Thumbprints in the Clay

Alumni, Books, Collection-related Publications, College-related Publications, Special Collections

Luci Shaw, in her newly released book, Thumbprints in the Clay: Divine Marks of Beauty, Roder and Grace (2016), traces the “thumbprints” of an endlessly creative, ever-creating God. ShawInterspersing poetry with autobiographical essays, Shaw writes, “I knew I had to make this writing the centerpiece, the birth announcement of my spiritual liberation and purpose in God.”

In addition to her reflections, Shaw includes moving reminiscences of her friendships with novelist Madeleine L’Engle, with whom she wrote several books, and mentor Clyde Kilby, her beloved and highly influential English professor at Wheaton College.

Thumbprints in the Clay is published by InterVarsity Press. The papers of Luci Shaw, Madeleine L’Engle and Clyde Kilby are archived at Wheaton College.

 

The Greg Livingstone Story

Alumni, Books, College-related Publications

Greg Livingstone is a pioneer missionary to unreached Muslim peoples. His love for the millions of Muslims who had no opportunity to hear the gospel led to the founding of Frontiers, a mission agency specializing in church planting among Muslim nations and communities. LivingstoneFrontiers oversees 1,300 workers in 50 countries of Africa and Asia. Livingstone tells his story in You’ve Got Libya: A Life Serving the Muslim World (2014). The following passages relate his experiences as a student at Wheaton College in the late 1950s.

At Wheaton, I met for the first time real Christians who weren’t Baptists. I initially confused Plymouth Brethren with Jehovah’s Witnesses, because they used different church vocabulary than I’d known. But I figured that since Wheaton grad Jim Elliot, who had been killed two years earlier as a missionary in Ecuador, had been Plymouth Brethren, they couldn’t be that bad. Even more riveting to me was my discovery of Bible-believing Presbyterians. They seemed to love God with their minds!

Unlike me, most of the other students at Wheaton came from evangelical families. They’d heard it all before — sometimes ad nauseum. Far too many students were at Wheaton at the insistence of their families, who feared secular universities. Wes Craven, a suitemate during my freshman year, later became a director of horror films in Hollywood, despite spending his first twenty-two years imbibing sound biblical teaching.

In my quest to hang out with the spiritual guys, I got acquainted with an unknown Wheaton graduate, Bill Gothard, who was organizing Bible clubs in high schools. He asked me to oversee a group in Roselle, near Wheaton. Later, I became his assistant as he developed a new ministry. He would often use clever chalk illustrations to explain biblical concepts. Lugging his chalk board from church to church, we visited pastors to explain the principles that were later incorporated into his Institute of Basic Youth Conflicts. Gothard’s ministry was helpful to many young people.

My experiences at Wheaton College were certainly formative and preparatory for the rest of my life. Daily, we sat in chapel listening to some of the greatest bible expositors of the time. I was stunned when the British pastor Alan Redpath spoke on Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares. I worried that I might be chaff — that I wasn’t really born again. I ran back to my room, dropped to my knees, and prayed, “Lord, if I am not really converted, if I am not really yours, I submit to you right now as my Lord and Savior.” I’ve never had to bring up the question again.

You’ve Got Libya is endorsed by George Verwer of Operation Mobilization, Don Richardson, author of Peace Child, Professor John Frame of Reformed Theological Seminary and many others.

A Wheaton College Love Story

Alumni, College-related Publications, Wheaton College Archives

The Rock Island Argus, September 19, 1922, published the following delightful love story:

 A romance that endured through half a century approaches its climax at Evanston today, when Mrs. Ella H. Ellis, 73, of Evanston, and Edward F. Fox, 76, of Albany, Oregon, exhibited a marriage license. They were sweethearts when they attended Wheaton College together in 1868 and became engaged then, but Mr. Fox left to finish a college career at the University of Michigan. Then he went west. They drifted apart until both married others. The wife of Edward Fox died two years ago. When he came out and called on his old sweetheart while passing through Chicago, he learned that her husband, John Ellis, a Congregational minister, died 13 years ago. Old memories were rapidly recalled and other events forgotten. “There’s nothing half so sweet in life as love’s young dream,” Mrs. Ellis quoted as they planned their honeymoon.

“I shall wish that I was able to leave the country.”

Wheaton College Archives

We think that we may live in a time of deeply partisan politics with a heightened pomposity. However, the fear of the wrong candidate winning is not a new fear.

Just prior to the election of 1880 Maria Bent Nichols wrote to her sister Mary Bent Blanchard. Her letter discusses the general niceties of 19th-century correspondence but then moves to the upcoming election. Looking forward to Garfield’s victory, Nichols feared a win by Winfield S. Hancock.

“I am exceedingly anxious to see the triumph which has begun in Indiana go on till Garfield is seated in the White House. If Hancock is elected I shall wish that I was able to leave the country. I should feel that we were given over.”

We are not told in this letter the cause of Nichol’s fear, but if Hancock won she felt that the country would have been “given over” which is likely a reference to being “given over to Satan” not unlike the troubles sent upon the biblical Job. Maybe Nichols feared for the stability of the economy. A key element of the 1880 presidential campaign was a return to the gold standard for the country’s currency. This was good for fighting inflation, but very bad for those with heavy debts.

18801016-p3

 

This and other letters to and from Jonathan and Mary Blanchard can be found  housed at the Wheaton College Archives of Buswell Library at Wheaton College.

When You Reach Me

Books, Collection-related Publications, Special Collections

Miranda, the saavy sixth-grade protagonist of Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me (2009), continually references her all-time favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time, as she faces her own baffling — and potentially deadly — time-travel conundrum in 1979 New York City. When You Reach Me is the 2010 winner of the Newbery Medal for Most Distinguished Contribution to American Literature for ChildrenStead. Stead writes in the Acknowledgments:

Every writer stands on the shoulders of many other writers, and it isn’t practical to thank of them. However, I would like to express my special admiration for the astonishing imagination and hard work of Madeleine L’Engle, whose books captivated me when I was young (they still do), and made me want in on the secrets of the universe (ditto).

Further commenting on the influence of L’Engle, Rebecca Stead says in an interview with Amazon.com:

I loved A Wrinkle in Time as a child. I didn’t know why I loved it, and I didn’t want to know why. I remember meeting Madeleine L’Engle once at a bookstore and just staring at her as if she were a magical person. What I love about L’Engle’s book now is how it deals with so much fragile inner-human stuff at the same time that it takes on life’s big questions. There’s something fearless about this book.

It started out as a small detail in Miranda’s story, a sort of talisman, and one I thought I would eventually jettison, because you can’t just toss A Wrinkle in Time in there casually. But as my story went deeper, I saw that I didn’t want to let the book go. I talked about it with my editor, Wendy Lamb, and to others close to the story. And what we decided was that if we were going to bring L’Engle’s story in, we needed to make the book’s relationship to Miranda’s story stronger. So I went back to A Wrinkle in Time and read it again and again, trying to see it as different characters in my own story might (sounds crazy, but it’s possible!). And those readings led to new connections.

The papers of Madeleine L’Engle are housed at the Wheaton College Special Collections in Wheaton, Illinois.

 

The Power of Self Command

Alumni, Books, College-related Publications, Wheaton College Archives

Today it is common for public speakers to adopt informal methods of delivery. Contemporary audiences  might see the speaker slouching before them wearing bleached blue jeans with a loose, untucked Hawaiian shirt. In some instances, the speaker might even sit cross-legged on the stage, attempting to establish a friendly bond with his hearers.  Straw4However, the notion of excessively easygoing oratory delivered before an expectant auditorium was unfathomable when Dr. Darien Straw (1857-1950), Professor of Rhetoric and Logic and Principal of the Preparatory Department of Wheaton College, published Lessons in Expression and Physical Drill (1892), a consolidation of his classroom wisdom.

He emphasizes that proper posture, efficient gesticulation and precise elocution contribute immeasurably to the intellectual development and future success of the sensibly educated young man or woman. Outward order merely reflects inward stability. “Helping young people to discover ill temper in the voice, carelessness in the walk, selfishness in the bearing and laziness in the words,” writes Straw, “and giving them facility to avoid these, avails more than business proverbs and social precepts.” Throughout the book Straw offers helpful examples.

Straw2This gentleman stands in the drill position. “Heels together,” writes Straw, “toes turned out from 45 to 90 degrees apart, knees straight, body erect, head well back, chin slightly curbed, chest expanded, arms down at the side with the edge of the hand forward. A good test of erect positon is to stand with the back against a door or other vertical plane so that you can touch it in four places — with the heels, the hips, the shoulders and the head. If you find it difficult to do this there is the more reason for perservering in an erect position.  Once the drill position is properly maintained, the student can practice his vocals. Avoid any attempt at loudness,” warns Straw, “but listen to the tone to see if it is correct.”

Straw3Straw later discusses the calculated use of the prone hand and the supine hand. “The primary meaning of the Prone Hand is repression or covering. It is the reverse of the Supine hand, the palm is turned down. It has a great variety of uses, but all related to this primary meaning. The idea of the snow spread upon the earth contains also the idea of a covering. The idea of peace, quiet or stillness contains at the same time suppression of noise or movement and may be expressed by the Prone Hand. There is a gradual shading of this position to that of Averse hand, as we would repress an action or thought disagreeable. As our emotions shade into one another, so our action combines different expressions.”

 

“This, then,” writes Straw, “is an effort to help teachers in giving to pupils the power of self command.”

 

The Story of an Old Town, Glen Ellyn

College-related Publications, Wheaton College Archives

Wheaton College, founded by Wesleyan Methodist abolitionists, was long rumored to be a stop on the Underground Railroad, though precise documentation was lacking. At last the rumor was verified in 2009 by historian Dr. David Maas while reading a regimental history noting that freed slaves were, indeed, aided and assisted on the college campus by friends before quietly moving on to the next station. The following entry from Ada Douglas Harmon’s The Story of an Old Town, Glen Ellyn (1928), a history of Glen Ellyn, adds a few intriguing details:

1853: Illinois Institute (Wheaton College) founded, first president, Prof. Lucius Matlack. It was one of the underground railway stations for runaway slaves, as well as the old Barnard or Filer home. Also Israel P. Blodgett’s home in Downer’s Grove. Mr. Blodgett would often conceal as many as eleven slaves in his attic, feed and clothe them and send on to the next station, the Illinois Institute. Here they were again hidden in an attic by President Matlack, till it was safe to send them on, perhaps to the Filer house on Crescent, where they were hidden in the barn. From there the slaves were taken to Chicago, one of the stations being the old Tremont House, and from there to Canada and safety. The slaves were transported in farm wagons loaded with produce under which they were concealed. All those local links with the past give a reality to the thrills Uncle Tom’s Cabin used to send quivering through one’s system. 

glenClarification: John Cross was likely the first president of the Illinois Institute, rather than Lucius Matlack.

Merry Christmas!

Wheaton College Archives

These Wheaton College girls, possibly gathered in a Williston Hall dormer, pause during a Christmas celebration to pose for this photo from the early 1900s. A sketch of Abraham Lincoln, wearing Roman robes, glowers down on the somewhat somber party, though the young lady sitting front and center seems a bit more relaxed, if not downright mischievous. The woman in the striped skirt appears to be wearing an elf cap, or perhaps some form of traditional seasonal headdress.

Christmas

The Book of Second Hesitations

Special Collections

Many a youth minister and pastor has used the tried and true jokes of offering up to their congregations the funny, non-existent, names of books of the Bible. Second Hesitations or First Opinions has produced a good laugh or two as has the Book of Hezekiah. For good or ill, the use of these fictitious titles can also be used to differentiate the true believer from the casual one. The joke can at times backfire. Sometimes the joke isn’t a joke at all but reveals the fluidity of the Christian Bible.

ThirdKingsTake, for instance, the recent acquisition of the Book of Third and Fourth Kings in Buswell Library’s Special Collections. Your average Christian may pass over this title but someone a bit more familiar with the full canon of scripture may do a double-take. Third Kings? The songs of Sunday School go from Genesis through the Pentateuch into the historical books from Joshua to First and Second Samuel then on to First and Second Kings. There is no Third Kings in the childhood song, only Kings followed by Chronicles. This is where history helps us out.

Yet, the Book of Third Kings, or The Third Book of Kings, was how these books were known by the early church. The Israelite believers would have known this book as First Book of Malachim, or as the Vulgate presented it in Latin, “Liber Regum tertius; secundum Hebraeos, Liber Malachim.” It was in the Reformation period that the names of the books were modified. It was not the Catholics or Protestants that encouraged this change, but it was Daniel Bomberg (died 1549), an early printer of Hebrew language book, who introduced this change in his principal edition of the Mikraot Gedolot (rabbinic bible) in 1516-1517.

It took many years for this change to filter into the printings of other Bibles. This edition of Third Kings was a part of an edition of the Great Bible printed in 1566. The original printing of the Authorized, or King James, Bible of 1611 also contained the Book of Third Kings.

Jack & Jill Ranch on Big Wildcat Lake

Alumni, Wheaton College Archives

Before Camp Honey Rock (later Honey Rock Camp)  became firmly established as a favorite getaway destination, Wheaton College faculty and students seeking a fresh blast of the great outdoors slipped northward to the Jack & Jill Ranch (“for young people, 19-35 years old”) in Rothbury, Michigan, about 200 miles from campus. The 650-acre lakeside property provided an ideal venue for horseback riding, swimming, boating, canoeing, archery, riflery, meals and lodging.

Ranch1

In addition to these activities, the promotional booklet loudly boasts, “Dance music is provided by our own orchestra. There’s square dancin’, too…we’ll teach you right from scratch.” Abiding by the Wheaton College rules of conduct, students probably quite reluctantly refrained from “dancin'”, especially in the presence of college administration. And when Sunday rolled around, guests were transported to one of “…our little Catholic or Protestant churches in the quaint village of Rothbury.”

In  May, 1953, the Senior Sneak, comprising the entire graduating class, fled campus and settled for two days at the Jack & Jill Ranch. Ranch2In addition to hearty relaxation, the Senior Sneak organized a worship service with Dr. V. Raymond Edman, President of Wheaton College, conducting the communion table.  The Sneak, probably gathered around a roaring campfire, sang their class song:

We’re on the road to victory,

And we can fight as you will see,

As we throng around,

You’ll hear the sound

Of cheering loud and free, Rah! Rah!

We are the first in all the fun,

Loyal we stand through gloom and sun;

Pressing forward together

In any kind of weather,

We’re the class of ’53.

Today the former Jack & Jill Ranch is the 1000-acre Double JJ Resort, including a golf course, water park and conference center. The Double JJ occasionally hosts the Rothbury Festival, featuring music from such rockers Snoop Doggy Dog and John Mayer.