The girl from Millisle (part 1 of 3)

Chapter 3

The girl from Millisle

In a Belfast teashop a young girl and her mother were resting for a while and they had something to drink. A little girl stood near the door and looked in with her face pressed against the window. Delicious cakes and sweets lay displayed in that window. As mother and daughter left the teashop, it had started to rain and they saw the girl with her face still pressed close to the glass. She was looking longingly at the cakes and sweets. She was a little girl in a poor, thin, shabby dress. The ragamuffin child was barefoot. It was raining and her feet on the wet pavement looked so very cold. At home, the girl who had been in the teashop with her mother wrote on a scrap of paper:

When I grow up and money have
I know what I will do.
I’ll build a great big lovely place
For little girls like you.¹¹⁰

The child became a young woman and entirely forgot her promise. But there is one who remembers even a child’s promise. God’s work in the history of his worldwide mission does not happen in an empty sphere. The heritage of missionaries travelling all over the world can be traced. At the time of our birth, we already have a heritage. We bring something with us and for the greater part what that is remains hidden. We always have something of our ancestors in us and the older one gets, the more it shows in one’s character, words and deeds. The Irish history is one of idyll, knighthood, struggle, slavery, famine, deportation, emigration and a war of liberation; no wonder their women unite all in them – the feminine sweetness, the readiness to suffer and that kingly pride; in short, strong characters. In this 19th century Irish Victorian setting, in the Ulster Covenanter tradition, in an atmosphere in which the Gospel was lived, the young girl who wrote her promise on a scrap of paper was born. Eventually she would become the founder of the DF in south India.

110. See Amma’s Book, 51.

How to cite: Kommers, J. (Hans), 2017, ‘The girl from Millisle’, in Triumphant Love: The contextual, creative and strategic missionary work of Amy Beatrice Carmichael in south India, pp. 39–77, AOSIS, Cape Town. https://doi.org/10.4102/aosis.2017.tl41.03

Home in Millisle

In Amy’s life, we can trace an atmosphere in which the Gospel was lived. In Millisle, a little seaport town in County Down, Amy Beatrice Carmichael was born on 16 December 1867, halfway through the Victorian Era and some years after the Year of Grace. That year God was rending the heavens and came down; honouring his own truth by supplying the power of the Holy Spirit upon the northern Irish counties and the wondrous awakening took place. There were close relations between Ulster and the USA at that time and the revival in the New World of 1857–1858 stirred believers in Ireland, where many Christians started to pray for revival. The awakening in Ulster provoked also great interest in Scotland and by 1860 many churches in Glasgow, in the highlands and Western Isles experienced the quickening of the Holy Spirit, and at last the revival left no part of the Kingdom untouched. There was no town or country district where at least some of the inhabitants had not felt the ‘showers of blessing’.¹¹¹ The outcome of the revival was that lives were changed and that a new interest and support for missionary work overseas and at home was awakened. Christian social work was started among the poor, the factory workers and the thousands of women in industrial areas who often led a risky life. The revival gave to the Ulster evangelicalism a ‘fresh impetus’.¹¹² One exclaimed, ‘The whole country is studded with prayer-meetings, and the whole face of society is changed.’¹¹³ One of the leading evangelists at that revival time was Mr Guinness, who in 1858 commenced a series of meetings that extended ‘to every town in Ireland’. A leading daily paper wrote that ‘few preachers have ever addressed congregations more influential’. A more liberal newspaper, the Northern Whig, reporting on a sermon delivered in May Street Presbyterian Church, Belfast, swayed into positive, if somewhat reluctant, comment on Guinness’s pulpit presence and impressive preaching skills:

We have spoken of this gentleman’s remarkable power as a preacher. At present it suffices to say, that further experience strengthens our opinion. He sustained the audience upwards of an hour in admiration of his brilliant talents as an accomplished orator, and of his simple and yet majestic style of delivery. He may have said things which were hard to be believed by some of his audience, still no one present could but admire his unquestionable genius.¹¹⁴ Crowds, often more than 7000, heard about reconciliation to God, the work of Christ and sin, urging for conviction and conversion: all pointed appeals to the conscience of the hearers. Descended from an old Irish family from Iveagh, County Down, Mr and Mrs Guinness¹¹⁵ were well able to understand and appreciate the character of the people. ‘The Spirit seemed to brood over crowded congregations. What upturned faces; what falling tears; what a solemn hush on audiences spellbound under the power of infinite, spiritual realities!’ The spiritual influence of this quiet Quaker family

111. In E. Russel, That Man of Granite with the Heart of a Child: J.C. Ryle (Fearn: Christian Focus Publications, 2001), 112. 112. J.N.I. Dickson, Beyond Religious Discourse. Sermons, Preaching and Evangelical Protestants in Nineteenth-Century Irish Society (Bletchley: Paternoster, 2007), 188: ‘This Pentecostal revival brought in its train phases rarely if ever experienced before. Hundreds were “stricken,” otherwise physically prostrated, and the sense of sinfulness was so acute, that bodily agony was undergone until they realised their sins were forgiven. That remarkable visitation of the Holy Spirit was believed to be the answer to earnest prayer offered up at the village of Connor in Co. Antrim. From there, where the manifestation began, it spread like a flame of cleansing fire – by what earthly means no one could tell – until men, women, and even children, succumbed before its power, were seized and, as it were, forcibly gathered into the Kingdom’ (L.M. Foster, The Bush That Burned (Belfast: Ulster, 2005), Kindle edition, location 1850).

113. J. Weir, The Ulster Awakening. An Account of the 1859 Revival in Ireland, 1860 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2009), 147.

114. In Dickson, Beyond Religious Discourse, 185.

115. Their son, G. Whitfield Guinness, went in 1897 as a medical missionary to China. Their daughter Geraldine became the daughter-in-law of Hudson Taylor, the founder of the CIM.

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which heralded the great revival of 1859 still sounded several years after they had left Ireland to continue the meetings in the United States where a similar movement took place.¹¹⁶

Very memorable was the powerful revival meeting on 29 June 1859 in Belfast, where an open-air union prayer meeting was held in the Botanic Gardens, with an estimated 40 000 people filling every available space. Children sat in the branches of the trees.¹¹⁷ In those days thousands were convinced by the Spirit and ‘glorious transformations’ took place. Conversions crossed all boundary lines of society and from Belfast, the revival spread in all directions.¹¹⁸ The footprints of the Saviour were visible everywhere. Ireland at that time was ‘full of life, and love, and praise’.¹¹⁹ Among the thousands that June day who listened to the Gospel preaching in the Botanic Gardens, was a young woman from Portaferry, Catherine Jane Fison. She saw what happened around her, that breaking forth of the power of the Lord, and 45 years later, she would recall to her daughter in Dohnavur how in that memorable ‘year of years’ she herself was saved.¹²⁰ Houghton writes that in Catherine’s Bible there is an annotation in John 10:27–28:

The words ‘My sheep’, and ‘they’, and ‘them’, repeated several times, are marked in red, and linked by red lines to her own name, ‘Catherine Jane Carmichael’, in the margin, for she applied each of these precious statements to herself.¹²¹ Some years later Catherine Fison would marry David Carmichael and settle in Millisle where Amy was their firstborn.

The spiritual awakening also affected the little town on the shore of the Irish sea, and in the years after the revival many in Millisle still had in their memories the Word of God.¹²² Millisle is within a short distance (about 20 miles) of Belfast, in a rural district called Ballycopeland. The whole area had been visited by God to shed abroad his saving power and grace; people were led to speak about ‘the things which belong to their peace’. The great concerns of eternity were realised as they had never been before, and the one great and absorbing topic, ‘Christ and the Cross’, seemed to occupy the attention and steal the affections of many. About the beginning of the awakening, a pastor commented what happened in the little town on the seacoast:

When the revival visited Millisle the whole village was moved. Few retired to rest, crowds collected around the doors of the awakened ones to hear them cry for mercy – such a night was never witnessed there.¹²³ Millisle and the district were on ‘fire’:

I may say that open-air services were held here throughout the entire summer, on the Sabbath evenings, with an attendance varying from three hundred to twelve hundreds of all classes in the district.¹²⁴

116. In G. Howard Taylor, Guinness of Honan (Philadelphia, PA: CIM, 1930), 1–5.

117. See W.L. Duewel, Revival Fire (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 145.

118. See the impact of the 1859 revival in Belfast in ‘The Belfast Connection’ and ‘The Irish Year of Grace’ (Duewel, Revival Fire, 145–160). When a great revival meeting was held in Armagh, special trains ran from Belfast and other cities to bring people to the revival gathering. During the journey, the passengers sang hymns all along the way to Armagh (p. 156). 119. Weir, The Ulster Awakening, 196.

120. See This One Thing, 170: ‘It was an inspiring story, for the mother had herself been saved from the decorous life of conventional Christianity in that year of years.’

121. In Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur, 5.

122. Cf. W. Gibson, The Year of Grace, A History of the 1859 Ulster Revival, 1860, (Belfast: Ambassador Press, 1989), 3rd edition, 129–130.

123. In Gibson, The Year of Grace, 129.

124. In Gibson, The Year of Grace, 129.

The members of the local Presbyterian church, to which the Carmichael family belonged, were deeply affected. Caught by the heavenly fire, cold formality, an apathetic and unimpressible decorum were exchanged for a living of vigorous piety. This corresponds with Weir’s observation, who saw churches ‘filled with living worshippers, formality gone, love, and light, and song abounding’ where many could say ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation’.¹²⁵

This we will also see in Amy’s life: that the forces that the Church possesses always include, over and above mere machinery, the presence of the life-giving Spirit. The Presbyterian church, as well as the other Protestant denominations were deeply influenced by the 1857 revival.¹²⁶ Bebbington identified four characteristics as ‘the defining attributes of evangelical religion’:

There are the four qualities that have been the special marks of Evangelical Religion: conversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the Gospel in effort; biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible; and what may be called crucicentrism, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Together they form a quadrilateral of priorities that is the basis of Evangelicalism.¹²⁷ The 1859 revival moved the strong Irish Presbyterians, a people peculiarly unimpressible, in the emotional sense of term. They held on to the old Reformation truth, with a comprehensive, intellectual grasp and true to their Scottish blood and origin. They did not want to shed tears, or to be demonstrative in any sense, in their devotions. What a change presented itself to the eyes of many, where after church services strong men were seen with tears in their eyes. Taylor in 1866 on a ten-day visit to Ireland as the guest of Grattan Guinness preached on Sunday 25 February in several Belfast Presbyterian churches. He then wrote to Maria: ‘I commenced the day fearing […] lest I might not get on well among strangers and rather stiff Presbyterians.’ It turned out to be a blessed Sunday. ‘Some hundreds know more of China’s need than they did before. […] So you see how wonderfully God has opened my way here.’¹²⁸ To this day, the Ulster churches are wellknown for their mission outlook¹²⁹ and many Irish sons and daughters serve the Lord in the mission field.

The village of Millisle is within the townland of Ballymacruise, Parish of Donaghadee, Barony of Ards, County Down:

When people mention the old days in Millisle they tend to think of a village, pretty at that time, with green hedges and whitewashed houses, a church and a school and the huge mills which had put Millisle on the map.¹³⁰ The first Carmichael who settled in Ireland was James Carmichael, from Ayrshire in Scotland. The Carmichael family was from Covenanting stock.¹³¹

125. In Weir, The Ulster Awakening, 177.

126. The Presbyterian church at that time did not send missionaries to foreign countries. In the margin of T. Austin-Sparks, The Stewardship of the Mystery, II (London: ‘Witness and Testimony’ Publishers, no year), 175, when Amy was in Dohnavur, she wrote: ‘The Irish Presbyterian Church sends not its missionaries physically. They [are] lending to the whole church. Surely this is Scriptural.’

127. In Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 2–4.

128. In A.J. Broomhall, Survivors’ Pact, Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book 4 (Sevenoaks: Hoder & Stoughton and the OMF, 1984), 120.

129. See also Eugene Stock, secretary of the CMS who between 1874 and 1907 visited Ireland six times where he was a fervent advocate of missions encouraged the parishes and talked with candidates for missionary work (E. Stock, My Recollections (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1909), 333–336).

130. G. Seymour, Echoes of Millisle and District (Rathfriland: Outlook Press, n.d.), 5. Amy is known as the founder of the Dohnavur Fellowship in India where children in danger found a safe haven. Parallel to this, from May 1938 to 1948 Millisle acted as a safe haven for hundreds of Jewish evacuee children, some a few months old, who escaped the World War II terror in a unique rescue operation.

131. Part of the Carmichael genealogical tree, in Seymour, Echoes of Millisle and District, 17.

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The Carmichaels worshipped at Ballycopeland and three of its ministers married a Carmichael. The village was dominated by the Carmichael flourmills, leased by Amy’s great-grandfather 100 years before she was born. The mills were developed and enlarged by Amy’s father David and uncle William. These two brothers had inherited the milling business in 1854 from their father. The mills flourished and both families were enjoying comfortable secure lives. Next to the mills, the two brothers had acquired a large acreage of land, so farming also added to their income. The mills at that time were powered by water from a little stream. It had been dammed up to form a lake. In the middle was a little islet with one tree growing in the centre. According to local tradition, that is how Mill-Isle got its name. As Seymour noticed, David and William Carmichael were, to say in contemporary terms, ‘outgoing’ and always ready to take advantage of the new idea. They rebuilt the mills to have them work on steam power. In addition, a new flax mill was built and in 1860 they started with a new corn mill. It is recorded, that ‘the little village Millisle contained, a few years ago, more perfect and advanced specimens of flour rollers than were to be found elsewhere in the country’.¹³² Amy was born into the rather wealthy family of David and Catherine Carmichael. She was the eldest of seven children and grew up with her brothers and sisters in privileged circumstances, experiencing the private tutelage of a governess at home. Amy’s parents lived in a large grey stone house – Mervue House – on the corner of Main Street and Abbey Road (Figure 3). The house, standing in the free, bracing air between sea and sky, looked as though it was meant to be a starting point for great ventures. In Amy’s own words:

In my day Millisle was a little old-world village of whitewashed cottages on the shore of the Irish Sea. From our nursery window we could see the great rock called Ailsa Craig rising like a cloud out of the sea. Blueness of the sea that looked happy, greyness of the sea that looked anxious, greenness of the sea that looked angry – these are my first memories of colour.¹³³ She liked to walk along the coast or ride with her pony full speed along the seashore. The lovely Irish countryside made a deep impression on her young soul. Writing in 1928, in The Widow of the Jewels she referred to the Isle of Innisfree, a beautiful island just off the south coast, situated on one of Ireland’s most beautiful lakes, Lough Gill, near Sligo in the north-west of Ireland.¹³⁴

Even a child is known by his doings¹³⁵

In order to understand Amy and her later work in India we have to see her religious and cultural background. The grace of God and salvation do not ‘run in the blood’, yet the Carmichaels’ religious background gave Amy the blessings of a heritage of those who fear the Lord. The life of the Carmichael family was closely attached to the affairs of the church. We cannot separate Amy’s personal spiritual life from historical facts. The spiritual life in her parent’s home, but more important her spiritual life based on the historical fact, that is, on the life and statements of Jesus Christ. His work on the Cross and the illumination of the Holy Spirit were the great continuous consistencies through the spiritual development of young Amy:

The love which formed the climate of the Carmichael home was a sinewy one, without the least trace of sentimentality, holding not only the conviction of her father’s side of the family and the courage of her mother’s,

132. In ‘Historical Notes on Old Millisle and Neighbourhood’, in Keswick Convention Mission Minute Book (PRONI D/4031/33/1), 169. Here we also find the notation that the Carmichael family had many new initiatives in cattle breeding and were the first to introduce new agricultural machinery into this part of the country.

133. Amma’s Book, 1.
134. See The Widow of the Jewels, 11.
135. Cf. Proverbs 20:12.

Source: © The Dohnavur Fellowship. Permission to reproduce was obtained from Nesaruthina Carunia. Photographer unknown. FIGURE 3: Parental home of Amy Carmichael in Millisle.

but the toughness of the Irish Presbyterians, the ruggedness bred by winters on that cold sea, and no-nonsense principles of child rearing.¹³⁶ Amy’s father and mother attended the Ballycopeland Presbyterian Church. Her parents are mentioned in the list of the Ballycopeland Presbyterian Congregation in 1843 as David and Catherine Jane Carmichael. The Congregation of Ballycopeland was constituted in the year 1773.¹³⁷ In 1788, this Congregation was transferred from the care and jurisdiction of the Associate Synod of Scotland to the care of the Associate Synod in Ireland, and in 1818 it was placed under the care of the Presbyterian Synod of Ireland, distinguished by the name ‘Seceders’. Seventy-five families were registered in 1843, of which three belonged to the Carmichael family. Ulster Presbyterians in the 19th century were proud of having such stern ancestors:

136. E. Elliot, A Chance to Die. The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael (Carlisle: OM Publishing, 1996), 3.

137. The details here on the church and pastor of Ballycopeland and Millisle can be found in T. Kilpatric, Millisle and Ballycopeland Presbyterian Church (Millisle: Henry Bros, 1934).

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The Ulster Presbyterian is born with the confidence that to be a Presbyterian is what the Almighty intended a man to be, and if he ever forsakes the Church of his father’s for pulpit or pew of another, there is one thing sure, that it is not from conviction! It is this world – not the other – he is out to gain!¹³⁸ The name of Amy Beatrice Carmichael¹³⁹ appears in the baptismal register of the Presbyterian Church at Ballycopeland¹⁴⁰ of 19 January 1868. Amy’s father in 1850 granted a portion of ground ‘on generous terms’ to build a manse for the congregation and the three Carmichael families donated nearly half the costs for building the manse. The Carmichael families were ‘the pillars’ of the Church. Amy’s father also donated money for the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church.¹⁴¹

The potato famine of 1846 and 1847 in Ireland was to make itself felt throughout the country. Many young men and young families went to America; the whole of Ireland suffered greatly with the hunger and the working and brain drain. Because County Down is on the seaboard and so in contact with England and Scotland, the famine did not cause the same distress as in most other parts of Ireland where many had difficulty surviving.¹⁴² The population of Ballycopeland and Millisle district was much reduced during the 10 years that followed; even Robert Carmichael, brother to David and William, left the country and went to America in 1850 to provide business training for a linen firm. Many church members, too, were affected, and could not sustain their pastor and finish the small manse they wanted to build for him. In those days, the Carmichael family generously supported the completion of the manse, the school and in helping the poor. When Amy lay in her cradle, a new school opened in Millisle. On Sundays, a Sunday school was conducted in the schoolhouse, run by the Carmichael family. In 1866 Amy’s father David and his brother William provided over 500 pounds for the building of a schoolhouse, the first in Millisle’s neighbourhood. As well as day school, there were evening classes, intended partly for the employees in the mill, and services on a Sunday night. When the pastor loci, the Rev. Beatty, was unwell, Amy’s uncle would read sermons of a man called Spurgeon, a famous Baptist preacher.

Rev. John Beatty (1832–1906) was ordained minister of Ballycopeland in 1860. He had seen what had happened during the 1859 revival and his sermons had the same spirit. It is recorded, that ‘no pastor and people ever lived in more complete harmony, mutual confidence, and affection the one for the other’.¹⁴³ Seven years after his ordination, Rev. Beatty commenced evening services in the village of Millisle in the newly erected school. Amy’s mother presided at the musical instrument, a harmonium, which was used at the services. She also trained the members of the choir. When Rev. Beatty was no

138. In Foster, The Bush That Burned (Belfast: Books Ulster, 2005), 178.

139. Amy rarely used her second given name, Beatrice. When in India she once referred to it, because someone after baptism wanted to have her name, but Amy persuaded her out of that. When she was in Manchester, 1887, she read Dante’s The Divine Comedy in the Manchester Free Library, and about the visions Dante had seen. She discovered that the noble Beatrice was the love of Dante’s life and also that she was his guide through Paradise. She felt it was too high for her, and so had tucked the name out of sight. From that time onwards, she was very reluctant to use her second name. For the new convert, also, that name was not an option, see In the Forest, 67–68.

140. See ‘Register of Baptisms and Marriages in Ballycopeland Presbyterian Church’ (PRONI D/4061/33/1B). 141. See about the Carmichael family in Millisle in ‘Historical Notes on Old Millisle and Neighbourbood’ (PRONI D/4031/33/1). In Belfast David Carmichael was also involved in politics. He had an active part in working out the reorganisation and invigoration of the liberal party in this town. He also had a part in forming the Ulster Reform Club. 142. The potato blight, Ptytopthora Infestans, struck Ireland in late August 1845. For the people, whose staple diet was the potato, this was a disaster. They saw their harvested potatoes rot in their cellars. In 1846, the blight was total. Many could not survive in the following cold hard winter. The potato blight went on until 1849. It is estimated that during the years 1845–1850, around 800 000 people died of starvation or of a famine-related disease. A further two million people emigrated. The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) in Belfast holds excellent material about this subject. The information in this note is from ‘Education Leaflet 3: The Great Irish Famine’.

143. In Eddies Book Extracts, Millisle and Ballycopeland Presbyterian Church, 6. longer able, owing to illness and infirmity, to be present at these evening services, Mr David Carmichael conducted them. The services were held in the church, in the school and in Killaughey National School. Rev. Beatty led the congregation in ‘earnestness and by a fine spirit of enthusiasm’.¹⁴⁴ From far and near the young people came to hear him, and young and old alike were blessed and brought in many cases to choose Christ and the Christian life. In 1870 Mr William Carmichael was chosen to the office of eldership and became the secretary of the Presbytery of Ballycopeland Church. When Amy’s father died in 1885 the Presbytery recorded to his family in Belfast his ‘deep and lively interest and of his great personal worth and of the services he rendered to the Presbyterian church in Ireland’.

As a licentiate, Rev. Beatty had worked in the town mission in Belfast. The Brown Square district, his mission area, was a rather difficult one, but he enjoyed it ‘because of the manifold opportunities of doing good it afforded’¹⁴⁵ and because he had people to deal with who greatly needed the Gospel he loved to proclaim. He conducted many prayer meetings and evangelistic services within and outside the congregation. In the sermons, the personal relation with Christ was always an aspect that in one or another way was mentioned, but also the knowledge of the saving blood of Christ and the practical servitude in daily Christian life. Here, in her youth, her mystic side, the knowledge, the communion with Christ had a great impact on Amy’s spiritual development. As we will see the mystics of the Middle Ages and of the 16th and 17th centuries were widely read by her when she was in India. Amy’s parents loved their pastor and his experiences there, his love for children and those lost, undoubtedly made a deep impression on young Amy’s affectionate character and this must have stimulated her to do this kind of work after the family moved to Belfast some years later. Amy heard several of Spurgeon’s sermons read by her father in church at the time that Rev. Beatty, due to increasing paralysis, was not able to conduct the services. In Belfast, Amy would enter in the city mission work, where she threw her heart and soul into the work and rejoiced in the work she undertook in the Shankill area of Belfast. There, deeply devoted to her high calling she must often have thought of Rev. Beatty’s example when she trod the Belfast roads. On Sunday 28 January 1906, ‘God’s finger touched him, and he slept’. Of interest for us is that Amy in her youth must have heard many stories from the mission field as both the brother of Rev. Beatty and his son had been missionaries in India.

Covenanter ancestry: The forming of a character

Carmichael lands are located in the lowlands of Scotland, in the Clyde Valley of Lanarkshire, midway between Glasgow and Edinburgh. These lands were granted to Sir James Douglas of Clan Douglas in 1321 and ruled by his nephew Sir John Carmichael between 1374 and 1384. Carmichael Clan members in Northern Ireland originally came from Scotland, as had most of the Northern Ireland Protestants. They migrated to the Americas from 1650 onwards and to Ireland since 1690. Covenanter blood was still in their veins. Bearing in their intellectual features the stamp of their Scottish ancestry, they were a pious, shrewd and eminently practical people, having ever a keen appreciation of the strong points of the argument for Protestantism. Like most Presbyterian believers with this Scottish ancestry, they were not prone to reveal by speech their deepest religious experiences.

Since the Middle Ages, the Carmichaels had been fine warriors. The traditional hero of the family is Sir John de Carmichael of Meadow Flat, who became the first chief of the clan. Sir John de Carmichael distinguished himself in the Battle of Bauge, which was part of the Hundred Years War, on 22 March 1421. There – as tradition has it – he unhorsed the Duke of Clarence, brother of King Henry V of England. In doing so, he broke his spear and according to the tradition, the Carmichaels gained their crest of a broken spear. The English troops fled in disarray, turning the tide of the war. The Carmichaels produced a succession of notable descendants known for their courage and who distinguished themselves among many others of their time,

144. In Eddies Book Extracts, Millisle and Ballycopeland Presbyterian Church, 6.

145. In Eddies Book Extracts, Millisle and Ballycopeland Presbyterian Church, 9.

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Source: © By Celtus (Celtus @ english wikipedia) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. FIGURE 4: Carmichael Clan Crest, a dexter hand and arm in pale armed and holding a broken spear.

assisting in social, educational and charitable organisations.¹⁴⁶ Since the Bauge victory, the motto on the Clan Carmichael Crest (Figure 4) was ‘Toujour Prest’, ancient French for Always Ready. That family characteristic of courage, always being prepared to take up new challenges, Amy has upheld in her spiritual battles.

Amy’s mother, Catherine Jane, née Fison, the daughter of a respected doctor of Portaferry, on Strangford Lough, was a God-given role model for her. Her mother traced her ancestry back to one

146. Millard Fillmore, the 13th American president, was married to Caroline Carmichael McIntosh in 1858. whose name in Gaelic meant I dare. Amy tells an interesting story of General Dalziel, friend of the Claverhouse who persecuted the Covenanters:

My father’s people were Covenanters in the Lowlands of Scotland and they fled to the North of Ireland because of these persecutions. When my mother married my father it was as if persecutor and persecuted were united. So you see, after all, cruelty and wrong are not the greatest forces in the world. There is nothing eternal in them. Only Love is eternal.¹⁴⁷ Amy liked to stay with her grandmother and enjoy the environment. One day she went in a boat with two of her brothers and the strong current swept them to dangerous waters. They started to sing very loudly and the coastguard heard them and they were saved. In telling later on this story to the Dohnavur children, she said: ‘Perhaps our kind Father was thinking of you. For He knows from the beginning all that He intends to do.’¹⁴⁸

The way Catherine educated Amy and her other children in joy, in singing and with consistent discipline was one of love. Here Amy would learn the unforgettable lessons of prayer at ‘that best academy’,¹⁴⁹ her mother’s knees, while Bible stories would become indelibly impressed upon her memory. At the sound of the bell, all the children were called to attend the daily family prayers. Life’s difficulties were handled with grace and her example as a caring and praying mother, coupled with Amy’s adventurous spirit, served her so well on the mission field in Japan and India, where she faced grave difficulties. The vivid examples taken from Bible stories and her parents’ example of their God-fearing life alike became a tapestry for the Carmichael children’s souls. Amy’s father was a ‘devoted and affectionate husband and father’.¹⁵⁰

Amy used to say that she got ‘endless fun out of life’. Little did the Carmichael parents realise that their daughter would grow up to become one of world’s most famous missionaries. There was nothing particularly unusual about the girl, who the people in Millisle knew for her wilfulness, tomboyish attitude and a propensity to get into mischievous pranks. She was a feisty child whose longing for excitement often got her into trouble. When told how naughty she was, Amy thought, ‘If only you knew how much naughtier I could be, you wouldn’t think I’m naughty at all.’¹⁵¹ A big temptation for her was to become angry suddenly. Some years before her death she wrote in a letter to the Dohnavur children that that was her temptation:

That was mine when I was a little girl. I used to feel something like a fire suddenly burning up in my heart. If you feel like that, ask the Lord Jesus to pour His cool, kind, gentle love into your heart instead.¹⁵² At home, certain rules were strict and if necessary the children knew they could expect sanctions. Where else did Amy learn diligence, integrity and persistence under difficulties? These and other sterling qualities were not developed by lax discipline. This upbringing gave the young girl the strong emotional base and love that permeated her life’s mission with the DF. Holding the conviction of her father’s side and the courage of her mother’s side, as became more explicit in her later life, she developed a rare spirituality, a sensitivity to the voice of God. Amy is one of this illustrious heritage. Always ready to act and being born under a flash of actions, she was ready when the call came to her to serve the Lord in faraway Japan, Ceylon and India.

147. Amma’s Book, 5.

148. Amma’s Book, 12.

149. M. Broomhall, Robert Morrison, A Master-Builder (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1924), 9. 150. In ‘Historical Notes on Old Millisle and Neighbourhood’ (PRONI D/4031/33/1).

151. Elliot, A Chance to Die, 23.

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