Lilias Trotter

Isabella Lilias Trotter was born on July 14, 1853, in London, England, into a wealthy and cultured family. Her father, Alexander Trotter, was a successful stockbroker, and the family was devout. They lived in a fine house in the fashionable district of Marylebone. Lilias was a sensitive and gifted child, with a deep love of nature and art. She studied painting and drawing, and she showed great talent. As a young woman, she was one of the best of the English amateur painters. She had a flair for watercolor and a feeling for color and light.

In 1876, while traveling in Venice with her mother, she met the art critic John Ruskin. He saw her paintings and was struck by her gift. He took her as a pupil and said that she could become one of the finest painters of her time. He urged her to give her life to art. She was thrilled. She studied under him and developed her skills. She also was drawn to the cause of Christ. At the same time, she was active in the Young Women's Christian Association, and she worked among the poor women of London. Her faith was deepening, and she was coming under the influence of the holiness movement.

She faced a choice. In 1879, she went to Ruskin and asked his advice. He was disappointed to hear that she would not give herself to painting. He told her that she was putting her talent to waste. She said that she could not live for the pursuit of art when the need of the world was so great. She turned her back on the career that was open to her. Ruskin was angry and said that she had thrown away a great talent. She said later that she had seen the glory of Christ and that all else faded beside it.

In 1888, she felt called to go to North Africa, to the Muslim world. She was thirty-five. She had heard of the needs of the people of Algeria, who had almost no Christian witness. She applied to a mission society, but they turned her down because of her poor health. She had a heart condition, and the doctors thought that she could not stand the climate. She decided to go on her own, with two friends, and they paid their own way. They sailed for Algiers in the spring of 1888 and began their work in the Muslim quarter of the city.

They found a hard field. The Muslims were suspicious of the foreign women, and the work progressed very slowly. They learned Arabic, and they visited the homes of the women. They opened a Bible class for girls, and they distributed Scriptures and tracts. They traveled to the villages and oases of the interior and made contact with the Berber tribes. In 1893, they formed the Algiers Mission Band, which later became part of the North Africa Mission, and then of the Arab World Ministries. The band grew to a group of about thirty workers.

She continued to draw and paint, for her own pleasure and for the work. She made small paintings of the desert and of the flowers of Algeria, which she used to illustrate her books. She wrote a number of works, among them Parables of the Cross, in 1895, and Parables of the Christ Life, in 1911. They were short studies of the truths of the gospel, drawn from nature. She wrote about the way that a seed must die to bear fruit and about the beauty of surrender. Her style was simple and clear and full of delight. She also wrote a book on the Muslim world, The Way of the Sevenfold Secret.

She lived most of her life in poor health. She suffered from the effects of her weak heart and was often confined to bed. In her last years, she was an invalid but kept working. She died on August 27, 1928, in Algiers, at the age of seventy-five. She spent forty years in North Africa. Few Muslims were converted in her lifetime, but she laid the groundwork. Her life shows the cost of a surrender and the beauty of a talent offered to God.