(ABOVE: Cover of Hamilton’s autobiography)

LISTENING TO A RECORDING of Schubert’s Symphony #8, the “Unfinished,” Chang Chi-jen fell in love with Western music. In the 1950s, Taiwan offered few opportunities for him to follow his interest. Missionary Pauline Hamilton came to his rescue. “She had a large record collection, which she placed at my disposal. She bought a piano, put it in the church and gave me a key so I could practice. She found me a teacher and had her sister send orchestral scores from the States. Without her help I might never have been able to sustain my early interest in music.” Chang went on to become Maestro Chang Chi-jen, conductor of the Taiwan Symphony Orchestra and a professor of music.

Pauline Hamilton kept Chang’s dream alive, but as a young woman had almost thrown away her own dreams. At nine she rejected Christ with defiance. She became a rebel who smoked, drank, and used drugs. Medical school expelled her for infractions. When she developed an aggressive form of tuberculosis, her boyfriend dumped her, telling her unsympathetically that she was as good as dead. As if to increase her anguish, he eloped with her best friend. Hamilton paced night after night. She took enough sleeping pills to kill herself but they seemed only to hype her up. Finally, she determined to drive off a cliff where several accidents had already occurred. Leaving no suicide note she accelerated her sister’s car toward a rendezvous with death. A tire blew out.

Weeping, she interpreted the event as God’s loving intervention. “God, you win,” she said, crouching to change the tire. “I've made an awful mess with my life. Lord if you can do anything with this mess, here I am. You take over.” A passerby helped her with the tire and she drove home an altered person.

Hamilton spent that entire night searching the Scriptures and latching onto promises and instructions she felt were meant for her. Then she slept for two and a half days. Her tuberculosis vanished. By faith she was able to return to school for higher education despite new health problems and no income. She obtained a position teaching physiology at prestigious Smith College. Then, to her surprise, God asked her to discard her achievements and become a missionary to China. Unknown to Hamilton, her parents had dedicated her to the mission field before her birth.

To her chagrin, Hamilton was not asked to teach at the university level in some historic Chinese institution, but rather was assigned to instruct missionary children without even a textbook to work from. The letdown was profound and humiliating. Supporters in the United States could not understand why she would lower herself to it. Nevertheless she learned obedience and to consider the needs of others.

In 1950, the Communist takeover of mainland China forced her to leave. She settled in Taiwan among Chinese expatriates. Again and again God worked in miraculous ways. Once she was robbed of all her personal money and of a large sum designated to fund an evangelism conference. Right on time God replaced every cent needed, in part from a tax refund she had not known the IRS owed her from a decade earlier. Her housekeeper (who had stolen the money) seized a meat cleaver one night and tried to kill Hamilton, but the missionary held the strong girl at bay and preached to her, praying silently for help. Just as Hamilton’s strength was about to fail, her dog managed to escape its cage and bite the housekeeper in a leg. Eventually the housekeeper married, had children, confessed her theft, accepted Christ, and repaid the stolen money with compound interest.

Taiwanese officials asked Hamilton to teach troubled youth. She agreed to their request with the stipulations that she receive no salary and be allowed to share the Bible with her students. Her influence on gang members was extraordinary. She casually interposed herself one night to prevent a gang fight and within an hour had the gang members talking and eating together at her home. Her dealings with Chang show to what lengths she would go to assist other young people.

While in Taiwan, she was in a serious bike accident. Later she developed cancer. In both instances, she “chatted the gospel” with nurses and other patients. In 1978 Hamilton returned to the United States where she was in demand as a speaker. During those years, she wrote To a Different Drum, recounting the story of God’s dealings with her. On this morning, Saturday, 9 April 1988, she spoke to a large university group. Afterward she asked to see Yellowstone National Park. Tired that evening, she laid her head back in the car and drifted into eternal sleep.

—Dan Graves