India at last: God’s chosen heritage
Chapter 7
India at last: God’s chosen heritage
The growth of a missionary
‘“He goeth before”, 03 March 1896. Sailed for India “There you will see Him”.’536 Amy knew that her future was in God’s hand, but what direction would her life take? Could she ever settle somewhere? Where would be her fatherland? She saw the years behind her passing like a film, when she wrote: ‘God stirs up our nests, to keep us from nestling in them. Millisle, Belmont, Millisle, Harrogate, Belfast, Manchester, Broughton, Japan, S. India.’537 Back in England, her brief and turbulent missionary career seemed to be over – and she was still not yet 30 years old! God’s plans, however, cross human thoughts and plans; in fact, her missionary career had barely begun!
Mr Wilson enjoyed having her back in Broughton Grange, but by then she had already set her mind on going out for a second time. ‘She hopes, if the Lord will, to go abroad again in the autumn.’538 From what we have seen of the short time she was in Colombo, we saw an Amy prepared by the Lord for her future work. Not knowing at that time it would be in India, she learned about the Singhalese and Tamil way of life; the urgency for mission strengthened and not being a mother herself, she learned to deal with babies and motherly care. We meet the same Amy ready to fight the good fight, looking forward towards the coming of the Lord and to be gathered with all who love him. She writes home after a church service:
536. These words Amy wrote in the margin of John 10:4. In Amy’s Bible (1895).
537. In Amy’s Bible (1895), in the margin of Hebrews 10:34.
538. KCMMB, Mission Committee meeting annual report, 24 July 1895. In the mission report of 05 August 1896, we read: ‘Miss Wilson-Carmichael, being unable to resume work in Japan, has been sent to Bangalore. Accounts of her arrival, and impressions of work there have from time to time appeared in the Life of Faith. Constant prayer is asked that the many opportunities allowed her many result in blessing, not only to the heathen, but to native Christians also, and that health may be preserved in this new climate.’
How to cite: Kommers, J. (Hans), 2017, ‘India at last: God’s chosen heritage’, in Triumphant Love: The contextual, creative and strategic missionary work of Amy Beatrice Carmichael in south India, pp. 145–151, AOSIS, Cape Town. https://doi.org/10.4102/aosis.2017.tl41.07
India at last
Caught up together with them [the ‘them’ of the church universal], in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord – wherefore comfort one another with these words. […] And may each one find us fighting shoulder to shoulder against a common day for our coming Lord and Captain – or better still, may the next one, if not this one – think of it – it might be this one – find us in His presence – seeing His grace, serving Him in the beauty of holiness forever and forever.539
‘Launch out into the deep’
The last decade of the 19th century, according to C.A. Fox, was marked out for ‘aggressive missionary enterprise’. There is a ‘rapid rising tidal wave of Pentecostal grace’. ‘Definite and personal acts of faith must accompany and corroborate the great facts of faith. […] Burning examples of this in the Mission field were never more conspicuous than today.’ Fox further gives six special reasons for this missionary wave:
• There has been vouchsafed to the Church in these last times an exceptionally clear and simple presentation of Gospel truth as to immediate and personal salvation.
• The widespread and deepening sense of the commanding claims of the Risen Christ his Church has forced us the necessity of a fuller apprehension and appropriation the blessed peace and power of his indwelling presence. ‘Go ye – I am with you’.
• The Church has of late become keenly alive to the fact that the best method of enforcing the claims of the Heathen is to bring home first to the conscience of her members the magnitude of their supernatural resources in Christ Jesus, and his consequent claims upon their gratitude. In short, that we must take before we give; and trust him with everything before we can trust him for everything. • The Church begins to realise the intimate and inseparable connection between her own individual consecration and the evangelisation of the world.
• There has taken place within the Church a marvellous awakening to the greatness of the Person and office of the Holy Ghost; and consequently to the absolute necessity of her being baptised with the fullness of the Spirit for successful life-service.
• The growing signs everywhere of the speedy Return of the Master have so stirred the affections of the Bride with holy expectation, that she is increasingly eager to make herself ready. The cry goes out: ‘This is the Heir, come let us crown Him, and the inheritance shall be His!’ Let each one of us, therefore, prepare in haste to crown Him with a priceless diadem of precious souls, which we have personally wrested for and won, yea Spirit-won, under the solemn light of Calvary’s Cross. ‘Behold I come quickly! – Go ye out therefore quickly!’540
‘Ye also helping’
These words Amy wrote on 13 July 1895, in a copy of From Sunrise Land,541 which she presented to Mrs Hopkins. Two weeks later she would stand on the podium in the big tent at Keswick during a mission meeting of the convention. She had got a letter from a friend in Bangalore (India), who wrote that the climate there was healthy and delightful. Bound for India she was aware of the tremendous task and that
539. E.J. Sharpe in ‘The Legacy of Amy Carmichael’, in IBMR, July 01, 1996.
540. In ‘Introductory Note’, From Sunrise Land, XII.
541. In the library of Stanford University, California, USA.
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prayer help from the others who would stay behind was essential. In her own words, ‘England in 1894 was very good to me’.542 The DOM recovered and after a while she was prepared to go out again:
Of the blistering days before I sailed and of the Goodbye I will say nothing. We shall all be together soon in the Father’s Country. Such days will seem worth while There.543 In 1895, the notable year when winter was so severe that even the Thames froze, far north in Cumbria in the summer, Amy was for the second time accepted as a Keswick missionary, on 26 July. The 1895 Keswick Convention was a remarkable one, often mentioned in the annals. This was due to the presence of Andrew Murray from Wellington, South Africa. His final address caused his audience to feel ‘beneath the opened heavens’.544 Now, more than 120 years later, this address in print brings us close to Keswick’s ‘morning glory’.545 Of that convention a lady wrote:
I cannot describe to you the deep heart-searching teaching of Mr Murray’s evening addresses nor the power and authority with which they were delivered. Every word seemed to come straight from God with living power, and went right to the hearts of the people.546 Murray’s words also captured Amy’s attention and she heard him saying:
But understand that your God longs to rule the world, and your Christ is upon the throne, leading you on as His soldiers, and wanting to bless you with victory upon victory. […] If you want to take a word as your motto and watchword, let it be, ‘Sacrifice everything and anything for the glory of your God. […] Anything that I can do for that glory, Lord, here I am’. Give yourself up to God.547 At that moment, it became her vision and dream to go out again into the mission field, completely woven into the texture of her life. She spoke the following day, 27 July, at the missionary meeting held in the big tent. Two days later the two sisters Amy and Eva Carmichael were both accepted by the KMC. Amy who had responded immediately when a fresh missionary opportunity presented itself, to go out for the second time, now was commissioned by the Anglican Church of England Zenana Missionary Society (CEZMS) to Bangalore (India) where she would stay for the rest of her life. Her sister Eva would go to South Africa to work for the South Africa General Mission in the Cape. The two years, 1893– 1895, spent in England serving the Lord were fertile training for the next and final mission call of Amy’s life. The work in Belfast, Manchester, Japan, Ceylon and at Broughton Grange was consciously no more than a prelude to the service God would give her in India.
In the last few decades of the 19th century, female missionary work expanded, especially by the work of the CEZMS, work done by women for women who otherwise could not be reached by their male counterparts:
In the work of the Zenana Mission they [the women] would find a noble vocation, a sphere that would give abundant scope for all their powers […] the best that the Christian church has is needed for our work.548
542. Amma’s Book, 41.
543. Amma’s Book, 41.
544. Murray, ‘That God May Be All In All’, 404. See also Murray, Andrew Murray at Keswick. Three Unrevised Talks Given in 1895 (Wamboin, Australia: Clairview House, 2014).
545. See Murray, Andrew Murray at Keswick.
546. In W.M. Douglas, Andrew Murray and His Message (Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1981),163. 547. Murray, ‘That God May Be All In All’, 433 and 434.
548. Quoted in Seton, Western Daughters in Eastern Lands, 32.
India at last
A zenana was a separate apartment where upper-class Hindu and Muslim women were confined within each household. Missionaries could speak to lower-class women who were often more outside the house, but such women were powerless within the family structure. Upper-class women had the power to veto or approve conversion of the whole family to Christianity.549 This Zenana work had an important impact on the effectiveness of mission work and was feared by Hindus as the following statement reveals:
We do not greatly fear your schools; we need not send our children. We do not fear your books, for we need not read them. We do not much fear your preaching; we need not listen. But we dread your women and dread your doctors, for your doctors are winning our hearts and your women are winning our homes, and when our hearts and homes are won, what is there left of us?550 Amy was commissioned by the CEZMS551 to India, where she would stay for the rest of her life. Remarkable years, not only for the work she did, but years spent without a furlough. For Amy, a non-Anglican, to go out via the CEZMS was possible, because earlier Mr Wilson had communicated with the CEZMS and the CMS about their accepting Keswick missionaries. This proposal was accepted and the outcome was that Keswick missionaries were accepted as associates and that CMS and CEZMS gladly welcomed the Keswick missionaries as full members, subject to the rules of their societies.552
For Amy with the chaotic and turbulent years behind her, new far-reaching challenges were waiting for her. Now she would go with a lot of missionary experience and gradually she would develop into a deeply respected missionary, who by her life and love had earned the right to be heard. Her physical weakness was made perfect in divine strength, and she fulfilled her task continually looking to Christ with gratitude and love.
The Keswick Convention Year Book of 1895 gives it vivid account of what happened at the yearly Keswick Convention week. Three new recruits would be sent: two to India – Ethel Jacob for Amritsar (India) and Amy Wilson-Carmichael for Bangalore (India) – and one to South Africa, Miss Eva Carmichael. After Ethel and Eva had said a word of farewell to the people, it was finally Amy’s turn to say a word. She held up a red scroll, on which was written: ‘Nothing Too Precious for Jesus’. She urged:
Let these words come home to the mothers and the fathers. Are they cherishing something – a son or a daughter, too precious for Jesus? He counted nothing too precious for us. If He calls any to leave all and follow Him, may
549. See also C.F. Hayward, Women Missionaries (London: Collins, n.d.), 226–230.
550. Quoted in West, ‘The Role of the Woman Missionary’, 7. Original in R. Lovett, A History of The London Missionary Society (vol. 2, London: LMS, 1899), 235–236.
551. The CEZMS seceded in 1880 from the Interdenominational Female Normal School and Instruction Society (IFNS). The IFNS, since 1861, undertook mission work to women in India. Education in the homes and particularly in the secluded area of the house set aside for women, the zenana, became in the second part of the 19th century an important feature of women’s missionary work. Within the IFNS Anglican influence grew stronger and most supporters were from the CMS. The interdenominational character was strongly protected by Lady Mary Kinnaerd who campaigned against growing Anglican dominance on the society’s local committees in India. In 1880, an Anglican faction of nine committee members, three officeholders, many supporters, and many of its Indian workers seceded to become the CEZMS. By 1899 it had 234 missionaries, working in India, China, Japan and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). See ‘The Birth of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society’, in Seton, Western Daughters in Eastern Lands, 93–95. The Missionary Review of the World, 1895, declares that the first real zenana teaching ever attempted was given to the 30 wives and royal sisters of the King of Siam (H. Barrett Montgomery, Western Women in Eastern Lands. Fifty Years of Woman’s Work in Foreign Missions (New York, NY: The Macmillan Co., 1910), 109.
552. In KCMMB, mission report, 26 July 1892.
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it be in the power of His resurrection and in the fellowship of His sufferings. Whatever He calls us to do, let us do it in His might and for His Glory.553 On the same platform with Amy were the CIM missionaries Cassals and Beauchamp together with Dr H. Lankester, medical secretary of the CMS.554 The latter must have had no objection to Amy going to the mission field again, despite her weak health. The CMS must have seen in Amy her strong persistent character, also seen in her an attitude against sickness, described by herself as ‘to be strengthened to ignore or tread under foot bodily ills’.555 The Keswick missionaries were given from the convention the words from Revelation 22:1: ‘Then He showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God, and of the Lamb’ (RSV).556 In Keswick from Within the Rev. J.B. Figgis refers to this gathering:
Who can forget Miss Amy Wilson-Carmichael’s farewell address, ere she left for her life of sacrifice in India, as she unrolled a ‘ribband of blue’ with the golden words, Nothing Too Precious for Jesus.
She took leave of the Keswick Convention on 27 July 1895, and of Mr Wilson on 11 October. In her Bible she wrote: ‘Oct.11. He saw a hand they could not see, which beckoned him away. He heard a voice they could not hear, which would not let him stay.’ And some months later:
Lord give me this new year a burning heart.
For souls immortal; make me plead with such with earnestness intense, love strong as death, and faith God given. With the worlds’ cry ‘mad’?
Such madness be my joy!
We also read there these words: ‘And His servant shall serve Him. And they shall see His face. And His Name shall be in their foreheads.’557 She left for India, never to set foot again on British soil. From her arrival in India until the day she died, 56 years later, she remained in India, eventually also obtaining Indian citizenship.
Eva’s departure was postponed on health grounds and the waiting months were spent in Dublin where she evangelised among Roman Catholics, ‘access having been granted to many hitherto closed doors’. She sailed in April 1897 for Durban, ‘full of joy that she has not only been “called” but “sent”’.558 In due time mother Catherine would see several of her children sailing away from England’s shore and living far away. Through her children, her mission field expanded from Belfast to the world. She saw doors closed while others swung open. And Catherine just thanked God! Wholeheartedly she gave her assent allowing her children to follow their calling.
‘My life shall be Thine: I consecrate all to Thee’
My goal is God Himself, not joy, not peace.
Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God;
T’ is His to lead me there, not mine, but His- At any cost, dear Lord, by any road!
553. TKW (1895): 46 and 110. This motto ‘Nothing Too Precious for Jesus’ she had also fixed on the wall in her room in the Bangalore hospital. See Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur, 90.
554. See Broomhall, It is not Death to Die!, 250.
555. See Rose from Brier, 19.
556. See Amy’s Bible (1895), in the margin of Revelation 22:1.
557. In Amy’s Bible,1895.
558. KCMMB, mission report, 05 August 1896.
India at last
One thing I know, I cannot say Him nay;
One thing I do, I press towards my Lord;
My God my glory here, from day to day,
And in the glory there my Great Reward.559
‘It is very wonderful and very solemn to know that the next turn will be the last.’ These words she wrote in her autobiography, some years before her death.560 Many sentiments mingled with heavenly thoughts. Emotions which melted as she faced the reality of the departure. But for God’s sake, for his glory, she shut the door of that stately home in the Lake District and left Broughton Grange – that lovely old house561 – closing the front door, never to enter it again. All for him, who had called her. She then must have known the song which closes with the words written above this section:562 ‘For Thee I consecrate all’. So she went, still not able to tell where the Pillar of Fire might lead her.
Many have come to say farewell; the bell rings … and again … and again. Slowly the ship moves from the shore and the gap between the people and those on board is becomes wider and wider. ‘God bless you all’ – the words ring out and are echoed fervently by hearts and voices on board. Then from the crowd on shore the sweet refrain goes up: ‘Crown Him, Crown Him, Crown Him Lord of All’. More and more, slowly, the coastline, the city, the people, the mountains became more vague. Amy lifted up her eyes, not to the mountains, but to the God who had made the mountains. ‘I have set the Lord always before me.’ This forward look is the look that sees everything in God’s perspective whereby his wonderful distance is put on the things that are near.
Bound for India! Is not the Lord choosing the inheritance for her? When God’s time was there, she found her lifelong vocation in India and knew the answer why she had to go to that country. She was ready for a larger challenge to her faith that would confront her in India, only looking to God and banking on the reality of Jesus Christ. Leaving family, home, where her feet left, but her heart stayed, Broughton Grange, Keswick friends, to serve the Lord wholeheartedly. She went, often she stood in the midst of the most appalling personal controversy: the controversy between natural love and faith, physically fragile, and on the other hand her trust in God, who never makes mistakes. She might not understand everything, but her God did. So she understood his will, although it was sometimes difficult to understand his paths. She took a step in faith in God and fulfilled his behests. Saying goodbye to all, but she bore it without making any trouble:
Have you ever found yourself making a great deal of a small trouble? I have. Especially goodbyes. But what of the goodbye of this story? [Amy refers to Lk 9:30–31, 33 (RV)]. Elijah and Moses had been talking with our Lord Jesus of the agonizing death which He had soon to ‘accomplish’. They must have felt it far more acutely than we can imagine. What must that minute of parting have been to them and to Him? […] But we read of no fuss. They went away so quietly that as they were parting Peter could speak to our Lord, just as if He and they were not even then going through this tremendous goodbye. It makes us feel ashamed of ever making much of any trouble. The heavenly people don’t Our Lord never did.563
559. Frances Brook (1870), daughter of the Rev. James Brook of Helme Edge, Meltham, Huddersfield, was born in Bath in 1870. Her interest in missions was deep, and delicate health alone prevented her from giving her services in the foreign field where two of her sisters were labouring. Her first hymn leaflet was ‘There is Singing in the Homeland’. One of her famous hymns is ‘My Goal is God Himself, Not Joy, Not Peace’.
560. Amma’s Book, 41.
561. Windows, 227.
562. From Sunrise Land, 172.
563. In Whispers of His Power, 27 April, 93.
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More than 30 years later, when Godfrey Webb-Peploe went for leave to England and many waited to see him off, she still felt the pain of departing from loved ones:
I can hear their voices as I write, but I am not going to say goodbye to Godfrey. Goodbyes are devastating. […] The very keenness of the pang of a parting for a few months makes one realize all the more what has been given to this dear family.564 She went through the discipline of transferring her thoughts to God and left her life, body and soul in his care. She gave up everything for the sake of the only thing worth having, viz. life with him. This would be the golden thread throughout her eventful life. The day she died 56 years later, the bells in Dohnavur continuously played:
One thing have I desired, my God, of Thee,
That I will seek – Thine house be home to me.
Thou with Thy child, Thy child at home with Thee,
O Lord my God, I love, I worship Thee.565
564. See Though The Mountains Shake, 31.
565. In Dohnavur Songs, no. 171, 140.
It is easy to turn our religious life into a cathedral for beautiful memories, but there are feet to be washed, hard flints to be walked over, people to be fed. Very few of us go there, but that is the way the Son of God went. O. Chambers, ‘Run Today’s Race. A Word from Oswald
Chambers for Every Day of the Year, 06 January’
in The Complete Works.
A great ‘without’ has been written on heathenism. Men and women are toiling without a Bible, without a Sunday, without prayer, without songs of praise. They have rulers without justice and without righteousness; homes without peace, marriage without sanctity, young men and girls without ideals and enthusiasm; little children without purity, without innocence; mothers without wisdom or self-control; poverty without relief or sympathy; sickness without skilful help or tender care; sorrow and crime without a remedy; and worst of all, death without hope.
Mrs Whitfield Guinness, in Howard Taylor, Guinness of Honan, 188.
‘I will make the place of My feet glorious’. Psalm 65:12.
‘What is your special work’? It is the salvation and nurture of children who are in danger of being spoiled; and as outflow from the work, the care of the ill. How could we do either work if we were elsewhere. […] We stand for the
hallowing of the common things’. The Starry Cluster, 14–15.