The story of Helen Cadbury, the shy girl from the Chocolate Empire who founded the Pocket Testament League

During the summer months of the 1960s, my mother would take me and my sister Ruth to a huge house in Moseley, Birmingham, called "Tennessee", to hear a succession of missionary speakers.

Cadbury World

We would be warmly greeted at the front gate each time by an elderly lady called Mrs. Helen Alexander Dixon who was supported by a walking stick and always had a huge smile for us. We would then make our way through the spacious grounds to a building that she had provided for people to hear the many speakers from around the world.

It wasn't until I became a journalist in 1968 with Billy Graham's London-based newspaper, The Christian that I discovered who this lady was.

In what turned out to be her last-ever interview before she died on March 1, 1969, she revealed to me that her maiden name was Helen Cadbury and she told me that she had been born into a wealthy Christian family in late nineteenth century England.

"My grandfather, John Cadbury, and great uncle, Benjamin Cadbury, had founded Cadbury, the cocoa and chocolates company in Birmingham," she said. "My father, Richard Cadbury, and uncle, George Cadbury, relocated our family's expanding factory to a garden and recreational setting in Bournville, on the outskirts of Birmingham. My mother was always loving and understanding and my father was very kind and considerate."

Moseley Hall where Helen was raised as a child

She said that she was raised in a family of eight children, three older brothers and two older sisters and they lived in Moseley Hall, a magnificent mansion that her father enjoyed sharing with others.

He would hold a Sunday school, Bible classes, Mothers' meetings and Christian workers of every denomination were frequent and welcome guests at Moseley Hall.

"The whole household would meet daily before breakfast for ten minutes of Bible reading and prayer," she recalled. "When I was twelve years old, I went with my father one Sunday evening to a gospel meeting at the mission hall that he had built in one of the slum districts of Birmingham. I sat at the back of the hall, watching the mission members as they brought in people from the neighborhood, all of them looking poor and hungry, many affected by alcohol. I was deeply affected by what I saw that night."

Helen realized that some of the mission people had once been just like the hopeless people whom they brought to the meeting; and yet they were now changed and were singing hymns with real joy and conviction.

"Something had dramatically changed their lives and I knew it was the power of God," she said. "The preacher finished his address and then asked all those who wished to publicly confess that they were putting their faith in Jesus Christ to stand up. Having been brought up by devoutly Christian parents, I understood that that, in itself, did not make me a Christian."

Helen said that she knew that Jesus Christ had died on the cross so that she might have eternal life and she now had to respond personally to what He had done for her.

"So I stood up, along with several other people, and then the preacher asked us to go to a small room behind the pulpit, where mission members would pray with us. Hesitantly, I went forward, feeling very alone and very young. There in the room was my father, talking with one of the men who had stood up in the hall. After he had prayed with him, he came over to me at once with a tender smile on his face and a joyful light in his eyes. Together we knelt by the hard mission hail chairs as I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my heart.

"The heavy burden was gone and I knew that I could now confess myself as a Christian. From that day, I had a great purpose in life. I was a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ now and my longing was to bring others to Him to receive the gift of everlasting life that He wanted to bestow."

Mrs. Alexander Dixon then revealed that as a 13-year-old girl in 1893 she was shy about sharing her faith and had found that using Scripture was a way of bringing her friends to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

"So along with a few friends, I started a club where members promised to read some part of the Bible daily, as well as carry a small New Testament in our pockets," she continued. "Our emphasis was that of Read, Carry, and Share."

Charles Alexander, her first husband

In 1904, Helen married evangelist Charles Alexander, who officially organized the League with Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman in Philadelphia, PA in March 1908. Alexander had been associated with the prominent evangelist Dwight L. Moody. His experience in worldwide evangelism gave huge impetus to the League.

In 1914, The Pocket Testament League opened an office in London, and began sharing Gospels as part of its WWI outreach. In October, a campaign gave out 400,000 New Testaments to soldiers on Salisbury Plain.

During the bleak period of the 1930's known as the Great Depression, members of the League shared Gospels through the Civilian Conservation Corps in the South and throughout New England. The Corps was a government-organized effort to put jobless men to work on public projects.

Throughout its history, over 100 million pocket-sized Gospels have been shared by its members in every part of the globe.

Billy Graham was a great encouragement to the League, commenting that "I am completely sold on the work of The Pocket Testament League, and continue to pray for those associated with it."

Charles Alexander died in 1920 at "Tennessee," the house he lived in with Helen, and she married Dr. Amsji C. Dixon in 1924 and lived with him in the United States until his death, when she then moved back to Birmingham.

And that's where I first came in. I called my story, "The First Lady of Tennessee", and she dedicated the rest of her life there to encouraging people to become involved in world missions. And what an example she gave!

For more information on the Pocket Testament League, go to: www.pocketpower.org.