Books

Most people recognize Adoniram and Ann Judson as America's first missionaries -- but not many know that Samuel and Harriet Newell were part of their team.

When Samuel asked for Harriet Atwood's hand in marriage at the age of 17, Harriet wrote, “Providence now gives me an opportunity to go myself to the heathen. Shall I refuse the offer? Shall I love the glittering toys of this dying world so well that I cannot relinquish them for God? Forbid it heaven! Yes, I will go. However weak and unqualified I am, there is an all-sufficient Savior ready to support me. In God alone is my hope. I will trust His promises and consider it one of the highest privileges that could be conferred upon me to be permitted to engage in His glorious service among the wretched inhabitants of India. . . . I go . . . to assist one of Christ's dear ministers in carrying the glad tidings of salvation to the perishing heathen of Asia.”

Harriet left the shores of America with the certain expectation of death. Yet for Harriet, death was not loss, but gain. What makes death “gain” to a Christian teenager? The same thing that makes it gain to every believer—the full, unveiled presence of Christ. Harriet recognized death as the passageway to receiving the fullness of what she had longed for all her life—Christ. When Christ called, she was enabled to look death in the face with joy, and was eager to be embraced by her Heavenly Bridegroom and "to behold the light of His countenance."

Harriet never even reached the mission field. Some of her dying words were: “Tell my dear brothers and sisters how much I love them. Tell them from the dying lips of their affectionate sister that the world is vain and worthless, and that there is nothing but religion worth living for. I have never repented leaving all for Christ.”

Harriet's brief yet powerful life remains a challenge to our generation, hundreds of years after her passing. May we learn from her example! This incredible biography points out areas of her life such as her love for spending time in the Word, being a faithful daughter of fervent prayer and fasting, love for hymns and for being with the congregation, theological knowledge, faithful journaling of God's providence, and much more. Includes a list of questions for personal evaluation.