A Chance to Die Elisabeth Elliot (electronic reader .txt) 📖

We are riding together in a kuruma, a Japanese girl and I, spinning along through deserted streets, dark and still. We hear the beat of drum, the clang of cymbal, the hum of a thousand voices. Suddenly it breaks into a roar and we are in the midst of it all, caught in the whirl, swept along through streets all shining with crimson light, over bridges reflected in crimson-lit waters, under arches dropping with crimson fire. It is as if the stars had fallen upon earth, changing color as they fall. A burst of “Nebuchadnezzar’s orchestra” in full swing drowns our voices, should we try to speak. . . . Onward rushes the mighty rabble—men and women in exchanged attire and gaudy colors flit past and mingling with uncanny monster forms they dance the wild matsuri dance, with abandonment inconceivable, every step a parody, every gesture a caricature. Dragons, griffins, reptiles, fishes, birds there are, all dancing, waving fans, shouting, howling, singing, noising in one form or another, in chorus perfectly bewildering. Old crones with wrinkles showing through the paint, babies wrapped in rainbow hues, gazing with astonished eyes, children gay as butterflies and as bewitching, men of good position in grotesque masks, women of the gentler order forgetting all refinement in the strange glamor of the hour—endlessly on and on they swarm. . . . A huge car is coming, drawn by scores of revellers, festooned with flowers and tinsel, wreathed with chains of light. Standing within it and walking before and after are girls robed in silks and crepes, palest shades of pink and blue, glittering with embroideries of gold and silver. Pale, expressionless faces are theirs, dead, vacant, joyless, their heavy half-shut eyes hardly glance at the revelry around them. The weary feet drag slowly on. We turn away heart-sick, for this is heathendom indeed. Our kuruma man speaks: have we seen enough? Ah yes, and far more. He takes us home, and we leave behind us the chaos of sound and color and mirth all hollow and sin all dark and in the silence of a pain we cannot conquer we find ourselves just spirit-crushed, and with no language but a cry.

The passion of her pleas for prayer and for understanding, the vividness with which she tried to depict what she was up against, were inspired by a genuine conviction that the work she was called to was without question God’s work, and could not possibly be done without the help of God’s people-prayer warriors” who would share the bitterness of the battle with her. There was another bitterness which probably added to the urgency. Rumors reached her from England of continued criticism of her having gone off to Japan. This would vitiate the prayers she needed so badly, so she reminded her friends of her call in 1892, “Go ye,” and in 1893, “Go to Japan.” She confessed that she had made some mistakes during the year that intervened between those calls, mistakes due partly to the fear that if she did not find out immediately where she was to go, the strength to obey would fail and the light of the Lord’s smile would be gone. “So I tried and we tried—and failed. He had to teach us to Be Still and Know. Then when His time came His will was clear.” She asked her supporters to believe that it was God’s constraining hand which had beckoned her away, God’s voice which would not let her stay. “Please, please, what you can’t approve of, won’t you forgive and don’t let the prayer help He means you to give us be lost, for we need it so.”

One experience in particular showed how greatly she needed it. Early one morning she was told that a man nearby was possessed by a “fox spirit.” This spirit was worshipped in Japan, shrines were dedicated to him, and stone foxes were often set side by side with Buddhas. What this demon was doing to the poor man sounded very like New Testament stories—“Wherever he is, it gets hold of him, throws him down on the ground and there he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth.”1 Amy went straight to her room and asked the Lord why she couldn’t cast him out. “Because of your unbelief,” was His answer. She spent hours on her knees before she asked Misaki San if she believed the Lord Jesus was willing to cast the devil out of the man. Misaki San was startled, but after some thought and prayer, declared that she believed. Amy’s impulse was to go at once, but she remembered that the disciples were told that such a demon required fasting as well as prayer. So she and her friend did both, having sent a message in the meantime to ask if they would be permitted to see the man. Yes, came the answer, but he was very wild. He had six foxes, and was tied up.

After some hours of which Amy said only that they were solemn, the two went to the house. Stretched on the floor, fastened crosswise on two beams, bound and strapped hand and foot, his body covered with burns and wounds, lay the man. Little cones of powdered medicine had been set on his skin and lighted. They burned slowly, with a red glow. Nothing had so far daunted the fox spirits, but Amy called to mind that the power of God had conquered a demon whose name was Legion. She told the crowd in the room that her mighty Lord Jesus could cast out the six spirits. At the name of Christ a fearful paroxysm took hold of the man, hellish power was loosed, and blasphemies which even she could recognize as blasphemies poured from the man’s mouth. He struggled, was forcibly held down, the women knelt and prayed, the struggle increased. Satan seemed to be mocking them. “Can you think how I felt then?”