Ellen Lakshmi Goreh (11 September 1853 – 1937) was an Indian poet, Christian missionary, deaconess, and nurse.

Early life

Ellen Lakshmi Goreh was born in

Varanasi Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. * * * * The city has a syncretic t ...

, the daughter of Nilakantha (Nehemiah) Goreh and Lakshmibai Jongalekar. Her father was a

Brahmin Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests (purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers (guru ...

who converted to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

, and an ordained minister. Her mother died in 1853, and the infant Ellen was raised by white Westerners, including indigo planters named Smailes, and then by missionaries, Rev. and Mrs. W. T. Storrs, who called her "Nellie". She was educated in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

from ages 12 to 27, including at

Home and Colonial College The Home and Colonial School Society was a school founded in 1836 by Elizabeth Mayo, Charles Mayo, James Pierrepont Greaves and John S. Reynolds for the education of children and the training of teachers especially by then novel methods proposed b ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Career

Encouraged by English evangelist

Frances Ridley Havergal Frances Ridley Havergal (14 December 1836 – 3 June 1879) was an English religious poet and hymnwriter. ''Take My Life and Let it Be'' and ''Thy Life for Me'' (also known as ''I Gave My Life for Thee'') are two of her best known hymns. She also ...

, Goreh returned to India as a missionary in 1880. Her first published collection, ''From India's Coral Strand'' (1883), features poetry with Christian missionary themes, informed by Goreh's experience as an Indian woman among Westerners. 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..." One of her poems became the widely-known hymn "In the Secret of His Presence", with music by American composer

George Coles Stebbins George Coles Stebbins (1846–1945) was a gospel song writer. Stebbins was born February 26, 1846, in Orleans County, New York, where he spent the first 23 years of his life on a farm. In 1869 he moved to Chicago, Illinois, which marked the beg ...

; her lyrics explore themes of safety and refuge. Goreh taught at a girls' school in

Amritsar Amritsar (), historically also known as Rāmdāspur and colloquially as ''Ambarsar'', is the second largest city in the Indian state of Punjab, after Ludhiana. It is a major cultural, transportation and economic centre, located in the Majha r ...

. She trained as a nurse at

Allahabad Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...

, and became superintendent of the Bishop Johnson

Orphanage An orphanage is a Residential education, residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the Childcare, care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parent ...

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. She wrote a pamphlet, "Evangelistic Work Among Women" (1908). In 1932 she retired from mission work.

Hymns by Goreh

* "The Great Refiner" * "No Disappointment Yonder" (also titled "Over Yonder") * "Lo, the Darkness Gathers Round Us" (also titled "Beacon-Light") * "In the Secret of his Presence" The lyrics were treated to a musical setting by Australian composer

Ernest Edwin Mitchell Ernest Edwin Mitchell (16 January 1865 – 10 December 1951) was an Australian composer, conductor, music lecturer and organist. Career Mitchell was born on 16 January 1865, in , South Australia, when his father, Thomas James Mitchell, was 43 a ...

Personal life

Goreh died in 1937, in her eighties, at St. Catherine's Hospital in

Kanpur Kanpur or Cawnpore ( /kɑːnˈpʊər/ pronunciation (help·info)) is an industrial city in the central-western part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Founded in 1207, Kanpur became one of the most important commercial and military stations o ...

References

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 {{DEFAULTSORT:Goreh, Ellen Lakshmi 1853 births 1937 deaths People from Varanasi Indian women poets Indian Christian missionaries Women hymnwriters Indian adoptees