As Different As Chalk is From Cheese: They Knew Their God Vol. 1

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As Different As Chalk Is from Cheese

They Knew Their God Vol. 1

One thing that hits you as you begin to read any of the books in the They Knew Their God series is how varied the stories are. I thought it might be an interesting study to note the nationality, denomination, vocation, and the century in which they were born as relating to each character, using a different blog for each volume.

Volume 1. 18 characters described in 18 sketches. 

Nationality: 2 Swiss; 2 German; 1 Welsh; 6 English; 5 American; 1 Irish; 1 African.

Century of Birth: 1 13thcentury; 1 14th century; 4 18th century; 12 19th century.

Denomination: 2RC; 1 Baptist; 6 Methodist; 1 Reformed; 1 Christian Brethren; 1 Quaker;

1 A .M. B. (Algiers Mission Band); 1 S.A; 1 Presbyterian; 2 non-denominational; 1 S. I. M. (Sudan Interior Mission).

Vocation—original and final:

African prince—student preacher

Army sergeant—philanthropist/pastor/divine

Artist—missionary pioneer/author

Bible teacher

Home-maker/evangelist

Lawyer—preacher/counselor/Bible teacher

Merchant—lay preacher/mystic/martyr

Merchant—preacher

Minister

Missionary pioneer

Missionary/prayer-warrior

Noblewoman—deaconess

2 Preachers/evangelists

A. Colonel/preacher/writer

Scholar—mystic/preacher/author/divine

Servant-girl—prayer-warrior

Teacher—Christian educator

Sex: 7 women; 13 men.

 

Eva Von Winkler—Sister Eva

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Eva Von Winkler, often known as “Sister Eva,” or “Mother Eva,” is among the women included in the They Knew Their God Series. In Volume One, Edwin and Lillian Harvey tell how this remarkable woman, brought up in an ancestral castle in South Eastern Germany, eventually established a sisterhood in Friedenshort. Here, Sister Eva and her fellow sisters, ministered to anyone in need—the elderly no longer cared for by their own family, children without a home, and the sick in need of loving attention.

In the ” The Call Back Series” written and compiled by Edwin and Lillian Harvey, there is a chapter in Loneliness, the first volume of the series, entitled “Eva Von Winkler Calls Back.” When nervous exhaustion overtook Sister Eva in the midst of her work, she was set aside for seven long years. This “detour” she later remarked, “was necessary to prepare me for His service.” She had realized that she was “sinking into the rut of duties in a so-called Christian work, and missing the highest.” (Illness, p. 26.)
“Side-tracked, my Lord, amid some pain and loss,
Unfit to strive amid the lab’ring throng,
Weakened and spent—yet whatso’er the cross,
Resting in Thee, Who art forever strong.”
—Fred Brooks. (ibid)

You may read more about this remarkable woman in They Knew Their God Volume One and Illness. Both these books are published by Harvey Christian Publishers and are available in their Online Christian Bookstore.

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They Knew Their God—Frances Ridley Havergal

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Frances Ridley Havergal
Most of us are acquainted with Frances Ridley Havergal, poet and hymn-writer. The words “Take my life and let it be, consecrated, Lord to Thee” are from one of her most well known hymns. Edwin and Lillian Harvey have quoted her in several of their compilations and they have written about her in Volume Two of the They Knew Their God Series.

She is also included in the first volume of The Call Back Series, Illness. Frances knew well what it was to suffer pain and she “calls back” to us to remind us that pain often brings us nearer our Lord if we use it rightly. The following poem sums it up for us:

“I take this pain, Lord Jesus
From Thine own hand,
The strength to bear it bravely
Thou wilt command.
I am too weak for effort
So let me rest,
In hush of sweet submission,
On Thine own breast.

“I take this pain, Lord Jesus,
As proof indeed
That Thou art watching closely
My truest need:
That Thou, my Good Physician,
Art watching still;
That all Thine own good pleasure
Thou wilt fulfill.

“‘Tis Thy dear hand, O Savior
That presseth sore,
The hand that bears the nail-prints
Forevermore.
And now beneath its shadow,
Hidden by Thee,
The pressure only tells me
Thou lovest me.”
—Frances Ridley Havergal.
Written in severe pain, Sunday afternoon, October 8th, 1876, at the Pension Wengen, The Alps, Switzerland.

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