, for in us He has a true home….
Could Amy herself write with such passion? Her friendship with the Faith Mission brought an invitation to write an article for their magazine, Bright Words, but she was reluctant. Amy was startled to hear the words, “I will hold thy right hand!”4 Had she actually heard God speak? Was she going to be a doubter many times over like John Bunyan? She recognized the allusion to Isaiah 41: “For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.” So Amy began writing what she knew about: the shawlies. Her article, which she titled “Fightin’ Sall,” chronicled the conversion of a shawlie at the Welcome Hall in Belfast.
COULD AMY HERSELF WRITE WITH SUCH PASSION?
“Of course I realize now I must sign myself Amy B. Carmichael. Dante’s ‘Beatrice’ is much too grand for the likes of a ‘Nobody.’”
But as contemplative and creative as Amy became, she remained very active in religious life, too. In 1891 she went with Hannah Govan of Faith Mission to evangelize along the Clyde River in Scotland. Amy’s talks were well received. This approval among the Scots—who were known to be so taciturn that even John Wesley had thrown his hands up in despair—was surely a good sign. And she recorded in the flyleaf of her Bible, on September 23, 1891—a hymn-singing Wednesday to be precise—one of the very special reminders:
And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.
Once again, Amy was strongly affected by John Bunyan, because the verse she records—2 Corinthians 9:8—offered both theme and title for his autobiography, Grace Abounding. And it was clear she intended to abound in good work, just as soon as God revealed His plan for her. Still, at Keswick that year she prayed for release from this constant inner tension about going forth to the heathen. Could not God give her some peace? Was it wrong for her to want to remain with Robert Wilson to comfort him? And could she have not only peace, God, but gladness also? Joy?
By January 1892, Amy had been at Broughton Grange nearly two years. Her piety had finally conquered the Wilson sons, George and William. At first resentful that this strange young woman had entered their lives, they now treated her like a younger sister. Amy had regarded their coolness as a trial for her. Though she seemed almost at peace now, it was true that joy was not there yet. But she was patient. And was it so bad in the manor, by the fireplace, with fields outside piled with snow?
As it happened, the evening of January 13 was anything but peaceful.