Available now for Purchase!
facsimile edition of
Parables of the Christ-life
by I. Lilias Trotter
“These are the things which, small as they are in this world’s count,
have the very pulse of eternity beating through them.”
~ Parables of the Christ-life ~
In the preface to A Passion for the Impossible, Miriam Huffman Rockness wrote “A passion grew in me to find everything written by or about Lilias Trotter and then to make these works known to others.” In the introduction of the same book, David Lundy – past International Director of Arab World Ministries – wrote “My most treasured possessions are copies of Parables of the Cross and Parables of the Christ-life, by Lilias Trotter. Likewise, these are two of Miriam’s favorites – two that she most desired to have reissued for today’s readers.
A facsimile edition of Parables of the Cross was published by Oxvision in 2015. We are delighted to now announce a facsimile edition of Parables of the Christ-life. While both of the Parable books are available in other editions, the publications by Oxvision are the only facsimile editions in print. Reproduced from first editions, they are faithful in presentation of both text and colorplates. We now get to read them and experience them just as Lilias intended when she first wrote and published them. A dream come true for many!
The foreward, written by Richard J. Foster, is an added bonus to this Trotter classic. Foster’s insights alone are worth the purchase of the book. Below, we share some excerpts – an inside glimpse for our blog readers. We hope his words about Lilias’ timeless truths and exquisite paintings will entice you to order Parables of the Christ-life.
from the
Foreward to
Parables of the Christ-life by Lilias Trotter
— Richard J. Foster
“The Devotional Masters teach us to read two books: the Bible and ‘the book of nature.’ Well, not just to read them, but also to soak in them until they penetrate deep into the subterranean chambers of our heart and mind and soul. One person who has done this in a remarkable way is the Victorian artist and Anglican missionary Lilias Trotter (1853-1928) . . .
In 1899 Lilias’s love of both Scripture and nature came together uniquely in the book . . . Parables of the Christ-life. I particularly want to lift up three things about this slender volume.
First, note the exquisite detail in the watercolors . . . I am stunned by Lilias’s careful attention to the smallest seedling, the tiniest blossom . . .
What do Lilias Trotter’s watercolors teach us? They teach us the importance of beauty for its own sake. They teach us the value of attentiveness. They teach us the joy of observing the natural world quietly, patiently, lovingly. They teach us to go into the fields ourselves and fall down on our knees and join in the praise songs of Mountain Bluebird and grasshopper and Indian Paintbrush . . .
Second, I hope you will give careful attention to Lilias Trotter’s words . . . note how her words have a way of drawing us higher up and deeper in . . . note how they carry in them a gentle mystical element — Christian to the core, but perhaps also breathing a hint of the Sufi wisdom she so admired . . . notice how saturated her writings are with biblical images and phrases. It isn’t so much that she quotes the Bible. It is more like Scripture is in the very air she breathes . . .The pace and wisdom of her prose feels gospel . . .
Third, I want to underscore Lilias Trotter’s keen focus upon “the Christ-life.” In an earlier book she had concentrated her thoughts on the Cross of Christ, but here she is giving sustained attention on how the very ‘life’ of Jesus Christ can be ours . . . Lilias writes penetratingly about this ‘Christ-life,” as she puts it . . .
Perhaps it would be fitting for me to close this foreword with Lilias Trotter’s own words which conclude her book: ‘Christ—Christ—Christ—filling all the horizon. Everything in us: everything to us: everything through us. ‘To live is Christ.’ –Amen.’”
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