Hannah Whitall Smith: The Quaker Who Wrote About Happiness
Drawn from the teaching of Professor Gary S. Maxey · 1 min read
Professor Gary Maxey lists Hannah Whitall Smith among his holiness heroes. She wrote one of the most widely read Christian books of the nineteenth century.
Beginnings
Hannah Whitall was born on 7 February 1832 in Philadelphia and raised as a Quaker. She grew up with silent worship and inner guidance. In 1851, she married Robert Pearsall Smith. In the 1850s, they went through an evangelical conversion that took them beyond conventional Quaker life.
Grief and a deeper faith
In 1857, her five-year-old daughter Nellie died. Historians describe this as a turning point in her faith. During the years the family lived in New Jersey, she read William Boardman's The Higher Christian Life, which shaped her thinking about sanctification.
A widely read book
In 1875, she published The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life. It sold more than two million copies in her lifetime. It spoke plainly about surrender and trust. She also helped found the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in 1874, and she served in its evangelistic work.
Years in England
The family settled permanently in England in 1888. Her husband died in 1898. Of her seven children, three lived to adulthood. She died on 1 May 1911, at the age of 79.
Why Professor Maxey names her
She belongs to a long line of writers who taught that a believer could rest in God and be cleansed. Historians connect the Smiths with the wider Higher Life movement, which prepared the way for the Keswick Convention.
What she gives us
Her title is a reminder. Professor Maxey insists that the Highway of Holiness is a road of joy. Hannah Smith lived through terrible grief and still wrote about happiness. Today, pick one worry and hand it to God in plain words.
Drawn from the teaching of Professor Gary S. Maxey and public biographical sources. Sources: Wikipedia, "Hannah Whitall Smith."
