A Life Hid with Christ
In 1870 Hannah Whitall Smith (1832-1911), a Philadelphia Quaker, published The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, the most popular devotional book to emerge from the nineteenth century Holiness Movement. Her book, still in print, became an instant bestseller, going through numerous editions, and it continues to be read by religious seekers today. The Christian's Secret is a popular expression of holiness theology and spirituality. It might seem surprising that a Quaker would write one of the greatest classics from the literature of the Holiness Movement. But even more surprising is that Quaker historians have hardly taken notice of her despite her prominence in the religious world of the Victorian era.
In 1875 she and her husband, Robert Pearsall, held holiness meetings attended by 8,000 people in Brighton, England. One observer noted that the thousands of people gathered at her meetings gave her a congregation larger than that of the famous English Baptist preacher C.H. Spurgeon. (See Melvin Dieter, The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century, 1996, p.148. Dieter's book provides the best historical overview and analysis of Smith's ministry as an evangelist.)
In addition to her religious prominence, she also had connections with well-known intellectuals of the day. She knew and corresponded with William James, and was mother-in-law to the famous philosopher Bertrand Russell. William James, the famous Harvard philosopher and pioneer in the field of psychology, said about The Christian's Secret that it “would always be kept among his literary treasures, and, that if he were to become a Christian, he would want to be the kind of Christian the book describes.” In fact, here's what William James once wrote in a psychological treatise entitled “The Gospel of Relaxation”:
The best manuals of religious devotion accordingly reiterate the maxim that we must let our feelings go, and pay no regard to them whatever. In an admirable and widely successful little book called The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life by Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith, I find this lesson on almost every page. Act faithfully, and you really have faith, no matter how cold and even how dubious you may feel. "It is your purpose God looks at," writes Mrs. Smith, "not your feelings about that purpose; and your purpose, or will, is therefore the only thing you need attend to…Let your emotions come or let them go, just as God pleases, and make no account of them either way…They really have nothing to do with the matter. They are not the indicators of your spiritual state, but are merely the indicators of your temperament or of your present physical condition." But you all know these facts already, so I need no longer press them on your attention. From our acts and from our attitudes ceaseless inpouring currents of sensation come, which help to determine from moment to moment what our inner states shall be: that is a fundamental law of psychology which I will therefore proceed to assume.
Smith wrote several other books in addition to The Christian's Secret, including her spiritual autobiography, The Unselfishness of God (1903), which provides valuable and fascinating documentation of the history of the Holiness Movement and its relationship to the Orthodox Quietism in which she was raised. Smith claims she had to be introduced to holiness by a Methodist mill worker, because the experience was essentially hidden from her within Philadelphia Quaker orthodoxy. Thus, she admits she had to learn from outside the Society of Friends something that was a foundational principle of Quakerism. She writes of sharing with a Quaker friend her “new discoveries” of holiness teachings:
[The Friend]…on hearing what I had to tell, had expressed surprise at its being new to me, as it was, she declared, what the Quakers had always taught. This seemed to throw light upon Quakerism that I had never dreamed of. My mother also said to me one day, “But Hannah why does thee call this doctrine new? Thee is only preaching what all the old Friends have always preached.” “Yes,” I answered, “I begin to see that this is the case, but they have never preached it in a way that ordinary people could know what they were talking about. It seems to me that nobody, who did not know it already, could possibly get hold of it from their preaching.” Certainly I never did, although I have been listening to their preaching all my life. But I came to the conclusion that my mother and my friend were right. It was true Quaker doctrine that we had discovered. (The Unselfishness of God, 1903, p. 275-6)
She concludes that Quakers called holiness “the life hid with Christ in God” (The Unselfishness of God, 1903, p. 276).
Ever since I read Smith's autobiography a number of years ago, I have wondered if she was right about holiness being the foundation of Quakerism. As you read through The Christian's Secret, would you agree that she is describing “true Quaker doctrine”?
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Holiness Revival impacted a vast portion of American Quakers, transforming a quietist, contemplative sect into an enthusiastic and evangelistic movement. The prevailing opinion among historians has been that this transformation, or near-revolution, represents the assimilation of Quakerism into the dominant evangelical culture of that era. Undoubtedly Quakerism, like all denominations of the time, was absorbed in varying degrees into the mainstream evangelical culture, but if Smith's experience is at all typical or representative, then a strong case can be made that a new generation of Quakers was simply rediscovering Quaker holiness and expressing it in new ways.
Smith's life not only spanned a period of immense change as the Holiness Revival impacted a vast portion of American Quakers, but she was also directly involved with many of the events and personalities of the period. Her writings attest to the fact that she was a woman of deep spiritual insight and a keen observer of people, religion, and culture. Through her writing, Smith has an ongoing ministry that continues even after 136 years.
