The Life and Influence of Jessie Penn-Lewis

Nineteenth-century England experienced a significant period of transition with cultural influences, reflected by Enlightenment thinking, shifting to include romantic tendencies. One of the growing evangelical developments that included the latter was the focus on the “deeper Christian life,” or the Keswick movement, which officially began in 1875. Jessie Penn-Lewis came to prominence in speaking, writing, and furthering this movement on an international basis. Her primary focus was on the impact of the cross in gaining victory over sin. Besides being a well-known woman teacher/preacher, she distinguished her mission further by putting in print her biblical rationale for her call to preach. The influence of her writing continues today, especially in the area of spiritual warfare.

Historical context

There were several religious movements, some coming to prominence, others weakening to obscurity, in nineteenth-century England. The Keswick movement, named after the town in which the first official conference was held in 1875,¹ grew into an international movement and still affects evangelical thinking today.²

Its major concern was to speak to the need of deepening one’s spiritual life. It was thoroughly evangelical in that it espoused the belief that the Christian life begins with conversion, it focused on the cross, it held the Bible as the final authority, and it asserted that a changed life results in Christian mission.³

Keswick was criticized by both the Reformed and Wesleyan movements,⁴ even though it drew from both theologies.⁵ Its distinctiveness lay in the belief that the power of sin could be repressed in one’s life by the work of the Holy Spirit: “Consecration did not terminate sin; it inaugurated the ongoing process” of living above sin.⁶ A critic writing in a Wesleyan/Holiness periodical made this distinction:

We talk much of the blessing—the blessing. The Keswickites talk much of the Blesser—the Blesser. They are seized by a Him, we by an it. They talk of the great Person who has come into their body and soul and life. We speak more of a thing which we received of Christ.⁷

Keswick was truly a diverse movement. Its teachers came from many churches as well as a wide variety of countries.⁸ As such, its theological boundaries were quite broad. Its many roots included the English Mildmay Conference begun by William Pennefather in 1856, the international Evangelical Alliance formed in 1846, and the Reveil movement of 1810 coming from Switzerland. Significant influences also came from the American Wesleyan/Holiness tradition, specifically from the speaking tours of William Boardman, Robert Pearsall Smith, Hannah Whitall Smith in England in the 1870s, and the Welsh Jessie Penn-Lewis.⁹

Penn-Lewis’s early life

Jessie Jones was born February 28, 1861, in Neath, South Wales. Her family background was immersed in the Calvinistic Methodist connection, and her home life encouraged learning of all kinds, especially spiritual. Her mother was a temperance worker, and, at a young age, Jessie took leadership of a temperance Junior Lodge.¹⁰

At nineteen, she married William Penn-Lewis, an auditor’s clerk in public service and a descendant of William Penn.¹¹ In 1882, two years into her marriage, she heard messages about the return of Christ and became concerned about her own spiritual state. In reading the Bible, she came to a place of belief and found peace. Due to her husband’s work, they moved to Richmond and here came under the teaching of Rev. Evan H. Hopkins,¹² vicar of Holy Trinity Church, who was considered the “chief intellectual formulator of the Keswick tradition down to the First World War.”¹³ Penn-Lewis described her response to hearing him for the first time “as an opening to my soul.”¹⁴ For the first time, she was confronted with whether she had “victory over sin,” but responded “that she had never heard of it.”¹⁵

Though busy in successful ministry with the Richmond Young Women’s Christian Association, Jessie Penn-Lewis continued to feel spiritually dissatisfied. She experienced fear when speaking publicly, and preparation for speaking was painful. Over a period of several years, she avidly waited on God, asking for power for ministry such as Peter, the apostle, had. She was affected by reading Andrew Murray’s Spirit of Christ¹⁶ and Madame Guyon’s Spiritual Torrents. In 1892, she came to face to face with these questions from God:

If I answer your cry, are you willing to be unpopular?

Why did I desire the fulness of the Spirit?

Would I be willing to have no great experience?¹⁷

Then came God’s unveiling to her of her consecrated self as filthy rags:

The unveiling was truly a horror to me, and brought me in deep abasement to the Blood of Christ for cleansing. Then came the still, small voice once more, and this time it was the one little word—“CRUCIFIED”! Crucified—what did it mean? I had not asked to be crucified, but to be filled. But now Romans 6:6–11 became a power to me, and I knew the meaning of “our old man was crucified with Him” . . . it pleased the Lord to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him—
I knew the Risen Lord.¹⁸

From this time, she knew liberty in speaking and experienced power in prayer, the Bible came alive, and Christ became real to her:

And through depth after depth of fellowship with the Christ in His death did the Lord lead me to see . . . that the Cross of Calvary was the very pivot of all things, and was the one great supply to the need of the child of God, in every aspect of his spiritual life. And I saw that after all, the Baptism of the Spirit, which I had thought was the goal of the Christian life, was really meant by the Lord to be but the beginning of a path which should lead the believer into the fellowship of the Cross, and through the death of the Cross, into union with the Ascended Lord in the bosom of the Father.¹⁹

Soon after her breakthrough, she was asked to give a message, about which she reported, “The Lord manifested His power and gave liberty. The minister was not pleased but it matters not.”²⁰ In the following four years, the yearly attendance at the YWCA classes increased from 6,900 to almost 13,000.²¹

Extensive ministry begins

At a time in evangelical circles when preaching on the cross primarily focused on initial forgiveness and salvation, Penn-Lewis’s message was a renewed emphasis on an old biblical truth: One did not need to struggle endlessly against sin. In facing one’s own brokenness before God at the cross (being crucified with Christ), one could, by faith, receive the power of the Holy Spirit for power over sin’s control and influence, and only then be able to live the Christ-life. The Spirit was a person to her, not just a force, and she actively sought daily guidance.²² As she explained to a guide at Niagara Falls on her North American tour, “a real Christian meant one with the life from heaven imparted to them—not one who tried to patch up the old life and struggled to make it climb up to heaven.”²³

She began preaching more publicly and started new YWCA branches, including in her hometown.²⁴ In 1895, Penn-Lewis was invited to give the message at the Mildmay Conference. This message outline was filled out and later published as the booklet The Pathway to Life in God. This small book was the beginning of Overcomer literature publishing and went before her into many countries where her ministry was requested.²⁵ It was translated into many languages, with 75,000 copies distributed. Thus began her voluminous writing career.²⁶

International ministry

Moving on from her direct YWCA ministry, Penn-Lewis began traveling internationally in 1896, first to Sweden. At this early stage of her speaking ministry, she addressed the need for women’s involvement in this new Pentecost.²⁷ From then through 1898, she traveled to speak in Russia, South Wales, Scotland, Belfast, Finland, and Denmark, sometimes more than once, and also throughout cities in England. A unique feature of some of these trips was the personal and teaching interaction with Scandinavian and Russian royalty.²⁸

According to a Keswick historian, Penn-Lewis first prayed publicly at Keswick in 1897 and first presented as a significant speaker in 1898. In 1899, her teaching was referred to as “her burning and impressive ministry” by the same historian.²⁹ When she spoke in 1901 at the Scottish Bridge of Allan Keswick Convention, there was some controversy in regard to her teaching a mixed company. In spite of the influence of the convener, W. D. Moffatt, she was restricted to teaching only in the women’s meetings. At the last moment, a plenary speaker failed to appear, and she was asked to step in. From then on, she was never limited again at the Scottish conventions. In subsequent years, male ministers attended the women’s meetings as well to hear her teach.³⁰

Throughout her life, Penn-Lewis struggled with significant lung problems, possibly tuberculosis. At times, she was restricted from travel and speaking for recuperation. She regarded these as opportunities to “let me know in a little degree what ‘filling up the afflictions of Christ for His Body’s sake’ means,” or as a “baptism of suffering.”³¹ Perhaps due to several near-death experiences, she had an urgency about her work, feeling that God still had ministry just for her, as she recovered each time. Some of her richest writing was done during and soon after these times, such as Thy Hidden Ones: Studies in the Song of Solomon and The Story of Job.³²

The beginning of the new century found her traveling and speaking in Canada and the United States: in Chicago at Moody Bible Institute by invitation of R. A. Torrey; in New York at Gospel Tabernacle under A. B. Simpson; at the Missionary Institute in Nyack, New York, as well as more private settings in upstate New York. When introducing her at Moody, Torrey called her “one of the most gifted speakers the world had known.”³³

Now turning east, Penn-Lewis traveled to India, focusing on speaking to and encouraging the Christian workers. The booklet “The Word of the Cross,” often referred to as “the Bible Booklet,” was published in and for India. It eventually was translated into one hundred languages and dialects and made its way around the world; it is still in print today.³⁴

The era of revival and warfare

Signs of coming revival were increasing, with ministers and laity gathering to pray in the United Kingdom as well as worldwide.³⁵ A group of Welsh ministers approached Penn-Lewis at the 1902 Keswick Convention about beginning a convention in Wales. She made contacts for additional support for the plan, and, under her coordination, the Llandrindod Wells Convention began in 1903. She was a regular platform speaker.³⁶

In the fall of 1904, revival broke out in Wales. The revivals were often spontaneous without a speaker, exhibiting renewed worship and singing, displaying confession, and effecting noted changes in the local social context.³⁷ Penn-Lewis provided spiritual mentoring to many leaders, including Evan Roberts, when she heard of his stresses and subsequent excesses.³⁸ When her reports were published as The Awakening in Wales, worldwide attention was drawn to the movement. Even after the peak of the Wales revival was over in 1905, Penn-Lewis continued to write on the events happening in other countries as people sent in news.³⁹

Penn-Lewis was in a unique position to chronicle the events as they happened because she had many Welsh connections and enjoyed the trust of the leaders involved. In November 1904, she began writing weekly revival reports, which were printed in The Life of Faith, the Keswick periodical. She covered events around the country with impartiality and took care to include all forms of the revival’s manifestations. Penn-Lewis received firsthand accounts from parishioners and ministers, some sharing their own spiritual struggles with her.⁴⁰

In order to reinforce the positive results of the revivals, Penn-Lewis now involved herself in building a national Keswick connection with more local yearly conferences accessible to those needing further spiritual teaching.⁴¹ As more questions occurred following revival with regard to the “tongues” and “signs and wonders” movement, the public, which had received so much spiritual guidance from her in the past, now urged her assessment of the current situation.⁴²

Initially, Penn-Lewis’s focus was to guide and warn Christians to be discerning, at the same time desiring to retain unity among various perspectives. She understood that anything that breaks the bonds of Christian unity could be questionable as to its spiritual origin. Still, since she did see the potential for tongues as a manifestation of the Spirit, some evangelicals were dissatisfied with her position.⁴³ At the same time, Penn-Lewis was becoming more aware of criticisms expressed by missionaries about the movement. As one who had always promoted missions and worked avidly for the spiritual health of Christian workers, this bias carried significant weight for her.⁴⁴

As part of her writing responsibilities in The Christian, Penn-Lewis tackled this topic by writing a series of articles in 1908 entitled “An Hour of Peril.” Initially, she stated that

There is not any doubt but that there is a true work of the Spirit of God in the Movement, and souls will be saved wherever the Gospel is proclaimed. But the widespread testimony to a concurrent stream of a working of demons, producing experiences in the body which are frequently not even a “counterfeit,” but a parody of the true work of the Holy Spirit, together with erroneous teachings centered primarily around the experience of physical manifestations, shows that there is some course of action, or line of teaching in the Movement, that lends itself too easily to counterfeit. Briefly, the line between the “true” and the “counterfeit” is too fine for safety, at a time when the evil supernatural is so actively at work in the world around.⁴⁵

She began to speak more strongly against the movement, particularly the “passivity” of its followers.⁴⁶ Writing in The Overcomer, Penn-Lewis reached the conclusion that “. . . evil spirits can, and do, find entry to the bodies or minds of true children of God, and that the door has been peculiarly opened to them through the medium of ‘Tongues.’ . . .”⁴⁷

Now she was also criticized by the Pentecostal movement. Dr. F. B. Meyer was a supporter throughout, remarking that “the letters in The Christian are of high value just now. There is nothing else to guide these perplexed souls.”⁴⁸

Contributing to the controversy, War on the Saints, the book on which Penn-Lewis and Evan Roberts collaborated, was published in 1912 as “a testimony against the outbreak of demons upon the spiritual Church, which followed the outpouring of the Spirit of God in Wales.”⁴⁹ In addition to a concern that the writers blamed Satan for activities in the unconscious, theologians disagreed with the position that the believer could be possessed by a demon.⁵⁰The Overcomer, edited by Penn-Lewis, was used by the authors to defend the book as “a true and precise Text-Book, exposing the tactics of the demon hosts, with the way of deliverance for those who had been entangled in their snares.”⁵¹

With all the ongoing controversy, detractors criticized Penn-Lewis’s teachings as overly subjective. Her prominence as a woman speaker in the Keswick movement also came under criticism, and thus she was given less and less opportunity to speak. In 1909, she resigned from leadership in Keswick’s women’s meetings and in 1911 from the Llandrindod Wells Convention.⁵² In writing about this, Penn-Lewis says, “we parted, they giving unto me ‘the right hands of fellowship,’ that I ‘should go unto the’ saints with the warfare message,” and “they unto the saints, who needed other aspects of truth.”⁵³ Thus, a new phase in her ministry to the world began, including opportunities for leadership, speaking and writing.

The Overcomer years

Founded in 1908 by Penn-Lewis and Evan Roberts, The Overcomer was clearly earmarked for the benefit of Christian workers. Each issue began with a personal letter from Penn-Lewis and contained “Overcomer” teaching, responses to questions from subscribers, a prayer watch, and notice of the monthly meetings for workers led by Penn-Lewis at Eccleston Hall in London. The response to the monthly periodical was positive and reached Europe, Central and South Africa, North and South America, and China. There were Italian and French editions as well.⁵⁴

While always emphasizing that “the Cross is the touchstone of faith”—the subtitle of the magazine—the founders turned more attention to articles about tribulation and the end of the age.⁵⁵ This was not an unusual perspective as England faced the beginnings of the First World War. They also now had a regular platform to respond to their critics on the issues of the “tongues” movement and spiritual warfare. The Overcomer also played an important role in maintaining communication within the Keswick network as well as the worldwide movement.⁵⁶

Along with the teaching ministry of The Overcomer, Penn-Lewis organized a new “open” conference in 1912, the Matlock Conference, which ran for three years. Here, there was no set program or leader, though each had a key speaker. Attendees contributed in prayer, singing, and giving testimonies as led. Special-interest meetings were practical and the teatime sessions provided opportunities for questions and answers. Another unique feature was the Soul Clinic or Student Class. Here, less mature workers received personal help with their spiritual struggles.⁵⁷

By the time the founders closed The Overcomer in 1914, Penn-Lewis wrote that the magazine had completed its goals. Initially, its mission was to spread the teaching of the “experimental pathway of death with Christ” and “the life joined in spirit with Christ in God and the war in the heavenlies.”⁵⁸ In 1913, with the printing of Roberts’s “Translation Message” and further development of this idea “concerning experiential preparation for the imminent Coming of the Lord,” the magazine had completed its course.⁵⁹ The burden of work as Penn-Lewis maintained personal correspondence with readers, her failing health, and the beginning of the war were also factors in the timing of its end.⁶⁰ When it restarted in 1920 without Roberts, it was a free quarterly magazine.⁶¹ Now its goals were to “challenge spiritual apostasy, proclaim the Cross, and remind believers of the return of Christ.”⁶²

Last years

During the war years, Penn-Lewis continued to print an occasional paper, and 45,000 books and booklets were sent out with special permission of the censor’s office.⁶³ She also became involved in moral crusades, such as recognizing conscientious objectors and standing against providing alcohol to new military recruits, as well as becoming vocal in regard to issues of apostasy.⁶⁴ In 1917, a summary of her book The Warfare with Satan was included in volume 10 of the influential publication The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth.⁶⁵ This solidified the impact of her teaching on spiritual warfare in the fundamentalism and modernism debate of the time.

From Penn-Lewis’s early ministry, she had a confident theology of the important part women were to play in the movement of the Spirit. In 1896, she preached in Sweden about “handmaidens prophesying,”⁶⁶ and in 1906 spoke out publicly when she believed the Keswick trustees were trying to marginalize and limit her ministry more and more due to her gender:

It will be of very grave importance to the whole Church of Christ if Keswick officially sets its face against women speaking to audiences when, at this time, God is using women in a very marked way. The whole current of life moving through the spiritual Church is towards clear and open ground for women in the work of God. I have been invited to take a service in one of the chapels and I have no alternative but to accept. I cannot stay in line without a sacrifice of principle and a disobedience to God. The Lord has set the seal of blessing on my messages at Keswick, where many have come up to receive the message not the messenger. Out of loyalty, I must state the people’s wishes.⁶⁷

In 1919, she joined the company of other women⁶⁸ who had published a defense of their right before God to preach. Her book The Magna Carta of Christian Women drew from the work of both Catherine Booth and Katharine Bushnell while also connecting with her lifelong message of the priority of the cross:

How can the Church, which is the Body of Christ, reach its full stature if it breaks the laws of the Spirit and denies one half of the Church the right to speak in the assembly and subjects itself to man-made ordinances, when Jesus took these to the Atoning Cross and slew their force, just as He slew racial laws and all other distinctions and made all one in Christ Jesus—one in worship, work, and witness.⁶⁹

Through her last years, Penn-Lewis carried on her writing life with The Overcomer and other publications. She began “Overcomer” conferences in Swanwick and other locations, continuing to preach in these settings as well as in her monthly Christian Worker meetings. These were “essentially her conferences. . . . she was the mainstay of them.”⁷⁰

The last several years were challenging for Penn-Lewis. Her declining health meant men were chosen to carry more responsibility for The Overcomer, and they took the journal in a different direction than the one she had charted.⁷¹ The death of her husband of forty-five years, who had always supported her ministry, and his diminishing pension, left her in more difficult times. Due to the generosity of the owners of the hall in which Penn-Lewis’s monthly meetings were held, the building was passed over to her. Here she lived in an apartment, continuing to carry on writing and correspondence with workers around the globe. As her health permitted, she made speaking trips to Scandinavia and the Continent.⁷² In July 1927, Penn-Lewis gave the last day’s message at the eighth Swanwick conference of her founding. Eighteen days prior to her death, she traveled to the Llandrindod Wells Jubilee Convention in Wales, which she had also been so instrumental in forming, where she spoke in nine or ten meetings. One of her last preaching themes was on the necessity of removing schisms from the Body of Christ.⁷³ Six days before her death, in spite of increasing weakness, she was still looking forward, having planned the keynote speech for her monthly worker’s meeting and prepared material for the next issue of The Overcomer.⁷⁴

Jessie Penn-Lewis died on August 15, 1927. Her funeral service was led by Rev. Chilvers of Spurgeon’s Tabernacle. He closed his remarks thusly:

All that she received she got from this blessed Book, and the Book is ours. The source of her strength is the source of our strength. The source of her power, the fountain of her light, is our source and fountain today. . . . what a power she was! How she flamed for God! Has she flamed out? No, the flame was so mighty for God that He has delivered it from the weak vessel of clay that it might flame to its uttermost in His Presence for ever.⁷⁵

The influence of Jessie Penn-Lewis

In an age in which women did not have the opportunities of the present, Penn-Lewis shone as an example of what God can do, regardless of human limitations. A man, unfriendly to the idea of women’s ministry, heard her speak and then remarked to her, “I would not have believed it possible, had I not seen it, that God would use a woman like that.” She responded, “God never does use a woman like that, or a man either! God only uses the new creation.”⁷⁶ This typified how she viewed her identity: firstly and lastly, God’s servant.

Penn-Lewis would most likely desire to be remembered first for her emphasis on the priority of the cross: “‘Looking unto Jesus’ is the way of deliverance at every stage of the spiritual life.
. . . [W]e shall discover ever deeper depths of our need, and find Calvary again and again the place of life.”⁷⁷ Regardless of the issue to which she was responding, her bottom-line concern was its impact on the biblical message of being crucified with Christ and rising to live in the power of the living God.

With an extensive speaking and writing ministry, she reached people with this message around the world. She was supported in the value of her message by more well-known authors of her day, including Andrew Murray, Oswald Chambers, and F. B. Meyer.⁷⁸ The influence of her message continued in the writings of Watchman Nee and F. J. Huegel.⁷⁹ Some of her significant writing is still in print today.

One of her primary concerns was building up Christian workers in whatever capacity they ministered. Through her travels and in personal correspondence, she encouraged and mentored people who struggled with discouragement and burnout. Her conferences and monthly meetings were geared toward this audience. Her opportunities to preach at centers of Christian education in North America were especially satisfying, as she was able to influence students and faculty who would carry on the message of the cross.

Early on in Penn-Lewis’s ministry at the Richmond YWCA, she made it a priority to pray for young women to be sent out as missionaries.⁸⁰ Her travels internationally gave her a concern for missions, with Russia having a special place in her heart.⁸¹ Because of her unique position to chronicle the revival in Wales, she also had further opportunity to promote missions to revitalized areas in other parts of the world. “The Bible Booklet,” whose distribution spanned the globe, certainly was an aid in spreading the gospel.

In relating to the newly burgeoning Pentecostalism, Penn-Lewis was looked to as an interpreter of the movement. While desiring to promote a moderate view among Christians, she discovered that the circumstances in many countries made this increasingly difficult. With some passage of time and reflection by the movement, Penn-Lewis might have had more influence in deterring the schisms that developed.

Though her position on women’s ministry is less well known today, she took some courageous stands in this area. Through her example, we can see that the current discussion of women having responsibilities and gifts to preach and teach is not a new one. Ironically, many of the groups she spoke to then would no longer welcome her ministry today.⁸²

Penn-Lewis may be most known in today’s evangelical circles for her work and writing on spiritual warfare. Those who accept her theological perspective can easily access War on the Saints.⁸³ Those who have problems with her emphasis still recognize that she has contributed significantly to the field of practical spirituality.⁸⁴ While the original work had seven editions, current reprints of her work have been abridged by the Overcomer Literature Trust, which eliminated the most controversial elements of the work, namely, that believers can be demon-possessed, that they should wage warfare against demonic powers in order to promote revival or the second coming, and certain teaching regarding baptism of the Spirit.⁸⁵

In conclusion, Penn-Lewis’s personal reality of finding the cross sufficient for power over sin and power for service is the emphasis that, through the work of the Holy Spirit, should last.

Notes

1. David Bebbington, Holiness in Nineteenth-Century England: The 1998 Didsbury Lectures (Cumbria: Paternoster, 2000), 73.
2. David Bundy, “Keswick and the Experience of Evangelical Piety,” in Modern Christian Revivals, ed. Edith L. Blumhofer and Randall Balmer (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 118.
3. Bebbington, Holiness in Nineteenth-Century England, 36–40, 77.
4. Bebbington, Holiness in Nineteenth-Century England, 84.
5. Bebbington, Holiness in Nineteenth-Century England, 73.
6. Bebbington, Holiness in Nineteenth-Century England, 83.
7. J. B. Culpepper, “The Keswick Movement,” Pentecostal Herald, 11:3 (January 23, 1899): 6, quoted in Bundy, “Keswick and the Experience of Evangelical Piety,” 132.
8. J. B. Figgis, Keswick from Within (London: Marshall Brothers, 1914; repr. New York: Garland, 1985), 69.
9. Bundy, “Keswick and the Experience of Evangelical Piety,” 119–27.
10. Mary N. Garrard and Jessie Penn-Lewis, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir (London: The Overcomer Book Room, 1931), 1–4.
11. Brynmor Pierce Jones, The Trials and Triumphs of Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis (North Brunswick, NJ: Bridge-Logos, 1997), 7.
12. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 6–8.
13. Bebbington, Holiness in Nineteenth-Century England, 77.
14. Jessie Penn-Lewis, The Leading of the Lord: A Spiritual Biography (Dorset, England: The Overcomer Literature Trust, 1903), 4.
15. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 8.
16. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 14–15.
17. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 24–25.
18. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 25.
19. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 28–29.
20. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 29.
21. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 37.
22. J. C. Metcalfe, Molded by the Cross (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1997; repr. of In the Mould of the Cross (Dorset, England: The Overcomer Literature Trust, n.d.), 76.
23. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 183.
24. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 38.
25. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 55.
26. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 61.
27. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 49.
28. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, passim.
29. Figgis, Keswick from Within, 130, 139.
30. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 194–96.
31. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 170.
32. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 67.
33. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 181–89.
34. Metcalfe, Molded by the Cross, 99–103
35. Jessie Penn-Lewis, The Awakening in Wales, rev. ed. (Dorset, England: The Overcomer Literature Trust, 1905, repr. Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 2002), 44.
36. J. C. Pollock, The Keswick Story (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1964) 121–22.
37. Pollock, The Keswick Story, 123.
38. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 121.
39. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 131.
40. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 119–27.
41. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 145.
42. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 169.
43. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 169.
44. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 186, 189.
45. Jessie Penn-Lewis, “Spiritual Perils of Today,” The Overcomer (January 1920): 8. Italics added.
46. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 194.
47. Jessie Penn-Lewis, The Overcomer (January 1910): 9.
48. Metcalfe, Molded by the Cross, 108–09.
49. Jessie Penn-Lewis, “An Autobiographical Sketch,” The Overcomer (December 1914): 184.
50. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 205.
51. Jessie Penn-Lewis, “War on the Saints,” The Overcomer (December 1914): 191.
52. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 200–02.
53. Jessie Penn-Lewis, “An Autobiographical Sketch,” 185.
54. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 213.
55. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 215.
56. Bundy, “Keswick and the Experience of Evangelical Piety,” 129.
57. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 232–33.
58. Jessie Penn-Lewis, “The Finished Testimony,” The Overcomer (December 1914): 174.
59. Penn-Lewis, “The Finished Testimony,” 174.
60. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 216.
61. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 272.
62. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 291.
63. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 264–65.
64. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 255.
65. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 230.
66. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 73–74.
67. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 197.
68. Catherine Booth (Female Ministry, 1859); Katharine Bushnell (Women’s Bible Correspondence Class lessons, 1906–1914, reprinted as God’s Word to Women); Phoebe Palmer (The Promise of the Father, 1859); Frances Willard (Woman in the Pulpit, 1889).
69. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 263–65.
70. Metcalfe, In the Mould of the Cross, 80.
71. Metcalfe, In the Mould of the Cross, 81.
72. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 287–97.
73. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 299–301.
74. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 301.
75. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 305–06.
76. Metcalfe, Molded by the Cross, 9.
77. Jessie Penn-Lewis, The Cross of Calvary and Its Message (Dorset, England: The Overcomer Literature Trust, n.d.), 40–41.
78. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 201.
79. Bone of His Bone by F. J. Huegel; The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee.
80. Garrard, Mrs. Penn-Lewis: A Memoir, 46.
81. Jones, Trials and Triumphs, 137.
82. See www.apostasy.com. This web site makes available the complete unabridged 1912 edition of War on the Saints, noting its significance as the best material available on spiritual warfare. The site includes an extended disclaimer as to the validity of its author, as a woman, to teach biblical truth. Because Jessie Penn-Lewis is now dead and therefore would have some difficulty exerting authority over men, her work is presented with this caution. The site author wistfully expresses hope that Evan Roberts as collaborator really contributed much more content.
83. Several web sites make the book available online.
84. Leanne Payne, Restoring the Christian Soul: Overcoming Barriers to Completion in Christ through Healing Prayer (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1996), 213–16.
85. Jessie Penn-Lewis in collaboration with Evan Roberts, War on the Saints, abridged ed. (Dorset, England: The Overcomer Literature Trust, n.d.), vii.