Send the Light: Lottie Moon’s Letters and Other Writings ed. by Keith Harper (review)

REVIEWS government. But at war' s end,generals and politicians , scrambling to deflect criticisms from their own failures in judgment, quickly placed blame for the collapse of the Confederate government on Davis's shoulders. Denunciations, however, only energized Davis to rise from the ashes of his Civil War reputation to become the embodiment in the Lost Cause." An unabashed conservative t() the end, Davis never asked if support for slavery and secession had been wise nor whether commencing a war that laid the South low for generations had been a mistake. Instead, he proclaimed in a speech shortly before his death that,given the chance, " he would do it allover again." ( 443) Marion B. Lucas Western Kentucky University Keith Harper,ed. Send tbe Light: Lottie Moon' s Letters and Otber Writings. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002. 458 pp. ISBN: 086554820X ( cloth), 55. 00. No person receives more unqualified con-lmendation among Baptists of all stripes than the mythically paradigmatic missionary from Virginia, Charlotte Digges Moon. This book now allows every person the chance to decide for oneself whether the aura surrounding her name should be considered hype or justified. With the help of several sympathetic historians and archivists, Harper has collected over three hundred letters dating from 1870 to 1912 that he has divided into four categories : the Tupper Years,18731893 " ( 1-169), " Foreign Mission Journal Entries" ( 171262 ), " The R. J.Willingham Letters, 1893-1912" ( 263384 ), and The last eleven Letters to Family and Friends. pages of text contain letters from those who were near the events surrounding the last weeks of her life. One helpful bibliographical feature is a notation following those letters that were printed in the Foreign Mission Journal. A brief introduction at the beginning of the book plus short introductions to each section help the reader establish context for each group of letters. The content of the primary sources is rich indeed and has implications for the study of sociology,anthropology,ethics, theology, missiology, crosscultural communications and other disciplines. In short, this collection of letters will be a valuable source of inspiration and scholarly study tor many years to come. While the editor makes clear that not allletters collected could not be included in this edition,perhaps a second edition could contain some of the material that Moon wrote prior to the Civil War. Her essay, for example, on " Grecian Literature" written for C. H. Toy at the Albemarle Female Institute , certainly would be interesting to readers as evidence of an obviously talented writer too much committed to a florid style in her student days. Also letters currently archived at the University of Virginia that she wrote before and during the Civil War would help complete a picture the development of Lottie Moon' s characten A few editorial additions,much easier to suggest than to execute, also might enhance a second edition. The index should be enlarged. For example,no entry for C. H. Toy appears in the index though he is referred to several times in the letters, even if not by name. And Ida Taylor,a missionary who greatly aided the ministry of Miss Moon, appears several times in letters and has no entry in the index. Also identification of several persons, events,and ideas in footnotes would increase the usefulness of the volume. In an autobiographical letter to a niece,for example, Moon refers to the influence of the views of Alexander Campbell,who was an important figure in many Baptist controversies in Virginia, but probably not a familiar figure to the average reader. 434).And when Moon writes, " A Boxer proclamation was put up on Mn Stephen' s door recently saying that his house was to be burned" ( 306), an editorial note concerning the Boxer Rebellion might be helpful. Finally, in letters concerning T. P. Crawford,an editorial intervention describing the 50 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Gospel Mission Movement would provide historical context and significance. Despite these limitations , this volume well executed, valuable to researchers as well as to general readers, and hints at tantalizing possibilities for expanded usefulness should another edition emerge in the future. Toni J. Nettles Southern Baptist Tbeological Seminary James R. Goff,Jr. Close Harmony:A History of Southern...