E. STANLEY JONES’S GRANDDAUGHTER SHARES HER REFLECTIONS ON HIS LIFE AND LEGACY Anne MathewsYounes IT IS EASY TO TAKE THINGS for granted in one’s own family. So it was with me and my grandfather, E. Stanley Jones. To me he was just my grandfather who traveled a lot! But now it is fascinating and rewarding to see and understand him as a real person and realize what an exceptional human being he was. Though in his day he was known all over the world, it was India that gave him the ultimate challenge; and India was the anvil on which he tempered and solidified his faith. As a teenager he ran with a gang. Despite this he was receptive when a visiting evangelist spoke on what Christ meant to him. My grandfather and his friends had planned to disrupt the service, but that disruption did not happen. To the astonishment and annoyance of his friends, he responded to the evangelist’s call with a dramatic conversion that changed his life. He had planned to be a lawyer, and, considering his persuasiveness for the cause of Christ, he would have been an
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WESTERN POWER, WESTERN CULTURE Jones arrived in Bombay (now Mumbai) in British India in 1907, just a few years before this picture was taken.
exceptional one. But once he assumed the responsibilities of faithful discipleship, he never turned back.
ONE-WAY PASSAGE He went to India in 1907 as a missionary when he was just 23 years old. Mission boards treated new missionaries with astonishing casualness in those days. They gave no orientation—to country, customs, or climate, or even how to get around. He received a one-way ship passage from New York City to Bombay which took six weeks. He had received the name of his ultimate destination, but getting there was up to him. My grandfather told the story of the 20-hour train ride to his final destination—Lucknow—
Christian History
GATEWAY TO INDIA, BOMBAY— PHOTOGRAPH ATTRIBUTED TO THE MYERS BROTHERS / [PUBLIC DOMAIN] WIKIMEDIA
My grandfather, evangelist and prophet
