The Work
Hinds' Feet on High Places was first published in 1955 by Christian Literature Crusade (CLC), where Hannah Hurnard had worked as a missionary since 1932. The novel is approximately 235 pages, divided into three sections corresponding to the three stages of Much-Afraid's journey: departure from the Valley of Humiliation, the long and painful journey through wilderness and desert, and the final ascent to and transformation in the High Places. It has sold over two million copies worldwide, been translated into over thirty languages, and has been particularly beloved among missionaries, devotional readers, and those experiencing chronic pain or disability. A sequel, Mountains of Spices (1977), continued the allegorical journey.
Hurnard explicitly acknowledged John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress as the model for the allegorical method. Like Bunyan, she peoples the journey with abstract virtues and vices given human form: Sorrow and Suffering become the Much-Afraid character's companions; Fear, Resentment, Bitterness, and Self-Pity are figures she encounters. Like Bunyan, she provides extensive allegorical footnotes connecting the narrative to specific biblical texts.
Biblical Engagement
Habakkuk 3:19 - 'The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places' - is the governing biblical text of the entire novel. The prophet Habakkuk, writing in the shadow of Babylonian invasion and the impending destruction of Jerusalem, arrives at this declaration of trust after passing through radical doubt and lament (Habakkuk 1:2-3: 'O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear!'). The journey of the novel is the journey from Habakkuk's lament to his doxology: from the Valley of Fear to the High Places of trust and peace.
The title echoes three parallel texts: Psalm 18:33 ('He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon my high places'), 2 Samuel 22:34 (identical language in David's psalm), and Habakkuk 3:19. The 'hinds' feet' are the surefootedness of the mountain deer - the ability to traverse treacherous terrain with perfect confidence. Spiritually, they represent the trust that enables the soul to traverse circumstances of extreme difficulty without losing its footing.
The Song of Solomon provides the relational framework. The 'Shepherd' figure - the divine guide who calls Much-Afraid to the High Places - speaks in the language of the Bridegroom in the Song: 'Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away' (Song of Solomon 2:10, 13). Hurnard reads the Song as an allegory of the soul's relationship with Christ - a reading with a long patristic and medieval pedigree (Origen, Bernard of Clairvaux) - and the journey to the High Places is at once a journey of discipleship and a journey of love.
The Psalms of lament - particularly Psalm 42 ('As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God'), Psalm 43 ('Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?'), and Psalm 88 (the darkest of the lament psalms) - provide the emotional and theological vocabulary for the valley and wilderness sections of the journey. Hurnard does not minimize suffering; she insists, following the Psalms, that lament is a legitimate form of prayer and that the journey to trust passes through, not around, doubt and pain.
Isaiah 40:31 - 'But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint' - provides the eschatological horizon: the renewal of strength that comes from waiting on God is the biblical promise the novel's journey enacts. The 'mounting up with wings as eagles' is the novel's image of the soul's final arrival in the High Places.
Author and Context
Hannah Hurnard (1905-1990) was born into a Quaker family in Colchester, England. She suffered from a severe stammer and was deeply shy; she describes her early life as dominated by fear. Her conversion to a living personal faith at a Quaker convention in 1925 transformed her, and she became a passionate speaker - the stammer eventually resolved - and missionary worker. She joined the Christian Literature Crusade and was posted to Palestine in 1932, where she worked among both Jewish and Arab communities in Mandate Palestine and later Israel.
The personal dimensions of the novel are explicit. Much-Afraid's speech defect, her extreme fearfulness, and her longing for the acceptance and love that the world has denied her are drawn from Hurnard's own early experience. The journey to the High Places is Hurnard's own spiritual autobiography: the story of how a fearful, stammering girl became a confident missionary. This autobiographical authenticity gives the book its extraordinary ability to speak to readers experiencing chronic pain, disability, loneliness, or fear.
In her later life, Hurnard's theology moved in a controversial direction: she embraced universalism and reincarnation, and her later works departed significantly from evangelical orthodoxy. Her publisher CLC eventually withdrew some later titles. This biographical complexity has given the novel an additional dimension: it was written at the height of orthodox evangelical faith and reflects that faith with integrity, whatever Hurnard's later developments.
Themes
The central theme is the transformation of fear into trust through the willingness to accept suffering as God's discipline rather than God's abandonment. Much-Afraid's companions - Sorrow and Suffering - are not enemies of the journey but its necessary instruments: the High Places are accessible only to those who have been willing to be 'hinds,' the surefootedness of the deer being available only to those who have learned through steep and rocky terrain.
A second theme is the renaming and transformation of identity. Much-Afraid, who is given a flower seed of love by the Shepherd at the beginning, arrives at the High Places as Grace-and-Glory - a name corresponding to the grace-identity she has received through the journey. The biblical pattern of renaming - Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, Saul to Paul - is the theological model for this transformation.
Reception
The novel was received enthusiastically in evangelical and missionary circles from publication. It became a standard gift at Christian conferences, women's Bible studies, and missionary send-offs. Its combination of lyrical prose, allegoric clarity, and personal emotional authenticity made it broadly accessible across denominational lines.
Legacy
Hinds' Feet on High Places established the genre of the devotional allegorical novel in the post-war evangelical tradition. Together with Pilgrim's Progress and The Chronicles of Narnia, it represents the major lineage of Protestant allegorical fiction. Its influence on Christian women's devotional literature has been particularly significant: it validated the integration of personal autobiography, biblical theology, and allegorical narrative in a way that opened space for subsequent writers.
Reading Alongside Scripture
Readers should study Habakkuk 1-3 (lament and trust in the face of catastrophe), Psalm 18:29-36 (the hind's feet passage in David's psalm), Psalm 42-43 (the soul's longing for God in the valley of despair), Song of Solomon 2:8-17 (the Bridegroom's call), and Isaiah 40:27-31 (the renewal of strength through waiting on God).
Further Reading
- Hannah Hurnard, Wayfarer in the Land (1953) - Hurnard's account of her missionary work in Palestine and Israel, providing the biographical context for the novel. - David L. Jeffrey, ed., A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature (1992) - for the tradition of biblical allegory in which the novel stands. - John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) - the primary literary model, essential for understanding Hurnard's allegorical method.