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" Climbing on track" was the last message sent out from the Comet which crashed outside Calcutta early in 1953. This arrest­ ing phrase was singularly descriptive of one of the passengers, for it epitomised the career of Fred Mitchell. Whether as a business man, a preacher, a personal worker, a mission director, a Keswick convention chairman, or a family man; in season and out of season he was ever "climbing on track." This brief and moving story of his fruitful life will be a signpost to the serious reader. 6s. CLI1\1BING ON TRACK FRED MITCHELL Climbing On Track A Biography of FRED MITCHE·LL by PHYLLIS THOMPSON London CHINA INLAND MISSION Ouerseas Missionary Fellowship Agents : LuTTERWORTll PRESS First published December z953 Reprinted January 1954 Reprinted February 1954 Reprinted April r954 Reprinted March r955 Reprinted January r957 Made in Great Britain Publ£shed by the China lnland Mission. Newington Green, London, N.r6, and printed by the Camelot Press Ltd., London and Southampton Trade Agents: The Lutterworth Press, 1 Bouverie Street, London, E.C.4 CONTENTS CHAP, PAGE PROLOGUE 7 I. ON THE SLOPES OF THE PENNINES 13 2. STARTING UPWARD 22 3· FOR CONSCIENCE SAKE 29 4· THE OPENING WAY 37 5. DUTY BEFORE INCLINATION 46 6. CALL OF THE CITY 56 7. THE APPOINTED PLACE 66 8. CHEMIST OF BRADFORD 75 9· THE MIDDLE WATCH 85 10. JN ROYAL SERVICE • 94 II. VISIT TO CHINA 103 12. WIDENING INFLUENCE II4 13. CRISIS IN CHINA 121 14. VISIT TO AFRICA 128 15. THE LAST PHASE 136 PROLOGUE "COMET MISSING. Disaster feared on 'birthday' of Britain's jet air-liner. AIR CRASH DRAMA": The leading Sunday papers on May 3rd, 1953, had even more startling front-page headlines than usual. A Comet air-liner, bound for London from Singapore, was missing. All contact with it had been lost six minutes after it left the Dumdum airport outside Calcutta, at 1 r a.m. on the previous day. Shortly after it had taken off, speeding along the wide runway and then soaring upwards with its deafening roar of engines it had dis­ appeared in the banks of storm clouds that were already darkening the sky. Its thundering whine, following it like a belated fanfare, had died away, when the routine message from the radio officer, was received in Calcutta. "Climbing on track." "Climbing on track." Calm and reassuring words. In spite of the threatening storm the powerful machine was well on its way, it seemed! Within six minutes it was already twenty-two miles along the unseen track in the air, headed for its next port of call-New Delhi. That reassuring message was the last the Comet ever sent out. It failed to arrive in New Delhi at the appointed time, and the news flashed round the world that the Comet was "delayed." A few hours later it was admitted that a mishap was feared. And by the time most of the Sunday newspapers had been delivered, the 8 a.m. Home News Bulletin from the B.B.C. had announced that "the missing Comet air-liner had been located by a B.O.A.C. aircraft at a point about twenty-two miles north-west of Calcutta." There were no survivors. The great machine lay shattered and wingless in a paddy-field, with pieces of wreckage scattered for miles around. And on Monday morning the newspapers published the names of the forty-three people 8 CLIMBING ON TRACK who had been travelling on it. One of those names was Mr. F. Mitchell, and some newspapers gave a. little additional information about him, explaining that he "gave up a chemist's shop in Bradford ten years ago to become director of the China Inland Mission. He was coming home from a Singapore conference to decide what to do with , missionaries expelled from China. He lived at Southgate, London." When the news became known in the world of evangelical Christians to whom the name Fred Mitchell was almost a household word, letters, telegrams and cables started pouring in to the home at Southgate, and the C.I.M. London headquarters at Newington Green. They came from all five continents, and no less than thirty countries. Representatives of over a hundred Christian organizations wrote, organiza­ tions that included Bible schools, orphanages, missionary societies, evangelical publications, slum missions and fashionable churches. There was a strangely beautiful music about those letters -a music which came not from stringed and tubed instru­ ments or metal discs, but from the varied emotions of human hearts. As the many instruments in a great orchestra unite to produce a swelling harmony that stirs the resthetic sense almost to an ecstasy, so do deep feelings of gratitude, affection and love produce a music of a different nature that melts and inspires the heart. Words may seem heavy and inadequate to express those feelings, but the feelings them­ selves infuse the simplest words with life. So the messages that poured in from rich and poor, young and old, well known and unknown, combined to produce a rich and moving harmony of human grief ennobled by a strong confidence and hope. The consciousness of a sense of personal loss was a constantly recurring theme. Not only were there many references to help received through sermons and addresses given by the one who was a well-known "platform man"; but a still deeper, tenderer note was struck time and time PROLOGUE 9 again by references to sympathy and understanding shown in times of human distress, perplexity and need. I feel as if my father had died. He has prayed for me, loved me, and led me to understand more of the Lord's dealings with me .... I just can't help the tears as I think of all his kindness to me. I first met Mr. Mitchell a few days after I had lost my own father .... I shall never forget the help and blessing that the Lord brought to me through him.... I shall always remember with gratitude the comfort he brought to my wife and me at a time when we deeply needed it. I could never tell you what Mr. Mitchell has meant to me .... If there was a business problem or difficulty, I always knew I could turn to him and he would let me go and see him for half-an-hour••.. In an hour of deep personal crisis I turned to him for advice .... His counsel, given then, ultimately led me where I am now. I felt I could talk to him about anything, and he entered into my interests and problems as perhaps no one else has done .... His bigness, with time for everyone's affairs, is one of the great things I appreciate so much about him.... So the testimonies flowed on as letter after letter was opened. There were, of course, numerous references to what his public ministry had meant in spiritual enlighten­ ment and inspiration, not only in England, but in many parts of the world. The profound and lasting impression left in memories, however, seems to have been of the man himself. "I have never met a man more about his Master's business," came in one of the many letters from America. "I have a vivid memory of him outside the Tent at Keswick, avoiding all the groups of gossipers and just looking for the lonely, needy souls." What he was spoke as clearly as what he said. I0 CLIMBING ON TRACK When with him I always felt near to the Lord Himself. What impressed me was ..• radiancy . • • . his gracious and humble personality. the most transparently good man I have known. He made the Lord Jesus Christ more real to us .... He showed me what my Saviour is like, and I shall never forget him. Yet the music from the orchestra of many human hearts was not only in the minor key of sorrow and love for one who was seen no more. It swelled again and again into cadences of triumph as imaginations quickened by faith and fed by the Word of God pierced through the veil that hides the Unseen World from mortal eyes and followed that one through the dark valley that was made so short for him he surely never saw it. "And all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side," wrote many, quoting the phrase of Bunyan's that he himself had loved so well and used so often. Echoes of celestial music! Glimpses of a heavenly pageantry as he passed on To Mount Sion, To the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, To an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the first-born, To God the judge of all, To the spirits of just men made perfect, And-to Jesus ..•• It seemed that the very words with which he was greeted echoed back to listening hearts on earth. "Well done, good and faithful servant." So often those words appeared in the letters, as though the gracious, generous Master whom Fred Mitchell delighted to serve, could not restrain His welcome, nor confine His voice to heaven alone. And the wistful, wondering note that sounded in the orchestra, asking "Why-Why?" was answered over and over again as the letters were opened, and like a strong, reassuring PROLOGUE 11 undertone the message came, "What I do thou knowest not now. But thou shalt know hereafter." As the music flowed on, however, one theme pre­ dominated, a delicate, simple theme that brought every note into harmony. It was an ancient theme, echoing down from times long past, when in the dawn of history there was a man of whom it is written that he walked with God.

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