nels of the Holy Spirit, by which to work amid one of the world's great peoples. Meanwhile, in the Western homelands of the What is needed is not less movement, a powerful secularism verges toward alienation and reason but, as John nihilism. A renewed mission to Western culture is often envis­ aged as a crusade against the Enlightenment. But to fight against Robinson said, more light modern expressions of reason, the most central of which is and truth. science, is to mistake the enemy. Whatis needed is notless reason but-John Robinson once again-more light and truth. Less doc­ trinaire rationalism, either of religious fundamentalism, reduc­ the West open to both the past and the future. The best in two tionist scientism, or culturally correct cynicism about the tradi­ thousand years of Christian heritage needs to be combined with tional values of Western civilization. More critical and inclusive a critical appropriation of whatever God is teaching us about reasonableness, sensitive to the whole range of human experi­ being human, made in God's image, in the year 2000. Mission ence-physical, mental, spiritual, not only of the West but of the with those aims will have the best chance of truly converting not other cultures that increasingly interact with the West. only the West but also those other peoples toward whom the Christian mission must pray and work for a conversion of historic missionary enterprise has been directed.

The Legacy of Amy Carmichael

Eric J. Sharpe

my Carmichael, known in South as Amma The clear implicationwas that mostpeople notonthe spotdid not A ("mother" in Tamil), died in January 1951 at the age of know how things actually were. The book came as an unpleasant 83. She had come to India in 1895 as a missionary of the Church shock to romantics and triumphalists alike. But it demanded to of England Zenana Missionary Society, that formal connection be noticed. Eugene Stock, in his preface, could not have sounded being terminated in 1925. Her chief source of support, however, the note of urgency more clearly than he did: "God grant that its had always been the Keswick Conventions, which had originally terrible facts and its burning words may sink into the hearts of its commissioned her for service. During the whole of the more than readers! Perhaps, when they have read it, they will at last agree .fifty-five years of her missionary service in India, she never took that we have used no sensational and exaggerated language a furlough, and one suspects that she never even contemplated when we have said that the Church is only playing at missions!'? taking one. From 1931, when what at the time seemed a fairly The first chapter of Things As They Are ends with a quotation minor accident had crippled her, she was an invalid, confined to from a verse of Charles Kingsley, the last three lines of which her room in the Dohnavur orphanage she began in 1901.She was read: not inactive during those twenty long years, when she orga­ Be earnest, earnest, earnest; mad if thou wilt: nized, counseled, and wrote. Do what thou dost as if the stake were heaven, By the end of her long life, Amy Carmichael had published And that thy last deed ere the judgment day.' between thirty and forty books and had been translated into at least fifteen languages. Add to that a considerable body of verse That degree of earnestness is always going to make lessermortals and a vastcorrespondence, and one is left slightlybreathless. Her nervous. Matthew Arnold had called himself and his generation "Light half-believers of our casual creeds.":' Amy Carmichael subject matter was unvarying: the practical work of a practical mission. Probably no active missionary has ever published so was nothing if not earnest. Nothing about her was, or ever had much; possibly no missionary has ever writtenbetter, in point of been, light or casual. style. Onefeels thatshe nevercommitted to papera word she had Amy Beatrice Carmichael was born on December 16, 1867, in not instinctively weighed and measured; her style, while obvi­ the village of Millisle, on the east coast of Northern Ireland, not ouslya gift of God, was also a craft to be worked on. "Words far from Belfast. The Carmichael family came originally from should be like colors," she once wrote, "each one a dot of color Scotland, as had most Northern Ireland Protestants. Amy's supplying a need, not one over."! father, David Carmichael, was the head of a flour-milling firm: Amy Wilson-Carmichael, as she was known, for reasons her mother, Catherine Jane, nee Fison, was the daughter of a soon to be explained, first came to the attention of friends of respected local doctor. Amy, the eldest of seven children, was missions in the spring of 1903 with the publication of a book, impulsive, headstrong, and tomboyish. Taught at first privately by governesses, she later attended for three years a somewhat bluntly called Things As They Are: Mission Work in Southern India. prim Wesleyan Methodist girls' boarding school in Harrogate, Yorkshire, where she was remembered as having been "a rather Eric J. Sharpe has been Professor of Religious Studies in the University of wild Irish girl who was often in trouble with the mistresses" and Sydney since1977. His chiefinterestis in thehistoryof ideas, especially those as "something of a rebel."? having to do with the encounter of Europe and Asia in the nineteenth and In 1885 David Carmichael died at the age of only fifty-four, twentiethcenturies. His books include Not to Destroy but to Fulfill, Com­ his business having failed. Amy, still not out of her teens, had by parative Religion: A History, Faith Meets Faith, andThe Universal CHa. this time passed through an evangelical conversion; she was as

July 1996 121 impulsive as ever, living her life in a whirlwind of good works­ was to suffer great loneliness, though always withoutcomplaint. for instance anl0ngthe"shawlies," working-class girls of Belfast, He was too Christian not to give Amy his full support. She so called from the waytheydressed. And thenin September 1886, offered her services to the China Inland Mission first of all, and while on a visit to Scotland, she attended "a convention on it was in this connection that he asked that she identify herself in Keswick lines."6 her candidature papers as Amy Wilson-Carmichael. She was never officially adopted, however. She was still using the hy­ Role of the Keswick Conventions phenated name as late as 1912, even though Wilson himself had died seven years earlier. For most of the year Keswick, a small town in the English Lake From this point on, for a few years Amy's life can be de­ District, is dedicated to country life and tourism. But for a short scribed only as chaotic. First, the China Inland Mission declined while each summer it is transformed into a center of evangelical her services, apparently for health reasons. Back again in devotion, under the watchword of holiness. This is not the place Broughton, her thoughts turned to Japan. Without proper con­ to elaborate on the history of the Keswick Conventions, except to tact havingbeenestablished, and withouttraining of any kind, in say that they began in 1875 and that they have always laid March 1893 she simply set off. Although well received, and soon particular emphasis on holiness in the Wesleyan sense-that is, busy in Matsuye, on Japan's west coast, she was not there long the possibility of the Christian's living a life of faith free from the enough to acclimatize or to learn more than a smattering of stain of sin-and on missions. Often holiness Christians were Japanese. In July 1894, suffering acutely from what may have also dispensationalists, which further strengthened their mis­ been a type of migraine, she left Japan for a period of recupera­ sionary resolve,on the lines of Matthew 24:14 ("And this gospel tion in China, only to become convinced while there that God actually wanted her in Ceylon (Sri Lanka)! Without officially notifying anyone at home of her intentions, still less asking Amy became the first Keswick permission, she simply left for Colombo, assumingno doubt that everyone at home would immediately see things her way. That missionary, though not at once her precipitate action might be seen as irresponsibility seems and not without conflict. hardly to have crossed her mind. Amy's time in Ceylon was even shorter than her time in Japan had been; late in November news reached her that Robert Wilson had had a stroke, and she of the kingdom will be preached ... and then the end will come"). returned at once to Broughton Grange. There she prepared for Their confidence in the word of Scripture was simple and total. publication the first of her manybooks, From Sunrise Land (1895), Holiness Christians did not generally behave differently than based onher letters from Japan. Her brief and turbulent mission­ other evangelical Protestants, but they behaved with greater ary career seemed to be over-and she was still not thirty years intensity and (in a High Victorian sense) earnestness. old. In actual fact it had barely begun. In 1886 and 1887 Amy Carmichael attended Keswick-style meetings in Glasgow and Belfast, and there she found her future. To India with the Zenana Missionary Society On the second of these occasions, two Keswick celebrities were present. One was James (1832-1905), founder of The Keswick holiness movement set little store by denomina­ the China Inland Mission; the other was Robert Wilson (1825­ tionalism. Though brought up a solid Presbyterian, Amy had 1905),one of the pioneersof the KeswickConventions,a Cumbrian learned in Wilson's company "to drop labels, and to think only industrialist and evangelical Quaker, who also happened to be a of the one true invisible Church, to which all who truly love the widower and who had recently lost a much-loved daughter. In Lord belong."? So when a fresh missionary opportunity pre­ Belfast in 1887, Wilson called on the Carmichael family. "Some­ sented itself, to work with an Anglican mission, the Church of how we became friends," wrote Amy. Wilson then was sixty­ EnglandZenanaMissionarySociety, in Bangalore,India-where two, Amy Carmichael not quite twenty years old? the climate posed no problems to her fragile health-she imme­ In the following year, 1888, a Keswick mission committee, diately responded. She took leave of the Keswick Convention on chairedby RobertWilson, wasformed witha view to sending out July 27, 1895, and of Robert Wilson-this time permanently-on and supporting Keswick "missioners," for which cause funds October 11. On November 9 she arrived in India. She remained had begun to be made available. In the event, Amy became the in India until the day she died, more than fifty-five years later. first Keswick missionary, though not at once, and not without Amy Wilson-Carmichael had not been prepared in any way conflict. for the experience of India. In the"faith mission" circles in which Wilson needed a substitute daughter, possibly a daughter­ she moved, formal training was not considered necessary, it in-law (he had two unmarried sons). In 1890 Amy went to live being naively assumed that as long as the missionary's habits of with the family at Broughton Grange, Wilson's country house prayer and Bible reading were in good order, firsthand experi­ near Keswick, which she could so easily have made her pernla­ ence would supply the rest. And so indeed it may, in the best of nent home, living outthe rest of her life in pious prosperity. Then all possible worlds. Nothing, however, is guaranteed, and thebill came her call to be a missionary. Amy knew to the day when, on for incidental damage may be unacceptably high. Wisely, Amy January 13, 1892, shewas givenhermarching orders. "I cannotbe began with the study of Tamil, and it was this study that, in a mistaken, for I knew He spoke. He says 'Go,' I cannot stay."? But sense, saved her from being merely an enthusiast and made her go where, precisely? Amy simply did not know. into a missionary. In later years her grasp of the vernacular was We must resist the temptation to speculate about all the said to have been of the highest order; there is no record, possible reasons why an attractive young woman in her early however, of her ever having shown any interest in classical twenties should suddenlyhave decided thatGod was calling her Tamil, either the language or the literature. to missionary service. One cannot but empathize with Wilson Amy's Tamil coach was a Church Missionary Society mis­ (Amy called him "Fatherie"); in the thirteen years left to him he sionary, Thomas Walker "of Tinnevelly" (Tirunelveli), a little

122 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH more than fifty miles from India's southernmost tip, Cape Lotus Buds was published in November 1909, when Amy Comorin. In himAmy found an elder brother who was prepared Carmichael (still content to be known, as far as her readers were to stand up to and for her (the former was immeasurably the concerned, as Wilson-Carmichael) was a little short of her forty­ harder task). Soon she was in charge of a group of itinerant second birthday. Were one to review this work in 1996, one women village evangelists, brought together in 1898, the mem­ would have first of all to praise the beautiful sepia photography bers of whom-under their collective name "the Starry Clus­ illustrating it, and especially the photographs of young children, ter"-she was to introduce in the pages of Things As They Are, some of which are tiny masterpieces." (The photographer is compiled from letters written over a period of about two years. identified only as Mr. Penn, of Ootacamund, previously a land­ Things is a book deserving of fuller treatment than can be given scape photographer.) Otherwise, while some of the tough­ here. She called it"a battle-book, writtenfrom a battlefield where mindedness of Things As They Are remains, it is counterbalanced the fighting is not pretty play but stern reality.":" and sometimes overbalancedbysentimentality, especiallywhere It is a fierce book, a passionate book, a book leaving the these children died far too soon. reader in no doubt concerning its author's scale of values. That By 1909 Amy Carmichael's last move had been made, to there was devilry abroad in South India, Amy had not the Dohnavur, a village some fifteen miles south of Tinnevelly, slightest doubt. That friends of missions were being systemati­ named after Count Alexander Dohna (1771-1831), a German cally misinformed about the true state of affairs in South India, friend of missions." Robert Wilson had died on June 19, 1905 she was equally sure: (whichAmycalled "Fatherie'sGloryDay"). Time and time again Far more has been written about the successes than about the he (and others) had tried to break through her defenses and failures, and it seems to us that it is more important that you persuade her to come home. "Do thy diligence to come to me should know about the reverses than the successes of the war. We before winter," he wrote one fall." She did not come before shall have all eternity to celebrate the victories, but we have only winter, that winter or any winter. Evangelically correct as Amy the few hours before sunset in which to win them." had been since 1892, in this instance one feels that although she was notexactlyhidingbehind one obligation to absolve her from The mass movements that had done so much to boost missionary another, she was caught in a most painful dilemma, with suffer­ statistics Amy regarded with the utmost suspicion, mainly be­ ing the result whatever her choice. cause a high proportion of apparent converts could not, she felt, be what they were made to seem. "The dead weight of heathen­ Development of the Dohnavur Fellowship ism is heavy enough, but when you pile on the top of that the incubus of a dead -for a nominal thing is dead­ The Dohnavur Fellowship came into being by stages over a then you are terribly weighted down and handicapped."12 period of time. In later years March 6, 1901, came to be counted But the white heat of her anger was reserved for the treat­ "foundation day," the day on which the first temple child (ap­ ment meted out, in the name of religion (or at least custom), to prentice temple prostitute), a seven-year-old called Preena, was women and children: temple prostitution, infant and child mar­ brought to Amy to be cared for. Others followed; their stories are riage, "merchandisein children's souls"; these outraged her, and told in Amy's books. ByJune 1904 there were seventeen children shehad the abilityto sayso withoutsoundingmerelyshrill. What in the family, and as Amy's books circulated more and more a team she and her Irish countrywoman Margaret Noble (1867­ widely, their number increased, making it necessary to extend 1911)and her three-quarterscountrywomanAnnie Besant(1847­ the facilities and the accommodation. Still the "faith mission" 1933)-all of them extraordinarily gifted writers, all in India principle of never directly appealing for money was strictly adhered to. At Dohnavur Amy Wilson-Carmichael became simply She was outraged by the "Amma," and so she shall be for the rest of this account. In 1905 there took place at Dohnavur, and also, curiously treatment of women and enough, at 's orphanage, Mukti, at Kedgaon, children and had the ability semi-Pentecostal revivals, of which weeping and prayer "in the Spirit" werethe chiefsigns. Werethese manifestationsaltogether to say so without sounding unconnected on the human level? Were there any links with mere!y shrill. ecstatic revivals in Wales and California? And what were their lasting effects?" At least it is obvious that these phenomena, whatever their cause (on which more than one opinion is pos­ together between 1898 and 1912-could have formed, had they sible), deeply divided evangelical Protestants in the early 1900s not been pulling in different directions! and have continued to do so. Things As They Are was reprinted eight times in five years, On August 24, 1912, Thomas Walker, her missionary col­ and four times more before 1930, by this time equipped with league, died after a short illness, and then Amma's mother on "confirmatorynotes" fromworkingmissionaries,attestingto the July 14, 1913. It is hard to realize that Amma was still only forty­ book's truthfulness. Other books followed. The first was strate­ five years old. But now, humanly speaking, she was on her own, gically called Overweights of Joy (1906) and was quite explicitly outwardly still very confident, though in her heart of hearts, it stated as being "meant mainly for those who read Things As They would seem, quite the opposite. She was deeply concerned for Are, and were discouraged by it."" Again the members of the the spiritual soundness of the family over which she now pre­ mission group are presented-Golden, Pearl, Blessing, Star, Joy, sided, almost in the manner of a medieval abbess. She hated Gladness. Amyfor herpartwasat painsto pointoutthatthe book praise; it is said that she was pathologically averse to being was written from "Old India," the India of the villages, and not photographed (there are veryfew survivingphotographsof her); the "New India" of the universities and colleges and political evenherwriting shebarely acknowledged as having any style or platforms, for which she sensibly disclaimed being qualified to value. In 1919 she was awarded the Kaiser-i-Hind Medal "forher write.

July 1996 123 services to the people of India." Her first reaction was to refuse occasionally taken out; soon even those excursions came to an it, on the grounds that Jesus had been despised and rejected, and end, and she remained in "The Room of Peace." Bishop Frank she deserved no better; in the end, she was persuaded that her Houghtonwrotethatthe last twentyyearsof Amma'slife"do not response mightbe read as rudeness, and she accepted the award; lend themselves to historical treatment.'?' Had medical science nothing would induce her to receive it in a public investiture." been more advanced, her last years might have been less painful After January 1918 the work of Dohnavur became coeduca­ and more active. What, though, is the point of such regretful tional, with the arrival of the first boy. Eight years later, there speculation? On June 23, 1948, she again fell in her room, after were eighty, making entirelynew demands of the fellowship, not which movement was practically impossible. She died early in least in respect of male leadership. In time, though not immedi­ the morning of January 18, 1951.Her family buried her in "God's ately, a suitable leader for "the boys' work" was found, in the Garden"; her headstone, a bird table, bearing the one word personof Godfrey Webb- Peploe. Mostly thereafter the Dohnavur Ammai (revered mother). story is one of comings and goings, steady growth, and regular crises. Possibly the worst crisis concerned the future bishop Amy Carmichael, Amy Wilson-Carmichael, Amma-three StephenNeill andhis parents, whocameto Dohnavurin Novem­ stages in one life. Her heritage was similarly threefold: among ber 1925. "It was a bad mix," wrote Elisabeth Elliot." It was working-class girls in northern Ireland; among friends of mis­ indeed. Although in his autobiography Stephen Neill chose not sions through her books; and at Dohnavur, among those who to mention that he had ever been anywhere near Dohnavur, that knew her and loved her (even if they were more than a little in there had been a conflict of wills, and that he had in effect been awe of her). The present writer shares that awe and wonders given his marching orders by Amma, the story by now is well whether there are anywhere still to be found such all-or-nothing known. The clash of two suchimperious personalities must have . But let Amma have the last word. In an undated been awesome. Amma felt it to have been a defeat, hypersensi­ letter"to onecaring for boys," she wrote, "Onecan't help anyone tive as she always was to tension among Christians, especially whom one doesn't love enough to bear with, even as our angels those for whom she felt some responsibility. Although she was bear with us. We must be most trying to them at times.":" Indeed not infallible as a judge of character, she did her utmost to secure we must. only fully committed Christians to work at Dohnavur. When she failed in judgment, her reaction was always to blame herself first Acknowledgment of all." Sometimes she was right. My thanks to Jean van der Flier of the Dohnavur Fellowship in On September 24, 1931, Amma fell and brokeher leg. She the United Kingdom for sending me a copy of Nancy E. Robbins's had never enjoyed robust health and in fact had lived for years book Not Forgetting to Sing (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1967), close to the edge of her physical and mental endurance. Plainly which tells something of the work of the fellowship after Amma's she was exhausted, though unwilling and unable to admit it. One death, down to 1964. Van der Flier wrote in May 1995, "The leader­ symptom followed another, withwhich the medical resources of ship of the Fellowship is now entirely in Indian hands. In fact almost South India at that time simply could not cope. She lived for all the staff grew up in Dohnavur.... Ever since the workbegan, God almost twenty more years, wrote thirteen new books and count­ has provided for it in amazing ways, and this is still a great testi­ less letters, and received streams of visitors. At first she was mony."

Notes ------1. Quoted in Frank Houghton, Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur: The Story 10. Things As They Are, p. 4. of a Lover and Her Beloved (London: SPCK, 1953), p. 333. 11. Ibid., p. 158. 2. Eugene Stock, preface to, Things As They Are: Mission Work in 12. Ibid., p. 288. In fairness, it must be added that Amy regarded a mass Southern India (London: Morgan & Scott, 1903), p. x. movement as "a splendid chance to preach Christ." 3. Ibid., p. 4. 13. Amy Wilson-Carmichael, Overweights of Joy (London: Morgan & 4. Matthew Arnold (1822-88), poet and literary critic, became addi­ Scott), p. 2. tionally celebrated in the 1870s as a liberal lay commentator on 14. Especiallycaptivatingis thephotographfacingp. 180fAmyWilson­ matters religious in works such as Literature and Dogma (1873) and Carmichael, Lotus Buds (London: Morgan & Scott, 1909): "Chellalu, Godand the Bible (1875). The phrase quoted is from his long poem watching the picture-catcher with some suspicion." Actually the "The Scholar-Gypsy," published in 1853. baby, her little fist clenched, is looking past the photographer and 5. Houghton, Amy Carmichael, p. 16. his camera altogether! Missionaryphotographs of the period tended 6. Ibid., p. 22. to convey an impression of rigid artificiality, due no doubt to a 7. Ibid., p. 32. combination of elementary equipment requiring long exposures 8. Ibid., p. 45. and lack of expertise on the photographers' part. Mr. Penn of 9. An1Y's own words, quoted in ibid., p. 37. This "Evangelical Alli­ Ootacamund achieved withhis Chellalu portraitsomethingentirely ance" approach to Christian diversity owes much to John Wesley, out of the ordinary. (It should be added that Chellalu outlived but the Evangelical Alliance dates from 1846. Itaffirmed (1) unity in Amma and was present at her funeral. [Houghton, Amy Carmichael, essentials, (2) freedom in unessentials, and (3) love in all things. But p.377].) it was initially aimed more at individuals than at churches or 15. Houghton states only that the Dohnavur church was built in 1824 denominations. See Ruth Rouse and Stephen Charles Neill, eds., A "from money contributed by Count Dohna, a German friend of History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517-1948 (London: SPCK, missions" (Amy Carmichael, p. 124). Count Dohna was an outstand­ 1954), pp. 318-24. The problem was how to identify "essentials" ing Prussiansta tesman,a friend ofSchleiermacher,Schlegel, Novalis, once one had passed beyond the affirmation of the inspiration of and Wilhelmvon Humboldt (NeueDeutsche Biographie, vol. 4 [Berlin: Scripture-the cement that held the alliance together. See also R. R. Duncker & Humbolt, 1959], p. 53). Mathisen, "Evangelical Alliance," in Dictionary of Christianity in 16. Houghton, Amy Carmichael, p. 108.Wilson never gave up his Quaker America, ed. Daniel G. Reid et al. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity habits of speech. Press, 1990), pp. 408-9. 17. Ibid., pp. 146ff. Concerning the ecstatic revival at Ramabai's Mukti,

124 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH see Helen S. Dyer, Pandita Ramabai (London: Pickering & Inglis [ca. for the geographic area that includes Dohnavur, at which time, 1924], pp. 101-2; S. M. Adhav, PanditaRamabai (Madras: CLS, 1979), Amma severed her remaining Anglican connections. This might pp. 216ff. One is left with the impression that Ramabai's revival have been just as well, all things considered. On some of the aroused more attention than that at Dohnavur. complexities of Stephen Neill's character, see Eleanor M. Jackson, 18. Houghton, Amy Carmichael, p. 195. "The Continuing Legacy of Stephen Neill," in International Bulletin 19. Elisabeth Elliot, A Chance toDie: TheLifeandLegacy ofAmyCarmichael of Missionary Research 19, no. 2 (April 1995): 77-80. (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1987), p. 268. Elliot deals with 20. Houghton, Amy Carmichael, p. 259. the Neill episodein somedetail (pp. 267-70), in contrastto Houghton, 21. Ibid., p. 299. who merely hints at it, mentioning no names. In 1939 Stephen Neill 22. Amy Carmichael, Candles in the Dark(London: SPCK, 1981), p. 113. became Anglican bishop of Tinnevelly, with pastoral responsibility

Selected Bibliography Books by Amy Carmichael 1895 From Sunrise Land. London: Morgan & Scott. Elliot, Elisabeth. A Chance to Die: The Lifeand Legacy of Amy Carmichael. 1903 Things As They Are: Mission Work in Southern India. London: Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1987. Morgan & Scott. Houghton, Frank. Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur: The Story of a Loverand 1906 Overweightsof Joy. London: Morgan & Scott. Her Beloved. London: SPCK, 1953. 1909 Lotus Buds. London: Morgan & Scott. Scoglund, Elizabeth R. Amma: The Life and Words of Amy Carmichael. 1932 GoldCord: The Story of a Fellowship. London: SPCK. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1994. 1981 Candles in the Dark: Lettersto Her Friends. London: SPCK. 1987 if and His Thoughts Said . . . His Father Said . . . (in one volume). Houghton's book was written by one who had known Amma and London: SPCK. was commissioned by the Dohnavur Fellowship. It has of necessity been the basic source for all later writers, myselfincluded. In Elisabeth Elliot's Books About Amy Carmichael case, one feels that a more generous acknowledgment would not have Dick, Lois Hoadley. AmyCarmichael: LettheLittleChildren Come. Chicago: been out of place. Moody Press, 1984.

The Legacy of Horace Newton Allen

WiJo Kang

he legacy of missionaries includes much diversity in and went to Nanjing, where they had beenassigned to work. But T theology, vocational concepts, and personal characteris­ they were quite unhappyin Nanjing. Allen complained, "Having tics. Among those who dedicated their lives to spreading the cured [a case of opium poisoning] by the hypodermic use of Gospel of Christin another culture were some who changed their atropine, my life was made miserable by constant calls to other vocation from evangelistic mission to diplomatic, political, or such cases. These calls invariably came at night, one after the economic ventures. Horace Newton Allen, the first Protestant other, so that sleep was quite out of the question ."2 resident missionary to Korea, was such a person, for he changed When his medical friends in China advised him to go to from an evangelistic medical vocation to a diplomatic vocation. Korea, Allen consulted with his mission board in New York: "I He came to Korea in 1884, and three years later the king of Korea submitted the matter to the authorities in New York and was­ appointed him secretary of the Korean legation in the United instructed by themby cable, to go to Korea in their interest."3 He States. Afterward he became the American minister and the arrived in Korea on September IS, 1884, and soon after his family consul general in Seoul. joined him in Seoul. Allen was born in 1858 and grew up in Delaware, Ohio, Korea was then suffering much from political factionalism where his parents had moved from New England. Nurtured at and power struggles. The missionaries were warned in anarticle home in a puritan way of life, he went to Ohio Wesleyan College, in Foreign Missionary that"nothing could be more uncalled for, or where he received a bachelor of science degree in 1881. Then he more injurious to our real missionary work, than for us to seem went to Miami Medical College in Oxford, Ohio. Soon after to take any part in the political factions of Korea. "4 At first, Allen graduationfrom the medical school, he married Frances Messen­ heeded this advice. In 1885 he wrote to the Presbyterian Mission ger, "a girl of a definitely religious turn of mind."! In that same House in New York, "I have been honored by a committee year he was appointed as a medical missionary to China by the waiting upon me to ask me to present an address of welcome to Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the the returning British Consul, General Aston, but have thought it U.S.A. best to stay out of politics, and have, therefore, respectfully Allen and his bride arrived in Shanghai on October II, 1883, declined."5 How was it, then, that Allen eventually became involved in political life as an active diplomat for both Korea and the United Wi [oKang, bornin Korea, cameto the United Statesin 1954. He received his States instead of continuing his missionary vocation? Two theological education from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis and his Ph.D. importantfactors were Allen's personalityconflicts withGeneral degreefrom theUniversityofChicago. HeisWilhelmLoehe Professor ofMission Foote, the American minister in Seoul, and his ideological con­ at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque,Iowa. flicts withfellow missionaries,especiallyHoraceG. Underwood,

July 1996 125