Ellen Lakshmi Goreh
Ellen Lakshmi Goreh | |
---|---|
![]() Ellen Lakshmi Goreh, from an undated photograph | |
Born | September 11, 1853 |
Died | 1937 Kanpur (Cawnpore), Uttar Pradesh |
Occupation | Poet, missionary, nurse, deaconess |
Ellen Lakshmi Goreh (September 11, 1853 – 1937) was an Indian poet, Christian missionary, deaconess, and nurse.
Early life[]
Ellen Lakshmi Goreh was born in Varanasi, the daughter of and Lakshmibai Jongalekar. Her father was a Brahmin who converted to Christianity, and an ordained minister.[1] Her mother died in 1853,[2] and the infant Ellen was raised by white Westerners,[3] including indigo planters named Smailes, and then by missionaries, Rev. and Mrs. W. T. Storrs,[4] who called her "Nellie".[5] She was educated in England from ages 12 to 27, including at Home and Colonial College in London.[6]
Career[]
Encouraged by English evangelist Frances Ridley Havergal,[7][8] Goreh returned to India as a missionary in 1880.[3] Her first published collection, From India's Coral Strand (1883),[9] features poetry with Christian missionary themes, informed by Goreh's experience as an Indian woman among Westerners.[5] For example, "Who Will Go For Us?", in which she implores white Christian women to listen to the real concerns of their oppressed sisters over exotic fictional accounts: "This is no romantic story / Not an idle, empty tale / Not a vain farfetched ideal / No, your sisters' woes are real / Let their pleading tones prevail..."[6] One of her poems became the widely-known hymn "In the Secret of His Presence", with music by American composer George Coles Stebbins; her lyrics explore themes of safety and refuge.[10][11][12]
Goreh taught at a girls' school in Amritsar.[13] She trained as a nurse at Allahabad, and became superintendent of the Bishop Johnson Orphanage from 1892 to 1900. She was ordained as a deaconess in 1897. Goreh's second collection of poems, titled simply Poems (1899), was published in Madras, and reflects "her radically transformed understandings" and "her intricate, multi-faceted identity" as an Indian Christian woman and a transracial adoptee.[5] She wrote a pamphlet, "Evangelistic Work Among Women" (1908).[14] In 1932 she retired from mission work.[5]
Hymns by Goreh[]
- "The Great Refiner"[15]
- "No Disappointment Yonder" (also titled "Over Yonder")[16]
- "Lo, the Darkness Gathers Round Us" (also titled "Beacon-Light")[17]
- "In the Secret of his Presence"[18]
Personal life[]
Goreh died in 1937, in her eighties, at St. Catherine's Hospital in Kanpur.[5]
References[]
- ^ Young, Richard Fox (2005). "Enabling Encounters: The Case of Nilakanth Nehemiah Goreh, Brahmin Convert" (PDF). International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 29: 14–20. doi:10.1177/239693930502900104. S2CID 149085805.
- ^ "Nehemiah Goreh". The Church Missionary Review. 52: 195. March 1901.
- ^ a b Pitman, Emma Raymond (1892). Lady Hymn Writers. T. Nelson and sons. pp. 334���339.
- ^ "Ellen Lakshmi Goreh". The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Archived from the original on 2020-03-28. Retrieved 2021-11-13.
- ^ a b c d e Cho, Nancy Jiwon (2011). "'Rise, and Take the Gospel Message [...] Far away to India's Daughters': The Bicultural Missionary Poetics of Ellen Lakshmi Goreh (1853-1937), a Victorian-Era Transracial Adoptee" (PDF). Asian Women. 27 (4): 3–31.
- ^ a b "Ellen Lakshmi Goreh". HymnTime. Archived from the original on 2020-09-29. Retrieved 2021-11-13.
- ^ Bullock, Charles (1883). "Hidden Music". The Day of days, conducted by C. Bullock. pp. 33–35.
- ^ "Some Examples of the Higher Education among the Women of India". Woman's Work for Woman. 6: 97. April 1891.
- ^ Goreh, Ellen Lakshmi (1883). "From India's Coral Strand:" Hymns of Christian Faith. "Home Words" Publishing Office.
- ^ "Gospel Hymn". Expositor and Current Anecdotes. 16: 624. July 1915.
- ^ "What the Intellect of India Reads". Woman's Work. 28: 173. August 1913.
- ^ "In the Secret of His Presence". Herald of Gospel Liberty. 112: 15. December 30, 1920.
- ^ Clark, Robert (1885). The Punjab and Sindh missions of the Church missionary society. Church Missionary Society. pp. 72–73.
- ^ Goreh, Ellen Lakshmi (1908). Evangelistic Work Among Women. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
- ^ "The Great Refiner". Hymnary.org. Retrieved 2021-11-13.
- ^ "Over Yonder". Hymnary.org. Retrieved 2021-11-13.
- ^ "Beacon-Light". Hymnary.org. Retrieved 2021-11-13.
- ^ "In the Secret of His Presence". Hymnary.org. Retrieved 2021-11-13.
External links[]
- Nancy Jiwon Cho, The ministry of song : unmarried British women's hymn writing, 1760-1936 (Ph.D. dissertation, Durham University, 2006). Contains a chapter of Goreh
- Ellen Lakshmi Goreh, "Addressed to Frances Ridley Havergall, Author of 'Under the Surface'", a poem by Goreh, published in The Fireside Annual (1877), before Goreh's return to India
- 1853 births
- 1937 deaths
- People from Varanasi
- Indian women poets
- Indian Christian missionaries
- Women hymnwriters
- Adoptees