Amy Carmichael - Gold by Moonlight

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Text originally published in 1935 under the same title.

Pickle Partners Publishing 2016, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publishers Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

GOLD BY MOONLIGHT:

LESSONS FOR WALKING THROUGH PAIN

BY

AMY CARMICHAEL

I have a Savior; though I sought

Through earth and air and sea

I could not find a word, a thought,

To show Him worthily.

But planted here in rock and moss

I see the sign of utmost loss,

I hear a word On Calvarys cross ,

Love gave Himself for thee .

Contents

In 1637, out of much trouble of mind, the Scottish minister Rutherford wrote to a friend: It is possible to gather gold, where it may be had, with moonlight.

This book is written to any who are walking in difficult places and who care to gather that gold.

WHEN ones thoughts are running on any special lineI expect we have all noticed thismany little rays fall upon it. I had been thinking of figures of the true, those lovely shadows of heavenly things which are everywhere about us, when I came upon this sentence in Amiels Journal Intime: Everything is growing transparent to me. I see the types, the foundation of beings, the sense of things

Just then some photographs of the Austrian Tyrol and the Bavarian Highlands were given to me. These, as I looked at them, fell into a kind of order, and became for me figures of the true, transparent, full of the sense of things. Then came the thought of others, and so this book.

And therefore if any word be therein that stirreth thee or comforteth thee more to the love of God, thank God, for it is His gift and not of the word. And if it comfort thee not, or else thou take it not readily, study not too long thereabout, but lay it beside thee till another time, and give thee to prayer or to another occupation. Take it as it will come, and not all at once.

A. C.

Dohnavur Fellowship

Tirunelveli District, South India

THE CROSS SET IN ROCK AND MOSS. Among the Hartz Mountains

SUNLIT SLOPE

THE DARK WOODILLUMINATED

THE RAVINE. In The Bavarian Highlands

SNOW

AFTER THE SNOW. Castle Landeck, near Freiburg im Breisgau

CHERRY BLOSSOMS

ROUGH WATERS

THE SHINING SUMMIT

MOUNTAIN IN CLOUD

EDELWEISS

THE LAND OF FAR DISTANCES. Lake of Thun

THE DARK WOOD. Near Munich

THE GREENWOOD IN SWEET SUNSHINE. Near Garmisch in the Reintal

LILY AND BUD

OLD WALL WITH A WINDOW. An old wall of Castle Landeck

ORCHID. From a mountain forest near Innsbruck

ILLUMINATED ROCK. Obersee, Austria

WIND CLOUDS AND A PINE TREE. Stubai, near Innsbruck

TWO PINES ON A HILLTOP. On the Wank, near Garmisch

SUNSET ON WATER. The Lake of Geneva

The photographs : They were given with such courtesy and kindness by Herr Groh of Munich, Herr Gaberell of Thalwil, and Dr. Defner of Innsbruck, that the pleasure of using them was doubled.

I SEE in this valley and mountain a general view of our years. We stand, when we are young, on the sunny slope among the pines, and look across an unknown country to the mountains. There are clouds, but they are edged with light. We do not fear as we dip into the valley; we do not fear the clouds. Thank God for the splendid fearlessness of youth. And as for older travelers whom Love has led over hill and dale, they have not been given the spirit of fear. They think of the way they have come since they stood on that bright hillside, and their word is always this: There are reasons and reasons for hope and for happiness, and never one for fear.

The mist and the clouds, and the light in the clouds, work together like separate notes in a tune; even the shadows of the pine trees on the grass have their part to play in making the picture. There is nothing that could be left out without loss. And it is so with the picture of our lives. We are called to believe this and to act as though we believed. (We were never meant to be like the host of the Egyptians when their chariot wheels fell off so that they drove them heavily.) We have the presence and the promises of God. We are meant to march to that great music.

Wrapped in the clouds and hidden by the mist is all that makes up life, its woods and ravines, its upland meadows where we go with much contentment, its hills called Difficulty, and its Delectable Mountains: in brief, its greater and smaller joys and sorrows, its trials of faith, disciplines, batterings of soul and body; all that our Saviour, in His story of the two builders, calls rain and floods and wind and the vehement beating of a stream.

There is no house of life out of reach of the stream. So, to be surprised when the rain descends and the floods come, and the winds blow and beat upon the house, as though some strange thing happened unto us, is unreasonable and unjust; it so miscalls our good Master, who never told us to build for fair weather or even to be careful to build out of reach of floods. We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God is not a fair-weather word. My son, if thou comest to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation. Ye will not get leave to steal quietly to heaven, in Christs company, without a conflict and a cross.

Even so, even though we must walk in the land of fear, there is no need to fear. The power of His resurrection comes before the fellowship of His sufferings.

WE need the Wine that maketh glad the heart of man and the Bread which strengtheneth mans heart as we begin our journey. The way is as various as this world of ours, this outer world that is the pictured scroll of worlds within the soul, and sooner than we expected to see it, a dark wood crosses our path, and seems to forbid us to go on. And sometimes we forget immediately to look up to the light that pours into the wood from high above the trees, making it far more radiant than it is dark.

The clouding of the inward man which often follows accident, or illness, may be like a very dark wood. It can be strangely dulling and subduing to wake up to another day that must be spent between walls and under a roof; and a body that is cumbered by little painspains too small to presume to knock at the door of heaven, but not too small to wish they mightcan sadly cramp the soul, unless it finds a way entirely to forget itself. Or the trouble may be the loss of means; poverty can be a darkness. The heavy overshadowing of bereavement is a very dark wood. (Always wishing to consult one who is not here, groping by myself, with a constant sense of desolation, as Queen Victoria in the days of her early widowhood said piteously to Dean Stanley, whom she could trust to understand.) At such a time the miles that lie before us may appear one long night, without the companionship which made the twelve months of the year like the twelve gates of the City, each several month a pearl.