Also by Elisabeth Elliot
Through Gates of Splendor
Shadow of the Almighty
Let Me Be a Woman
Discipline: The Glad Surrender
God’s Guidance
On Asking God Why
The Shaping of a Christian Family
Keep a Quiet Heart
The Mark of a Man
Faith That Does Not Falter
Passion and Purity
Quest for Love
Be Still My Soul
The Journals of Jim Elliot
The Music of His Promises
No Graven Image
The Path of Loneliness
Secure in the Everlasting Arms
To all who loved Amma
© 1987 by Elisabeth Elliot
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Paperback edition published 2005
Ebook edition created 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-3445-9
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture marked NEB is taken from The New English Bible. Copyright © 1961,1970 by The Delegates of Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission.
Scripture marked PHILLIPS is taken from Th e New Testament in Modern English, revised edition J. B. Phillips, translator. © J. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
Scripture marked TLB is taken from The Living Bible, copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
Scripture verses identified AV are from the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible.
Copyright material from Gold Cord and Toward Jerusalem by Amy Carmichael used by permission of Christian Literature Crusade, Ft. Washington, PA.
Excerpts from Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, copyright © 1975 by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. Reprinted by permission of Simon 8c Schuster, Inc.
Contents
Cover
Half Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Preface
1. Tide Pools, Pink Powder, and Prayers
2. The Hope of Holiness
3. Mutton Chops Don’t Matter
4. The Tin Tabernacle
5. The Inescapable Calling
6. Small Shall Seem All Sacrifice
7. The Rending
8. The Romance of Missions
9. The Unrepealed Commission
10. The School of Prayer
11. Japanese Head
12. Not Much of a Halo in Ceylon
13. To the India of the Raj
14. Fashionable Christianity
15. Company, Church, Crown, and Hindu
16. Straight Against the Dead Wall
17. Blissful Work
18. The Cost of Obedience
19. The Uninteresting, Unromantic Truth
20. A Small and Desolate Mite
21. Children Tie the Mother’s Feet
22. The Vault Beneath the Meadow
23. The Impress of the Signet Ring
24. Strife of Tongues
25. Place of Dragons
26. Love Is Not a Sentiment
27. The Lesson of the Weaned Child
28. Across the Will of Nature
29. Grey Jungle, Crystal Pool
30. A Life Without Fences
31. Where Are the Men?
32. Damascus Blades
33. Rendezvous With Robin Hood
34. The Sword Smites Sharp
35. The DF Is Born
36. A Secret Discipline
37. Place of Healing and House of Prayer
38. The Road Less Traveled
39. No Milk Biscuits
40. Scrub-Land
41. The Toad Beneath the Harrow
42. The Servant as Writer
43. Saint, Fishwife, Vegetable Marrow
44. Broken by the Waves
45. I Hold Me Fast by Thee
46. The Voice From the Sanctum
47. The Razor Edge
48. Maintain a Constant Victory
49. The River Breaks Out
50. Fettered and Yet Free
51. One Thing Have I Desired
Epilogue
The Dohnavur Fellowship
About the author
Back Cover
Illustrations
The Carmichael house in Millisle
Amy, about five, with mother, Eva, Norman, and Ernest
Flyleaf of Amy’s Bible
Amy at Broughton Grange, about twenty-four
Portion of a letter from Japan written on rice paper
Misaki San and Amy
The Band and the bandy
Camp scene with the Walkers
Amy, age forty-two, with Lola and Leela
The Cottage Nursery
Scenery near the compound
Amy with Lullitha, one of her “Lotus Buds”
Ponnammal, with Preetha and Tara.
At Madras Beach
Amy, at fifty-seven, in 1925
The House of Prayer
The Room of Peace
Bird table marking Amy’s grave
Acknowledgments
Members of the large Dohnavur Family in India, England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have made it possible for me to write this book. They “don’t go in much for credit lines,” they told me, so I do not give their names. I have tried in personal letters to tell them how grateful I am. I say it again here—thank you, from my heart, for:
Your prayers, first of all. I have been upheld.
Your hospitality;
Your generous sharing of all extant data, including your own private correspondence from Amy Carmichael.
Your time—for patient answering of sometimes rude questions, both in interviews and by letter; for your willingness to read the manuscript, make corrections, offer suggestions. Some of your suggestions I have not followed. You bear no responsibility for the final result.
A special thank you to Dr. Eric Frykenberg of the University of Wisconsin for information on the early history of Christianity in South India for chapters 14 and 20.
Be earnest, earnest, earnest—
Mad if thou wilt;
Do what thou dost as if the
stake were Heaven,
And that thy last deed before
the Judgment Day.
Charles Kingsley
“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” How often I think of that ought. No sugary sentiment there. Just the stern, glorious trumpet call, OUGHT. But can words tell the joy buried deep within? Mine cannot. It laughs at words.
Amy Carmichael, letter written in the Old Forest House, 1922
Every day we experience something of the death of Jesus, so that we may also know the power of the life of Jesus in these bodies of ours.
2 Corinthians 4:10 (PHILLIPS)
Preface
To Amy Carmichael I owe what C. S. Lewis said he owed to George MacDonald: as great a debt as one can owe another.
I cannot pay it. But it is my hope that this biography will introduce its subject to a generation which has not had the privilege that was mine. I “met” her when I was fourteen. Mrs. P. W. DuBose, headmistress of a small boarding school in Florida, used to quote often in school vespers from Carmichael books. I was captivated, and told her so. She lent me the
