Start with the bad: Passion and Purity was decidedly non-motivating to remain virginal before marriage. It had great intentions, but so much is in the examples, and the examples seemed comically prudish.
But what she does well, she does very well, and Elizabeth Elliot’s writings about others who loved God are among the best I’ve read.
I’m talking specifically about A Chance to Die and The Shadow of the Almighty. The first is a biography of Amy Carmichael, an early 20th-century single woman who decided to help reach India for Christ. The second is the edited journals of her first husband, Jim Elliot, who was martyred when trying to contact a South American tribe.
Both books have that wonderful, rare trait of letting the readers see the subjects for themselves, instead of seeing them in a way that makes the authors look good. I haven’t found any better books on the subject of the spread of the gospel in the 20th century.
And, I’m forever grateful to Elliot for an almost throw-away reference to G.K. Chesterton about half-way through A Chance to Die that introduced me to one of my most loveable masters.
