Hannah More: Lessons from the Educator and Abolitionist
Hannah More was one of Britain’s most influential Christian women—a writer, reformer of society, poet and playwright, educator, abolitionist, and lifelong Anglican whose faith shaped both devotion and public action. She advocated wider education for women, though many modern feminists would likely reject her because, above all, she was a committed Christian and lifelong Anglican grounded in biblical, orthodox faith. Yet many today have never heard her name. In his foreword to Karen Swallow Prior’s biography of More, Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More, Eric Metaxas captures that surprise well:
Until 2006, I had never heard of Hannah More. It was only in that happy year, in the course of writing my book about William Wilberforce … that I stumbled across her. But it was hardly the kind of stumbling that suggests a person stubbing his toe on a half-buried log in the woods and much more the kind of stumbling that suggests coming across a gurgling…fountain in the midst of a desert. It was not merely surprising; it was staggering: a revelation. How did this get here, and am I the only person who knows it’s here, and what shall I do about it? It was at first simply difficult to believe that this charming and witty and superlatively talented woman really had existed. What was probably the most troubling part of it all was that not only was I ignorant of her existence, but everyone I knew was ignorant of her existence. It was as though she had noiselessly tip-toed out of the pages of history and been removed to page-less oblivion.
Eric Metaxas, from the foreword to Fierce Convictions by Karen Swallow Prior
Five Lessons from Hannah More’s Life
Hannah was born February 2, 1745, and died September 7, 1833, which is why she is commemorated on September 7 in our calendar. She and her four sisters, all single throughout their lives, are buried at the Church of All Saints in Wrington, North Somerset, England. Hannah’s brilliance shone from a very early age, and her life has many lessons to teach us, even today. Here are five lessons we can take from the life of this remarkable saint.
Sponsored
1. It Is Not Where We Come From, But Our God That Matters
Hannah’s parents, Jacob and Mary More, were thirty-five and sixteen when they married. To put it lightly, this raised eyebrows. Their family had little money or social standing, and the circumstances of their marriage were, to say the least, questionable. Later, the family—and even some biographers—seem to have tried to clean up that history.
As Hannah rose to the top of English literary society, especially through her plays, this background most likely remained a source of embarrassment for her. Here is Karen Swallow Prior’s reflection on this:
The little girl born of that union [of Jacob and Mary More], a girl whose imagination took root in a charity school in Fishponds, would emerge as one of the most fascinating women of her time. Real stories, such as the story of More’s parents, may be at variance with our wishes and hers. Yet More’s life shows that the facts and our wishes can produce great stories when serving things much grander than ourselves, and that the stories we tell ourselves and others matter.
Karen Swallow Prior, Fierce Convictions, pgs. 24-25 (Kindle edition)
When who we are and where we come from serve God’s redemptive purposes, they change how we tell our story and how we understand ourselves. Who are you, and where are you from? In Christ, that whole story changes.
2. The Church Must Embrace and Equip Those Called to the Single Life
After an engagement of six years in her 20s, Hannah More found herself left at the altar not once, not twice, but three times by one William Turner. What a dubious claim to fame for William! This devastated Hannah. Afterward, Hannah and those closest to her increasingly discerned a call to committed singleness.
In that single life, Hannah cultivated lifelong friendships with men and women in the body of Christ. Meeting, reading, and learning from John Newton became a turning point in her life, and those friendships became the soil in which God developed her faith in Christ and deepened the vocations to which he called her.
Those called to the single life in our midst need the same embrace and equipping Hannah received. Is the Church—our church—a place where singles experience their life in Christ as blessed by God and rooted in the family of faith? Who knows what good fruit such friendships will bear in Christ?
3. Christian Witness in the Public Square is Essential, But Costly
Hannah lived unashamedly in the politics, culture, and society of her day. Armed with her pen, More joined the movement to abolish slavery alongside hymnodist and priest John Newton (a former slave-trader), Member of Parliament William Wilberforce, and many others. Newton’s influence helped Wilberforce and More see that Christianity required public witness, not merely private piety.
Here’s what they were up against:
As a goldfish swimming in a bowl doesn’t know what water is, so a person in eighteenth-century Great Britain—immersed in an economic and social structure built on the slave trade – could not easily, if at all see slavery for what it was. … The slave trade seemed so necessary to the material well-being of the nation that even those who could imagine a world without slavery could hardly envision how it might cease.
Karen Swallow Prior, Fierce Convictions, pg. 146 (Kindle edition)
These abolitionists believed that exposing the brutality of the slave trade would quickly sway both public opinion and Parliament. They gathered testimony from captains and eyewitnesses who had seen its horrors beyond the coast.
One moving testimony before a House of Commons committee described an eyewitness who came upon slave traders preparing to murder an enslaved woman’s child because the child carried no value to them. The eyewitness bought the child from the traders for the price of a mug of brandy and returned the child to the ship where the mother was held. They asked: how could Britain let this continue?
More joined the fight through her writings, most famously through her poem entitled “Slavery.” Here are some of the most moving lines:
Shall Britain, where the soul of Freedom reigns,
Forge chains for others she herself disdains?
Forbid it, Heaven! O let the nations know
The liberty she tastes she will bestow;
Not to herself the glorious gift confined,
She spreads the blessing wide as human kind…And Thou! great source of Nature and of Grace,
Hannah More, “Slavery”
Who of one blood didst form the human race,
Look down in mercy in thy chosen time,
With equal eye on Africa’s suffering clime:
Disperse her shades of intellectual night,
Repeat thy high behest — Let there be light!
Bring each benighted soul, great God, to Thee,
And with thy wide Salvation make them free!
Yet for all their vigor and commitment to abolition, the battle lasted decades. Hannah More and William Wilberforce died within two months of each other—Wilberforce just three days after Parliament passed the Emancipation Bill. For many years after that victory, the Church Missionary Society kept a tradition of naming orphaned African girls “Hannah” in honor of More’s work.
The similarities between the slave trade then and abortion today are easy to see. Hannah called slave traders “human flesh merchants.” Abortion claims about 40 million lives every year. The same foundational Christian belief that compelled the abolitionists also moves the hearts of those in the pro-life movement: all people are made in the image of God and full of worth and value.
4. Hannah More Teaches Men to Value the Contributions of our Sisters in Christ
For men, Hannah More’s life should lead us to examine how deeply we value the contributions of our sisters in Christ. Are we learning from and benefiting from the perspectives of women in the Body of Christ? Through her gifts, Hannah influenced and worked with clergy, royalty, government leaders, the rich, and the poor.
At the beginning, I noted Eric Metaxas’ bewilderment that society has largely forgotten Hannah. Her literary giftings being so clear, she deserves to be read. So do many women in the Body of Christ. Here is just a sampling of what we have to gain: an excerpt from her last book, The Spirit of Prayer, where she comments on the Lord’s Prayer.
It is not customary for kings to draw up petitions for their subjects to present to themselves; much less do earthly monarchs consider the act of petitioning worthy of reward … [But] it is a singular benefit to our fallen race that the King of kings both dictates our petitions and has promised to recompense us for making them. (pg. 105)
Hannah More, The Spirit of Prayer
Hannah More Teaches Us to Suffer and Die Well
Finally, Hannah More teaches us the power and witness of Christian suffering. From Karen Swallow Prior:
More [suffered]. [S]he suffered from the broken engagement that left her single, from bouts of illness (including what we would recognize now as depression) throughout her life, from the mockery and persecution of those who opposed her efforts, and finally, as the last, bereaved sister among five who lived her last years alone. More’s suffering turned her increasingly toward God. This fact is reflected in her letters and books, which she continued to write as an elderly woman. … [T]he scene of her last months, days, and hours … brings me to tears, tears of mourning and joy over a life lived to the glory of God despite—or perhaps because of—obstacles and pain.
I’ll end with just a brief scene from her final days, again recounted by Prior:
The day before she died, her friends held morning devotion at her bedside: “She was silent, and apparently attentive, with her hand devoutly lifted up. From eight in the evening of this day, till nearly nine, I sat watching her. Her face was smooth and glowing. There was an unusual brightness in its expression. She smiled, and endeavoring to raise herself a little from her pillow, she reached out her arms as if catching at something, and while making this effort, she once called, ‘Patty,’ (the name of her last and dearest sister,) very plainly, and exclaimed, ‘Joy!’” These were her last words. … She was buried next to her sisters in the church yard of Wrington. A headstone under a mighty tree commemorates the lives of these five sisters.
Karen Swallow Prior, Fierce Convictions, pg. 294 (Kindle edition)
The grave inscription there reads, “These all died in faith, accepted in the Beloved.”
Hannah More’s life reminds us that God delights to use unlikely stories, painful disappointments, deep friendships, public courage, and persevering faith for his redemptive purposes. Her witness calls us to receive our own histories in Christ, to honor and equip every member of his Body, to speak faithfully in the public square, and to suffer with hope fixed on the resurrection. May her life stir us not merely to admire her, but to follow the same Savior who made her fruitful in life, steadfast in suffering, and joyful in death.
Image: Portrait of Hannah More by Henry William Pickersgill (1821). Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Digitally edited by Jacob Davis.
Nine Lessons and Carols: A Rookie Anglican Guide
The Anglican tradition has inherited many ancient pieces of liturgy. Therefore, it may be surprising to learn that the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (traditionally held on or near Christmas Eve) is a relatively recent invention. It celebrated a century of the practice in 2018. Born from the profound grief and turmoil of the…
Four Meditations for the Nine Lessons and Carols
Here is a question about the wonderful parish tradition of Lessons and Carols: Is there room for a brief homily or meditation during this service? Is there an opportunity to present the gospel from the lectern (through the nine lessons) AND through the pulpit? John Yates III thinks so. He has done so for the…
