The sanctuary in the desert (part 3 of 3)

Love for God’s creation

Amy reshaped the DF compound into a beautiful place full of trees and flowers. The bushy place became a ‘Garden Village’.1335 She must have thought of her grandmother’s love for flowers and the beautiful garden in Portaferry where she often stayed during holiday times. In Dohnavur she still remembered the colours and the smell of the flowers:

Don’t you think our heavenly Father is very kind to give us ‘that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude’ so that we can see ever again’? Sometimes the scent of a flower will waken memory and we see and feel and hear again, just as if we were feeling and hearing and seeing now. You remember how Wordsworth end his daffodil song: And then my heart with pleasure fills And dances with the daffodils.1336 The whole atmosphere of love and joy was a place where the soul came to rest. It was the prayer of its people when the Lord was weary with the sin and the sorrow of the world. He might walk in their garden as a day drew to its close, and find rest and joy, not only in the flowers, but in the family which he had gathered to himself from the dark places of the earth.1337 We get an impression of the abundance of flowers when she wrote:

Flowers looking in at the window and down from the roof, for a climbing alamanda, with its large soft yellow flowers, grew in between the top of the wall and the roof, and hung its bells overhead. For our compound enclosed in its walls is like a great garden; all manner of lovely things grow happily in it, its trees are always green. People coming into it from the dried up land beyond have wondered at its greenness. So we had shown the nurseries set in their fifteen acres of garden ground, whose walls coloured the soft red of the earth here and are covered in places with the polished leaves and yellow bells of alamanda and whose house gate is a mass of blue convolvulus.1338 A wide range of books about birds and dogs can be found among the many books in Amy’s room. In Dohnavur Amy enjoyed the fellowship of some little dogs and many birds. She had several books about the food and the treatment of birds and dogs.1339 In the margin we read several comments. In Kipling’s The Power of the Dog, where he deals with the mistreatment of dogs, she commented: ‘Was it fair to his dog?’ In her copy of Animals As Friends she wrote:

It’s delightful and should be a great help to everybody. Get the right way in, wherever there are pets (if not in, already). The book is packed with help of all sorts. How I wish everyone, everywhere were brought up on this tradition.1340

1335. In Dohnavur letter no. 2, 1924 (PRONI D/4031/24/1A), 11.
1336. Amma’s Book, 11.
1337. Cf. G. Webb-Peploe, Brothers of the Lotus Buds, 61.
1338. Ponnamal, 88 and 100; Nor Scrip, 1.

1339. Cf. K.F. Barker, Just Dogs (London: Country Life Ltd, 1937). Of this book she wrote on the first page: ‘A delight’. D.J. Watkins-Pitchford, Manka, The Sky Gypsy (London: Eyre and Spottiswood, 1939): ‘Full of things worth knowing – but cruel men spoil it all. Should be read with gay. It makes bird-life real’. P. Sharpe, Your Dog in India (Bombay: Thacker & Co. Ltd, 1944). P. Kirmse, Shakespeare with the Pets (London: Metheuen & Co. Ltd, 1935); J. Nicolson, Winks, His book (London: Jarrolds, 1934): ‘Delightful and teaching too’. R. Kipling, Thy Servant A Dog (London: McMillan & Co, 1930). J. Rohan, Rags. The Story of a Dog Who Went to War (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1930). Amy wrote: ‘A book for dog lovers’.

1340. In M. Shaw & J. Fisher, Animals As Friends, and How to Keep Them (London: Dent & Sons Ltd, 1939).

Chapter 13

In Tail-Waggers Great Book1341 she made several remarks, such as ‘Why cut a dog’s tail?’ when God created the dog like that! She read that many dogs are suspicious of a hand that is advanced towards them, so it is wise to put the hand out back uppermost, and then she writes in the margin: ‘I was taught this as a child. It gives faith.’ She loved God’s creation and could write ‘Blessed be the maker of dogs’.1342 For her the author of The Lonely Dog, was ‘A dear man’, and that lonely dog was one that made ‘one’s heart ache over all the lost dogs in the world’.1343 Once she thought of the story of Benaiah in 2 Samuel 23:20, who during the time of snow entered a pit in which a lion had fallen. Benaiah slew the lion. Here Amy comments: ‘I have always felt sorry for that lion. Lions detest snow, and that lion did not have a sporting chance. But his troubles are over now.’1344

She could not understand how people could mistreat their animals. Once she wrote, after having read of someone who mistreated his dog, ‘How can a man be so cruel?’1345 Once a child had killed a butterfly. Amy pinched the child on the arm and said to her: ‘Now you feel what that butterfly felt’, and she could not bear it when an old man crushed a butterfly against the church wall during a service. She saw and felt the sufferings of God’s creation and behind that crushing of a butterfly she saw how little girls were ‘crushed’ in the temples.1346 In P. Kelway’s The Squirrel Book,1347 she repeatedly makes remarks like ‘Cruel to bird’, about the removal of claws. In the margin is a big ‘NO’ and other remarks as ‘horrid’. The author writes: ‘Salt is not good for a dog’, and Amy comments: ‘We give a very little. Is that bad?’

Amy loved birds. Grey’s Charm of Birds1348 was a pleasure to read for her. On the veranda of the bungalow were several birdcages with all kinds of canaries. The book Canary keeping in India,1349 thoroughly read by her, was one of her favourites. ‘Birds never gossip, and never backbite’, according to Amy. That she knew several different species of canaries we see in the following: in this canary book is a picture with 12 different canary types, and Amy has exactly the correct name for each canary. In her copy of The Roller Canary, she just wrote ‘cruel’ in the margin, when the author suggested in obstinate cases to reduce the food of plain rapeseed and ‘on this a bird will not have an inclination to shout’.1350 In Dohnavur is a letter1351 from Spencer & Company from Madras, dated 17 May 1941, with advice to her about which canary food the company could supply. Amy indicated on this paper what she wanted to order. It was a food that would give the birds a deeper colour! Amy enjoyed T.R. Treloar’s book about the perfection and

1341. Mrs Herbert-Strang, Tail-Waggers Book (London: Oxford-University Press, 1933).

1342. This she wrote in the front page of a book about dogs, D.M. Large, The Kind Companion (London: The Lutterworth Press, 1891). Amy liked this book, considering her remark written on the first page:- ‘Dear book’. The book is in the Dohnavur library.

1343. A.C.B. Bellerby, The Lonely Dog. A True Story (London: John Miles, 1937). The book is in the Dohnavur library. 1344. In Whispers of His Power, 28 January, 28.

1345. On p. 209 of Rowland James, Dogs You’d Like to Meet. The book is in the Dohnavur library.

1346. Cf. Ponnamal, 9. Cf. too the way Barbara Trehane describes her care for the one week old mongoose Micky: ‘Micky’s happy life is based on one thing only: his absolute confidence that I will take care of him and never harm him’ (in B.M.G. Trehane, Micky and his Dohnavur Friends (London: Dohnavur Fellowship, n.d.), 14.

1347. P. Kelway, The Squirrel Book (London: Collins, 1945).

1348. V. Grey, The Charm of Birds (London: Hodder & Stoughton, n.d.). This book is in the Dohnavur library. 1349. I. Tweed, Canary Keeping in India (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co., 1907). This book is in the Dohnavur library. 1350. J. Tomlinson, The Roller Canary (Strand: The Cage Bird Fancy, n.d.), 24. This book is in the Dohnavur library. 1351. In the Dohnavur library. classification of colour varieties in his Budgerigars.1352 Amy got this book from Olive, on 22 June 1944, and wrote ‘To be enjoyed’.

Nesaruthina remembered Amy sitting in her armchair on the veranda, where she watched the birds. She told the children to look at these birds and she taught them to love these creatures of God. In September each year, a children’s service was held in the House of Prayer especially to give thanks for all the pets of the children. As many as they could, the children brought the animals into the church building on that special Sunday morning, a little calf, a donkey, squirrels, a white rat, doves, etc.1353 From her room Amy could see the garden and often walked there just to enjoy the flowers and trees. She read A Book of Roses1354 and wrote on the title page ‘A lovely work. Pure Delight’. When it had rained she drew the children’s attention to the sunlight through the raindrops to admire the beautiful colours.

Often God’s daily delights were mixed with anxieties and troubles, inside and outside. Was not she with the Fellowship on a battlefield? And was not in the unseen leader with them in the battle?

Why should we fear for His work, whether it be in a place dear as the apple of our eye to us, or in a soul to succour whom we would pour out all we have? Are the children of these lands, yes and of our cities at home and of all waste places, un-regarded by Him?1355 She read her Bible very carefully, for in the margin of Matthew 15:26: ‘Not dogs – puppies. Dogs never were fed so, but pups were’.1356 Her work was done in happiness. ‘I am never unhappy except when I hear of wrongdoing or think of the grief of the world’. In God’s presence there is fullness of joy, and ‘we should be the most radiant of people with such a Lord’.1357 ‘We have the presence and the promises of God.’1358

Conflict with Stephen Neill

Stephen Charles Neill (1900–1984) was an ‘eminent figure in the world church scene in the 20th century. He was, perhaps, the most prolific missiologist during the time’.1359 Less known is that he started his mission career in Dohnavur in 1924. For him it was a dark period, and that was the reason that even in his autobiography he never mentioned Amy and the DF.1360 What happened in Dohnavur that time?

Around 1924 several new workers arrived in Dohnavur and they were doing well, but Amy had some anxieties concerning one of them, Stephen Neill. He had come to Dohnavur with his parents, who were medical doctors, and he was to oversee the boys work. For both Amy and Neill, with their strong Irish nature, their fixed visions, it was very difficult to go through one door, which eventually culminated in the fact that Neill was turned out of the house. Mostly the Dohnavur story is one of comings and

1352. T.R. Treloar, Budgerigars (Melbourne: Robertson & Mullens Ltd., 1936).
1353. In B.C. Osman, Buds and Teddies (London: SPCK, 1936), 58.
1354. J. Ramsbottom, A Book of Roses (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1939).
1355. From The Forest, 14.

1356. In Amy’s Bible (1895). Matthew 15:26, ‘And He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread, and throw it to the dogs”’ (RSV).

1357. Candles in the Dark, 105.
1358. Gold by Moonlight, 15.
1359. See Daughrity, Bishop Stephen Neill, 250.

1360. E.M. Jackson, God’s Apprentice, The Autobiography of Stephen Neill (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991).

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goings, steady growth, and regular crises, but this crisis concerning the arrival and leaving of Stephen Neill and his parents,1361 who came to Dohnavur in November 1925, was a very severe one. This crisis has been the object of many speculations. The Neill family working together with Amy was, in the words of Elisabeth Elliot, ‘a bad mix’.1362 In first instance, the arrival of Dr and Mrs Neill was for Amy a real blessing:

What is it to have someone who understands things straight off, and is absolutely in sympathy? There was nothing to explain even our ‘peculiar Dohnavur ways’ were all his ways. There was no need for us to be one, we were one to start with.1363 The children called Dr Neill ‘Arul Iyer’, which means ‘the graciousness one’. For his son Stephen, who arrived some months later, Amy had high expectations. Could he be the second Ragland? And when Amy was writing Ragland, she intended to have Stephen’s initials on the dedication page ‘for we were then in touch with him’. And then she goes on:

I was anxious not to do anything which could seem to imply that falling into particular ground of Dohnavur was the will of God for him. I was continue praying (and he knew it) that if he could be diverted he would be formost earnestly we only want those who are called with a call about which there is no mistake, for to join us means an acceptance of the corn of wheat life in certain very definite ways. But of one thing I am abundantly sure: God never wastes his corns of wheat.1364 But the Lord had other plans with Stephen and his parents, for after a short period they all left Dohnavur, leaving behind them a distressed and a confused Amy. In his autobiography Stephen Neill chose not to mention that he had ever been anywhere near Dohnavur. It is sure there was a deep conflict of wills, and that Neill in effect had been given his marching orders by Amy. Two characters, two strong Irish tempers; the clash between two such strong imperious personalities must have been awesome. Amy felt it as a defeat, hypersensitive as she always was to tension among Christians, especially those for whom she felt some responsibility. Although she was not infallible, as a judge of character she did her utmost to secure only fully committed Christians to work at Dohnavur. When she failed in judgement, her reaction was always to blame herself first. As always, her convictions about disputed matters were as strong as ever, but she never did say a hard word against anybody, and no word that could suggest selfpraise escaped her lips.

To this day, there is still some controversy about Stephen Neill’s work in India.1365 The premature termination of his ministry there was traumatic. Neill had plunged into evangelism in south India after leaving Trinity College, Cambridge. He had acquainted himself with the Tamil language. At the time of his arrival in India, according to his own words, ‘the great tradition of Tamil scholarship among missionaries had practically died out’.1366 He was of the opinion that wherever you are you learn the

1361. In the missionary meeting of the Keswick Convention of 1928 Mrs Neill from India reported that both her husband and she had received their missionary call at Keswick before they were known to each other (Sloan, These Sixty Years, 96). 1362. In A Chance to Die, 234.

1363. In Dohnavur letter, no. 4, December 1924, p. 5 (PRONI D/4061/30/1).

1364. In Dohnavur letter, no. 4, December 1924, p. 5 (PRONI D/4061/30/1).

1365. Elliot deals with the Neill episode in some detail, in contrast to Houghton, who merely hints at it, mentioning no names. In 1939, Stephen Neill became Anglican bishop of Tinnevelly, with pastoral responsibility for the geographic area that included Dohnavur, at which time Amy severed her remaining Anglican connections. This might have been just as well, all things considered. On some of the complexities of Neill’s character, see E.M. Jackson, ‘The continuing legacy of Stephen Neill’, IBMR 19(2) (1995): 77–80.

1366. God’s Apprentice, 87. language of the people. ‘I made up my mind that I would learn Tamil or die.’ However, he felt he had to leave Dohnavur and wrote his letter of resignation. His reason he describes as follows:

Fellow Christians had brought into my life such darkness and suffering that it took me many years to recover from the injuries, and the scars are still there. […] But I thought that for the time being I might be better out of things – I would take advantage of my fellowship, which had three years to run, learn Sanskrit for a couple of years, and then come back to start again, better equipped for the work among high-caste Hindus.1367 In the 1970s, Stephen Neill (1900–1984), wrote in a newspaper about his vision of missions, in which he strongly disagrees with the forming of the traditional missionary ‘fellowships’ within the Church:

Any attempt to create another and more intimate fellowship within the Church is certain to be harmful and is certain to be bitterly resented by the Christians of the other race.1368 Strong words, echoing that Neill after his retirement still had bitter, negative feelings about what had happened when he as a young missionary staff worker had been working in Dohnavur. Much of what happened at that time, and the background of the conflict is explained in Daughrity’s study.1369 Stephen openly opposed Amy’s leadership. For instance:

One day Amy said to Stephen to give his love to the people in the villages, surrounding Dohnavur. He said: ‘That is silly’ and he felt very offended and that he for himself could not choose what to do and where to work. On this Amy remarked: ‘You are expressing yourself too much’.1370 Another worker in Dohnavur thought that Neill was ‘temperamentally unsuited to the situation’. He was known to have given in to several violent explosions of temper during which he beat some of the Dohnavur boys. Stephen, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, acted in Dohnavur as a lay missionary. In October 1923 Tim Houghton, preparing for mission service, met Marjorie Neill, whose parents had offered to serve with BCMS in India. Tim found Marjorie a ‘lovely girl’, but after she had joined her parents, she died of typhoid. That happened when she worked in Mirzapur. It was Tim who wrote of her brother that his ‘views on the inspiration of the Bible were uncertain’, and he knew of Marjorie’s anxiousness about ‘her brother’s theological position as tending towards liberalism’.1371 Was Amy afraid he would influence the children with his thoughts? His intellectual training in Cambridge was not well suited for the ‘Keswick’ fundamental environment, because he questioned some biblical issues. Did Amy know more about his attraction to young boys and did she want to protect the Dohnavur boys who had been rescued from a life of shame?1372 Amy covered it and was very sad that he had to go. For her there was

1367. God’s Apprentice, 93.

1368. In The Church of England Newspaper on 13 November 1970. Quotation in L. Lyall, A World to Win (London: IVF/OMF, 1972), 34.

1369. See Daughrity, Bishop Stephen Neill, chapters 3 and 4, ‘A Conflicted Mission and Diocese’ and ‘Conflict with Amy Carmichael’, 67–121. The book speaks of the ‘nuns’ in Dohnavur (p. 98) and also quotes Jeyakumar, who writes ‘Amma discouraged “her girls” to get married’ (p. 103). NB: The members of the DF did not live in a convent and the girls been were never prohibited by Amy to marry!

1370. Nesaruthina Carunia, in an interview with the author, 16 November 2013 in Dohnavur. ‘From the moment Neill arrived in Dohnavur, tensions arose and problems came about’ (quotation from R. Pierard in Daughrity, Bishop Stephen Neill, 96 (note 15).

1371. In T. Yates, Pioneer Missionary, Evangelical Statesman. A Life of A.T. (Tim) Houghton (Central Milton: Author House, 2011), 51 and 32.

1372. In the author’s opinion, Amy already sensed Neill’s sexual struggles. Daughrity writes that this was part of the problem in his downfall in 1945 from the bishopric in Tinnevelly (p. 247). Daughrity also quotes Bishop Holloway who wrote in 2003 that ‘it was well known that he was a brilliant man with a tragic flaw, sadomasochism, which contributed to his departure from India’ (p. 242).

Chapter 13

no other way. Before Neill left the Dohnavur compound, his parents, who had worked there as medics for some months, left for Suviseshapuram. For Amy this was a terrible episode. This is recorded by Elliot when she quotes Amy from her diary, ‘May 30, 1925, most painful night of my life’ and that night she prayed1373:

O Saviour, must the sword O Lord of thorns and nails
Smite sharp, nor spare? And piercing spear
Then come, O loving Lord, The coward in me quails
Give strength to bear. Come near, come near.

She often prayed for a renewal of hope. Could the friction be healed? ‘Keep me from looking back on what appeared to be guidance.’ Amy, no doubt, was sensitive to the potential difficulty of a man working under the authority of a woman, particularly at that time, and did everything to avoid that prejudice. Were the men ‘overruled’ and adversely affected by the majority of female workers and recruits? The relationships with the Webb-Peploe brothers, John Risk and other male workers in Dohnavur convince us that in Neill’s case this could not have been the problem. Amy had been ready to hand over the leadership to male workers, so we have to look for other reasons why the relationship between Amy and Neill ended.

Daughrity’s study lays open Neill’s complex character and his two great conflicts, one as an educator in Dohnavur with Amy (1924–1925) and the other as bishop of Tinnevelly (1939–1944), which ultimately led to his downfall from the Tinnevelly bishopric (1944–1945). One can only say, especially in the case of his conflict with Amy, that the word ‘obedience’ was not to be found in his dictionary. It was very difficult for him to listen to his superiors. The stirring scuffle of not recognising and obeying the Dohnavur leadership and the most dramatic event in his life, losing the Tinnevelly Bishopric, gave him a pain from which he never recovered. In his posthumously published autobiography, Neill never mentions Amy’s name and the DF; he only blames others as to the cause of his dismissal there:

It was there that I wrote my letter of resignation. […] During that first year, fellow Christians had brought into my life such darkness and suffering that it took me many years to recover from their injuries, and the scars are still there.1374 At the end of his book, Neill writes: ‘In eighty years, I have experienced many rough passages’.1375 He was unable to be ‘critical of himself’ and ‘most comfortable when he was in total control’, in short a ‘homeless mind’.1376 Houghton himself writes in a somewhat evasive way about this whole issue between Amy and Stephen Neill: he does not even mention his name! The only reason for it can be that he did not want to put his colleague in a bad light.

1373. In A Chance to Die, 235. A contemporary of Amy’s suggested that the Neills came with the idea of ‘doing a takeover’ (Daughrity, Bishop Stephen Neill, 109). However, this has never been proven to be true. The Neill family did not agree with the strict separation between the boys and the girls. They did not understand that this was according to the Indian culture at that time. Amy herself did not agree with Stephen’s use of a cane to punish the boys. In what Daughrity writes about Neill’s punishment method in Tinnevelly as bishop, Amy indeed could have known more about Stephen’s violent explosions of temper (p. 195).

1374. God’s Apprentice, 93. Among historians who have studied Neill’s life seriously, ‘there is a consensus that Neill deliberately airbrushed this information [about his stay in Dohnavur] out of his CV’ (p. 104).

1375. God’s Apprentice, 333. Daughrity’s Bishop Stephen Neill gives some suggestions of what might have caused his attitude. Was it his problematic youth in a boarding school? Or the eagerness to be always the first in class, of his ‘mixing his sexuality with his bizarre disciplinary methods’ (p. 64)?

1376. Here Daughrity quotes Peter Berger. In Neill, God’s Apprentice, 248.

Amy always had a deep understanding about the way in which the Fellowship should develop. She was not in for any compromise. Should we not suffer for Christ’s sake? Should we not rather be afraid of avoiding it through cowardly compromise? Daughrity says that:

[O]n a deeper level, it is fair to say that despite Amy Carmichael’s impressive piety and tender heart, she could be exacting, dictatorial, even insolent when it came to defending her principles. Perhaps Neill and Carmichael were two peas in a pod – strikingly similar in their dealings with people.1377 In January 1926, Stephen’s service at Dohnavur ended. Their separation hurt both. ‘Both loved each other’1378 and later on when Neill was bishop in Tinnevelly, according to Nesaruthina, he expressed his love for Amy: ‘I adored her, the way she loved the children’. ‘She was the instrument to find my life work’ and ‘inwardly I was very proud to work in Tinnevelly where Amy worked once’.1379 After Neill had gone the work went on in Dohnavur. In what way? Amy put down these questions on paper:

But do not some go away? Some have been unable to stay for medical reasons; some for other reasons equally compelling. And some went out from us because they were not of us, for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us. What is the effect upon you of such a disappointment as a parting of the last kind must be? It moves us the more to look to Him who never disappoints. We earnestly look to Him. Then we close up the ranks and go on.1380 The whole affair had hurt her deeply, she who always tried to emphasise Christ’s love for sinners, his dying on the Cross, and should we not therefore work and talk in the mind of this love? In China, My China she underlined one sentence, and wrote this sentence on the first page, which explicitly expresses her own thoughts about issues of disagreement: ‘Agree to differ, but resolve to love’.1381

‘… and the fellowship of His suffering’

The words from Hebrews 12:7, ‘Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons’ (NIV), had a special meaning in Amy’s life. She would experience that hardship was an indispensable and invaluable ingredient in the experience of a child of God. She got a deeper understanding of God’s love and a purity of heart and life. God as it seemed denied her the service that she so urgently desired:

It is at such times that we have the opportunity of being refined by the fire, of being ground by the millstones. In such circumstances we either crack with the heat, or become refined and smooth; we either break under the grinding-stone or become fine-flour for bread for the hungry.1382 Early morning, on 24 October 1931, Amy prayed, ‘Do with me as Thou wilt. Do ANYTHING, Lord that will fit me to serve Thee and help my beloveds.’1383 The entry in the Dohnavur logbook that day starts with the ordinary events and then in another handwriting: ‘Amma had an accident at Kalakadu 5.30 p.m.

1377. In ‘A Dissonant Mission’, 18.
1378. Nesaruthina Carunia, in an interview with the author, 16 November 2013 in Dohnavur.
1379. Nesaruthina Carunia, in an interview with the author, 16 November 2013 in Dohnavur.
1380. In The Starry Cluster, 9.
1381. Cf. H.B. Rattenbury, China, My China (London: Frederick Muller Ltd, 1944), 246.

1382. In F. Mitchell, At Break of Day, Daily Meditations for the Year (Eastbourne: Kingsway Publications Ltd, 1981), 27 (21 January).

1383. In Skoglund, Amma, 15. Cf. too her remark: ‘I’m in Nero’s prison, but I’m not Nero’s prisoner’ (E. Stanley Jones, In Christ, (Nashville: Abingdon, 1961), 207.

Chapter 13

Ronald took her straight to Neyyoor. On the way car wonderfully protected going over particularly hidden and very dangerous road.’ On a visit that day to Kalakadu (Joyous City), a serious accident occurred, which was to change the whole further course of her life. The Fellowship had bought a house in Kalakadu, in which some workers, who were going to do evangelistic work in that town and environment, could stay. Kalakadu was also the town where Amy nearly 30 years before had seen the lotus buds in the temple pool, where she then had had the vision of little children, belonging not to the temples but to God.

Amy had come to the town to inspect the house, which was nearly ready for the missionaries to stay in permanently. First, there was no one who had the key, and after a key was found it was already getting dark when Amy wanted to enter the house. An unseen hole near the entrance of the house caused the change in Amy’s situation. She fell into it, broke her ankle and her back was distorted. As soon as possible, she was driven to Neyyoor, where Dr Somervell set the limb. She stayed here until 03 November. In the entry of the logbook she wrote: ‘Home. Goodness and Mercy’. In due time several other operations were performed, but she did not recover; from that day she never was one day without pain. She was confined to her room and could not take part in the physical activities of the Fellowship. In the first years she went out – although not often – by car, but mostly she was to be found in her room or on the veranda. Sometimes they took her for an outing, or she was carried up to the forest. The routine day-to-day business was done by the Webb-Peploe brothers, May Powell or Arulai. From 1931 onwards the emphasis of Amy’s biography more and more moved from the outward events of the Fellowship and concentrated more upon her personal relationship with Christ. The past 30 years, from the start until 1931 had been years full of shaping the DF with Amy in the middle of the web. An early member of the Starry Cluster remembered Amy before she had the accident, as one who was ‘not walking, nor even running but always flying, with many a glance at a wristlet watch “lest we waste moments”’.1384 From her bed, she often looked at the oil painting presented to her by Dr Somervell of Nanga Parbat. The glorious view of the mountains kept Amy’s vision alive. The climb was not yet over, nor the fight. In those days she underlined the words of the poet Stephen Phillips, accentuated the very place in the margin and wrote: ‘Read many, many times since Oct. 24. 1931’.

But when Thy joy is past; comes in the test,
To front the life that lingers after zest: […]
Sustain me in that hour with Thy left hand,
And aid me, when I cease to soar, to stand;
Make me Thy athlete even in my bed,
Thy girded runner though the course be sped;
Still to refrain that I may bestow,
From sternness to a larger sweetness grow.1385

The Lord used her in a wonderful way. She spent a long time in prayer for each of her children; many books were prepared and out of her often painful situation arose many a helpful reflection on the problem of the Lord’s dealings with his children and the meaning of the Cross. She, who had always seen the work in Dohnavur as a battle, knew that the accident was not a defeat. For her there was no discharge from the war. From her bed, she kept the charge and continued the battle to save children in danger. Amy received a letter from an aspirant member of the Fellowship, who with his fiancée wanted to work in Dohnavur. That fiancée had written, ‘I know that for us it is to be swords drawn, up to the gates of heaven’. These words pleased Amy, for she wrote:

I was thinking of the so much greater and more protracted trials that might be part of life for these two – for married life, if both husband and wife are pledged soldiers, is a sacrificial thing from the first day.

1384. In Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur, 293.

1385. In T.H. Ward (ed.), The English Poets (vol. V; London: MacMillan & Co., 1918), 550.

For those two and other ‘soldiers’ elsewhere she wrote, looking also at her own battle wounds:

No soldier on service is ever ‘laid aside’; he is only given another commission, sometimes just to suffer (we are not told yet the use of that), sometimes, when pain and weakness lessen a little, to fight among the unseen forces of the field. Never, never is he shelved as of no further use to his Beloved Captain. […] Only, as I have been learning through these months, the soldier must let his Captain say where, and for what, He needs him most, and he must not cloud his mind with questions. A wise master never wastes his servant’s time, nor a commander his soldier’s – there is a great comfort in remembering that. So let us settle it once for all and find heart’s ease in doing so. There is no discharge in our warfare – no, not for a single day. We are never hors de combat. We may be called to serve on the visible field, going continually into the invisible both to renew our strength and to fight the kind of battle that can be fought only there. Or we may be called off the visible altogether for a while, and drawn deep into the invisible. That dreary word ‘laid aside’ is never for us; we are soldiers of the King of kings. Soldiers are not shelved.1386 Being convalescent was not easy for Amy, who was naturally an energetic and active person. Later she thought that she never found patience easy, being by nature a most impatient mortal. Even one week in bed seemed for her impossible in the old days.1387 Despite her own suffering, she remained others-centred. Because of her own trials, Amy was able to have a remarkable empathy for the sufferings others had to endure, offering comfort and refreshment even when those trials were comparatively mild compared with hers.

Amy was to stay in bed for weeks, but weeks became years. When she was busy day by day, she often wondered ‘at the power and the endurance I saw in the ill and the maimed. The mere thought of indoor life was anathema to me. How did they endure it?’1388 Were those people never much discouraged, she asked herself. For her, always the busy one, could she endure the way the Lord went with her? She longed to be well and walk like all the others. Some days she was down and she saw herself in an ‘abyss of distress and fear’.1389 It was Satan who was chaining her: ‘It is only that the devil does not want you here at all’.1390 ‘But all our problems are open to God and all will fit into His plan. […] Let us claim the blessing of the un-offended.’1391 ‘The Father holds His children very close to His heart when they are going through such rough places as this.’1392 Ten years before she had the accident Amy had written:

To be ill in India can never be easy. It is a land to live for, and (most joyfully) to die in, but it is not a land to be ill in, unless one can command seclusion and quiet, and few missionaries can do that.1393 She then inserted the words of the martyrs Ridley, Latimer and Bradford:

What is glory in the world but shame? What art thou afraid to carry Christ’s cross? Wilt thou come into His Kingdom, and not drink of His cup? […] If we refuse to be corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying; if we will neither sacrifice prospects, nor risk character and property and health; nor, when called, relinquish home and break family ties, for Christ’s sake and His Gospel; then even supposing that we not thereby prove that we have not the root of the matter in us, that we have nothing at all to do with Christ,

1386. Rose From Brier, 36–37.
1387. Cf. Rose From Brier, chapter 1.
1388. Gold by Moonlight, 31.
1389. Candles of the Dark, 62.
1390. Candles in the Dark, 65.
1391. Candles in the Dark, 63.
1392. Candles in the Dark, 64.
1393. Ragland, 62.

Chapter 13

we shall abide alone’. […] God forbid that we are too careful of our lives, or of what means so immeasurable more, the lives of our beloved.1394 Confined to her room, she wrote a lot and often during her mealtimes she was still writing. During that time 13 new books came from the press. We admire her persistence to continue, for when she had the accident she was a 63-year-old woman, often in great pain and having sleepless nights. One of the books she wrote during that time was more or less autobiographic. She sent letters to the sick, and these were later gathered and published under the name Rose From Brier. She hoped that from her ‘brier’ roses would grow for the sick and for other sufferers:

I know it all; but from thy brier shall blow
A rose for others. If it were not so
I would have told thee, Come, then, say To Me
My Lord, my Love, I am content with Thee.1395

Houghton writes that many years before she had the accident she once had prayed that she would never be a burden to someone else, and that she would die on the battlefield. The Lord, however, had a different plan for what she had prayed for in 1915:

Lord, teach me to conquer pain to the uttermost henceforth, and grant this my earnest request. When my day’s work is done, take me straight Home. Do not let me be ill and a burden or anxiety to anyone. Oh let me finish my course with joy and not with grief. Thou knowest there would be no joy if I knew I were tiring those I love best, or taking them from the children. Let me die of a battle wound, O my Lord, not a lingering illness. Father hear me, answer me. Forgive this prayer if it be wrong, and grant it if Thou canst turn it to Thy glory. One day, reading Psalm 84, she wondered whether God was emphasising this – ‘Draw us so into accord with Thyself that no good thing shall be withheld’ – instead of ‘Health is a good thing, Lord, give it’. She prayed like Paul three times, but also for her was the answer the same: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee’.1396 Is the Lord not saying ‘see to it that you are in perfect accord with Me and then trust Me to withhold no good thing’? Was health that good thing?:

Every morning I waken with the hope, ‘perhaps today’. But I first wish to want His will, that His will be mine or to be spoken to privately: ’Let Me see thy countenance, let Me hear thy voice.1397 She never questioned God about this. At times, she even was thankful for it. ‘A slip on the upward climb is sometimes the one way by which we can be led into Hebrews 5:2.’1398 In her spiritual warfare of always resisting the prince of darkness, in all the unanswered questions, she only knew one answer: In acceptance lieth peace.1399 The acceptance of the will of God will never lead to the miserable feeling that it is useless to ask and to suffer strife any more:

God does not ask for the dull, weak, sleepy acquiescence of indolence. He asks for something vivid and strong. He asks us to co-operate with Him, actively willing what He wills, and our only aim His glory. To accept in this

1394. Ragland, 63.
1395. Rose From Brier, 52; Mountain Breezes, 294.
1396. In 2 Corinthians 12:9.
1397. Song of Songs 2, 14; see Candles in the Dark, 61.

1398. Candles in the Dark, 19. Amy refers to Hebrews 5:2: ‘Who can bear gently with the ignorant and erring, for that He Himself also is compassed with infirmity’ (RV).

1399. Gold by Moonlight, 33. ‘But when stripes and imprisonment had to be endured, there is acceptance. He does not think of himself as Caesar’s prisoner: “Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ.” The steel chains of Caesar are his Lord’s chains of gold.’ sense is to come with all the desire of the mind unto the place which the Lord shall choose, and to minister in the name of the Lord our God there – not other where.

As far as the things of God are concerned, acceptance always means the happy choice of mind and heart of that which He appoints, because (for the present) it is His good and acceptable and perfect will.1400 Amy knew that in very rare cases God could use the practice of laying hands upon the sick for healing. She underlined this sentence:

Except in the special case of Paul when a certain disciple was sent to lay hands upon him (see Acts 9:10–19), it would appear as through the apostles alone the Holy Spirit was imparted. Ananias was used by God for a special case, and it is the one solitary example given in the New Testament of one who was not an apostle being used in this way. Amy herself wrote in the same booklet, ‘Charisma is a gift given by the Holy Spirit for service’.1401 We read on top of this document Amy’s words: ‘We ought to know why we cannot have this teaching here. This helps towards that’.

In living on these peaceful lines, there was nothing cloudy or nebulous for Amy. She knew that the outcome of all this would be salvation and it accorded with her own eager expectation and hope, that in no respect she would be disappointed. On 11 April 1938, she underlined the words in Way’s commentary on Philippians 1:20:

For (if I could think for myself alone) for me life is absorption in Messiah: death – ah, that is gain! Yet – yet – if to live on in this body be yet reserved to me, this will mean more fruit still of my toil. Life? – death? – which to choose I cannot discern. Oh, I am in a strait betwixt the two for the yearning that I feel to sail away from earth, and to heaven me with Messiah.1402 She had to wait peacefully and be ready:

[L]ike the waiting of the little ship near the shore that was ready at the slightest sign to set sail with the Master; ready, too, to wait there till He made that sign. […] Unreserved acceptance opens the way for the turning of the captivity.1403 She thought in line with Madame Guyon, ‘who suffered in every sensitive fibre of her being’ and said:

Through the dark and silent night
On Thy radiant smiles I dwelt;
And to see the dawning light
Was the keenest pain I felt.

It was not easy for Amy to accept her helplessness and peace was not always in her heart, especially when she saw others doing the work she used to do. The year 1937 was extremely difficult for her; she compared it with Paul’s voyage of Acts 27 and called that year ‘Adria’. ‘It began as other years, but soon we were plunged into grief.’1404 A new building in the Place of Healing was realised, but affairs among other adult workers caused her a lot of stress. However, never one complaint was heard from her, and we see her inner situation and trust in God in the following poem sent to her by Murray Webb-Peploe:

1400. Gold by Moonlight, 35.

1401. In Webb (ed.), What The Scriptures Teach Concerning The Laying On Of Hands, 6 (Amy’s comment on p. 5). 1402. See A.S. Way, ‘Letter to the Philippians’, in The Letters of St. Paul (London: MacMillan and Co., Ltd, 1909), 156. This reference was given to me by Dr Jacky Woolcock of the DF in the UK.

1403. Gold by Moonlight, 36.

1404. Though the Mountains Shake, 10.

Chapter 13

Here it has been a morning alone with the Lord. There is only one desire, and that is to go down deeper and deeper until there is none of self left and the Power of His Spirit will have full sway.

If I should trust thee to obey,
Though mist and mud beset the way;
And if obedience leads to loss
And agony, and then – the Cross;
What is that, My child, to thee?
Thy loyalty is to follow Me,
Who triumphed there, on Calvary;
And blessed is he,
Whosoever shall not be offended in Me.1405

Her help was from the Lord and overwhelmed with the love of the others who frequently visited her, she experienced something of the peace of Christ.

The greatest difficulty is to readjust, to see our daily worn down Warfare of the Service, and to be oneself sheltered from all the hardest things […] Bring me out of this fog of the spirit […] Quicken Thou me. And till this prayer is fully answered, let no shadow of mine shadow anyone who come to this room. […] It is not only human love, it is something different that quickens joy. I do truly see Him Whom we love best, in each one as he or she comes into the room, and I do ‘hear in each tone His well-beloved voice’.

And on 02 November 1938, the notes in her diary are:

If so be that we suffer with Him. Lord Jesus, Thou hast made my prison so beautiful and my bond so light that I greatly fear I do not ‘suffer with’ Thee […] Do not let me miss the deepest thing Thou hast to give – the fellowship of His sufferings.1406 She wrote more of her fellowship with Christ in a private letter. This fellowship of his sufferings she had in the 1940s, when almost every morning she remembered Christ’s death, by eating a morsel of bread and drinking a few drops of water. She believed that Jesus still ‘turned’ water into wine. In doing that, ‘something happened’. ‘I cannot say more, only I am conscious of life received.’ She accepted her situation and the setback in her health; she kept on ‘climbing’ and saw all God’s doings as steps forward on the pathway home. She saw that it was God who had put up the stumbling blocks and not that things were happening to her by accident. God’s truth brought her face to face with the standard revealed in Christ and in his Cross. Is not the Lord right in his diagnosis? This situation also had its place in a full-orbed life of holiness and Amy knew through suffering that God was creating a perfect balance between her own spiritual struggles and his love in Christ Jesus:

Thou hast not that, My child, but thou hast Me;
And am not I alone enough for thee?
I know it all, know how thy heart was set
Upon this joy which is not given yet.
And well I know how through the wistful ways
Thou walkest all the dear familiar ways
As unregarded as a breath of air;
But there in love and longing, always there.
I know it all; but from thy brier shall blow
A rose for others. If it were not so

1405. Though the Mountains Shake, 14 and 16–17.

1406. In Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur, 310–311.

I would have told thee. Come, then, say to Me:

My Lord. My Love, I am content with Thee.1407 ‘These words may be too high for earth. But it is not for us to set a limit to what God is preparing to do when He is training a soul to endure, not accepting deliverance.’1408 As an example of a soul in training, she referred to a letter she once got from Bishop Moule after his wife had died. Moule wrote to her of comfort ‘dropped like an anodyne from the hand of the Physician into my great wound. […] And I bless her Lord for calling her to go upstairs, and meet Him there’. Here Amy says:

So near is the Eternal Comforter that the strangely un-Christian view of death of our half-pagan age does not come into the picture at all. The wife is not ‘lost’. She is just ‘upstairs’. […] O Lord, Thou art wonderful. Thou canst make a radiance anywhere. There is nothing too hard for Thee.1409 Often she prayed she would never lose the spirit of happiness. This spirit of happiness is a sheer ‘miracle’:

It is the gift of a happy God, as Paul names our heavenly Father in writing to Timothy. It is the gift of the God of love. He pours it out of His own fountains, through unseen channels, as He poured it upon Paul and Silas before their feet were taken out of the stocks and their stripes washed; for no created powers of hell, or out of hell, can mar the music of our Lord, nor spoil our song of joy’.1410 She never complained or questioned God’s dealings with her:

God’s blossoms may be given, but if not (and if so) there remains the prayer, Make me Thy athlete even in my bed […] and God’s answer remains ‘But I am the strength of thy heart and thy portion forever. Thou shalt not be forgotten of Me’.1411 Confined to bed for the whole day, she was encouraged by her own children and was able to encourage others in the storm of life. Often they came to Amma’s room and sang for her:

In the evening they sang carols outside Amma’s room. Ronald had arranged most beautiful illumination in the big tree and lit up the fountain just outside Amma’s room. Amma was on the veranda. […] Amma had a better night and seemed much better in the morning for a short time. Children tremendously cheered. […] Amma went for a drive after tea and enjoyed it.1412 When the Lotus Buds with their Accals were in the Forest House for a holiday, nearly every evening at a particular time, Amy went in a car along the road from which, in daylight, one can see two of the forest houses as tiny specks on the distant hillside. From the Forest House the road can be seen and in the dark: the lights that pass along it show clearly. Barbara Osman tells us:

Night by night, our Forest family gather all their lanterns together to make a light that will shine down and take their love, and say ‘Goodnight’ to Amma. The annachie, who is driving the car stops and turns the spot light round to the mountains, and makes it wink and blink messages. When it is put out for a moment all up there in the Forest, and those in the car on the dark road, pray for one another, drawn closer together in the Lord Jesus.1413

1407. Rose From Brier, 52.
1408. Gold by Moonlight, 38.
1409. Gold by Moonlight, 38–39.
1410. Gold by Moonlight, 50.
1411. Gold by Moonlight, 52–53.
1412. In the Dohnavur logbook, 07–08 January and 24 December 1931 (in the Dohnavur library).
1413. In Buds and Teddies, 51–52.

Chapter 13

What would she tell others in a situation like hers? It would be a simple story. It would not tell of un-tempted days but of succour that never failed:

Love, travelling in the greatness of His strength,
Found me alone,
Footsore and tired by the journey’s length,
Though I had known,
All the long way, many a kindly air,
And flowers had blossomed for me everywhere.
And yet Love found me fearful, and He stayed;
Love stayed by me.
‘Let not thy heart be troubled or dismayed,
My child’, said He.
Slipped from me then all troubles, all alarms;
For Love had gathered me into His arm.1414

In her many hours of pain she tried to write to others suffering pain and trials. She quoted Amiel1415 when he wrote in times of distress ‘it is possible to gather gold, where it may be had, with moonlight’. Here Amy said, ‘By moonlight, then, let us gather gold’.1416

After the accident everyone in the Fellowship was with her in their prayers and often children visited Amma to comfort her and to listen to the stories she told them. At times, especially at midnight when sleep did not come, she read portions of Scripture. Often Neela took notes of her meditations and early in the morning diligent hands copied these notes and spread these messages to the whole family. Many were encouraged by these ‘seed thoughts’1417 and treasured them. As much as possible these notes were gathered and published for daily reading.1418

In the Dohnavur logbook we see many entries that refer to her physical situation: ‘Amma sat in a chair’; ‘Amma had a bad night’; ‘Amma had much pain’; ‘Amma slept four hours’; ‘Amma put in shoes’; ‘Amma very weary’; ‘Amma very bad’; ‘Amma very wearied and had a bad night’; ‘Amma much pain in arms and shoulders’. Further: ‘Dr. Somervell came to see Amma, very short visit’; ‘Amma’s foot very painful’; ‘Not having very good news from Amma. She is having so much pain’; ‘Amma in great pain’; ‘Amma’s pain very bad again’; ‘Amma tried her new chair’; ‘Amma had very acute hour of pain which wrecked her’; ‘Amma very ill’; ‘Amma’s day of nine years ago’.1419 An entry in the logbook refers to prayers for her:

Thinking very much about what we could do to have more prayer for Amma. Council of eight met. Very much wanting to have prayer all day going without a break. Began chain of prayer for Amma 6 a.m. – 9 p.m.1420

1414. Mimosa, 31.

1415. Henri Fréderic Amiel (1821–1881), Swiss philosopher.

1416. Gold by Moonlight, 46. ‘In willing what God commands, in consenting to what He takes from us or refuses – in this we find our peace.’

1417. An Oswald Chambers expression.

1418. Cf. Edges of His Ways; Thou Givest … They Gather; Candles in the Dark.

1419. Logbook of the DF, 1931–1941: 08 March 1932; 31 July 1932; 09 September 1932; 04 October 1932; 25 October 1932; 02 May 1933; 19 May 1933; 03 June 1933; 09 June 1933; 04 February 1934; 30 March 1934; 15 September 1934; 06 June 1936; 17 October 1937; 24 October 1937; 28 June 1938; 17 September 1939; 24 October 1940.

1420. Logbook of the DF, 1931–1941, 03–04 February 1932.

From her sickbed she led the Fellowship, wrote several books and encouraged many by her letters and the daily notes which were spread among all members of the Fellowship. She once wrote down the words of George Fox, after he had been in a situation of huge trials: ‘There were never any prisons of suffering that I was in, but still it was for the bringing multitudes more out of prison’. This also can be said of Amy who, with her encouraging letters, notes and books, led many sufferers and sick ones on a way of inward cherishing of joy which led to what the Quakers would call ‘a cool and tender frame of spirit’. She herself was what she wrote of the women of India: ‘trained through hard generations into disciplined unselfishness that is surely matchless among the nations of the earth’.1421

At the end of 1934, and nearly the whole of 1935, the monsoon rains failed to come. Hardly anything could grow at that time and many people suffered from the drought; even in the neighbourhood of Dohnavur elderly people died. In those days, more than 150 people were busy in a building programme for Dohnavur, so the workers could provide an income for their families. Meanwhile Amy organised regular Bible studies for them, so they were not only helped physically through the drought period but they were also fed spiritually. Despite Amy being in bed and the tensions in the world in the years before World War II, the work continued. In 1937, in the year that ‘we were plunged into grief, the energies of our prayer-forces were devoted to something far removed from finance’. She did not exactly explain what had happened, but she saw it as the devil trying to get a foothold within the Fellowship. It was discovered that two trusted fellow workers were acting with ’deceit and disobedience’. They were dismissed, but others within the Fellowship objected to this decision. In short, it was all a ‘crashing sorrow’ which she feared ‘undid the work of years’.1422 All went through a stormy period, and here Amy refers to Paul’s journey through a stormy Adrian Sea.1423 The building projects continued, despite the decrease of income; here are some of the many projects from a long list:

1937. Children’s hospital, engine room, kitchen for the patients, converts’ home, kitchen for boys, silo for the farm to hold a hundred tons of ensilage; swimming bath for the little children.

1938. Place of Well-being; an encircling wall for the Place of Healing […] extension of Office; well and irrigation channels for the convert’s home.

1939. Nurses’ home for Place of Healing, kitchen for schoolgirls; sheds for carts.

1940. The babies nursery needed a shady porch. […] The Forest House needed a kitchen. […] A book-binding room was added to the boys’ workshop. In India, wherever termites abound, even with constant care, repairs are inevitable. Our Father who gives all the birds in all the world all they need for the building of their nests, has given us all we needed to build or to repair ours. So we are grateful.1424 All who have known her describe her as a woman they loved and whom they still remember in the way she enjoyed the little things in life and who wanted her children to grow up in a safe but joyous atmosphere. She lived out of this secret, which she herself never made a secret that it might seem too pathetic: the rain of joy comes from the clouds of suffering.

The last quarter of her life she confined to her room, and yet in spirit she was so free, free to use and enjoy the Lord’s provisions and miracles for the Fellowship, and from her bed she saw visions of the

1421. Mimosa, 121.

1422. Elliot, A Chance to Die, 334. In 1928 Amy admitted to the sisters Evangeline and Francesca French and Mildred Cable, who on their way to the centre of Asia visited Dohnavur, ‘the knowledge of the tremendous conflict which surges around every inmate of this house’. This because all the children ‘have been snatched one by one from the jaws of hell’. Not only spiritual but also practical difficulties could be expected (French, Cable & French, A Desert Journal, 24). 1423. See chapter 4 ‘Adria’, in Though The Mountains Shake, 13–17.

1424. For all the details of God’s provision, see Though The Mountains Shake, 107–109.

Chapter 13

victory. Pain was her partner and her teacher and she was never exempt from the ordinary sorrows of life. Dammed up she broke out in many new directions, with such a drive that she drove past human need. Abiding in Christ and in his Word for her direction and delight, she was not a cistern, but a spring – a spring gathering all the resources from the eternal hills and flowing for the needy, the thirsty and the little ones. In writing to someone who was ill, Amy expressed her own thoughts about pain and illness. For herself she stood out against self-pity and doubt of God’s guidance during the last 20 years of her bedridden life. On the contrary, the song had to go on. Labouring on in debilitation, she continued her work and authored more than 10 books after the accident in Kalakadu. She had but one hope and that of the triumphant nature of the risen Christ to support her to live her songs:

Life can be difficult. Sometimes the enemy come like a flood. But then is the time to prove our faith and live our songs. A day or two ago when everything was feeling more than usually impossible I opened on Psalm 40 with a new song. ‘He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise’. How like Him it is to ‘put’ it there. We couldn’t find it for ourselves, so He puts it. And when He puts it we can sing it.1425

1425. Candles in the Dark, ‘Illness’, 61.

‘The men with God’s “go” in them have these three characteristics, – a saving experience; the evidence of supernatural power at work, and the spiritual efficacy of

success in prayer’.
O. Chambers, ‘God’s Workmanship’
in The Complete Works, 430.