by Hannah Whitall Smith

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review by Ron Woodward

HANNAH WHITALL SMITH explains
that her book came about when
someone once said to her, “You
Christians seem to have a religion
that makes you miserable…you cannot expect outsiders to seek very earnestly
for anything so uncomfortable.”
In response to that incident she writes,
“I began then and there to ask the Lord
to show me the secret of a happy Christian life.”

The resulting book, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, was first published by Revell in 1870 and, as Carole Spencer has pointed out in her article—A Life Hid with Christ, quickly became a spiritual classic.

Soon after I became a Christian in the 1950s, I became aware that much of my nurturing Evangelical Quaker community not only knew about The Christian's Secret, but also valued it highly. In fact, one mentor of mine (a remarkable layman unusually gifted in a home Bible study ministry) constantly referred people both to Hannah Whitall Smith and François Fénelon. Then, a decade or two later, I was fascinated to read in Catherine Marshall's popular book, Beyond Our Selves, that her inspiration for writing came partially out of the conviction that the very basic principles on the Christian life so clearly spelled out in The Christian's Secret were not well known by the current generation.

Once again we may be dealing with unfamiliarity. In fact, my guess is that in the first decade of the 21st century a high percentage of Christians under the age of 40 may never have even heard of Hannah Whitall Smith and The Christian's Secret. If so, there's a need for the book to be rediscovered.

The book begins with a very basic conviction of the author, i.e., that every Christian must understand the difference between God's part and our part in the Christian life. “To state it in brief, I would say, that man's part is to trust, and God's part is to work…” The working, of course, is the work of God's Spirit in regeneration and sanctification, the ministry of the Spirit in making us Christlike.

All that we claim, then, in this life of sanctification is that by an act of faith we put ourselves into the hands of the Lord, for Him to work in us all the good pleasure of His will, and then, by a continuous exercise of faith, keep ourselves there. This is our part in the matter…our part is trusting; it is His to accomplish the results.

After beginning her book with several brief chapters of introduction, Smith has a series of chapters on “difficulties” (difficulties concerning consecration, faith, the will, guidance, doubts, temptation, and failures). While some of the issues she deals with were undoubtedly of more pressing concern to an earlier generation (e.g., doubts about one's salvation or consecration), most of the principles are timeless. Many folks, for example, will remember Bill Bright's train illustration in The Four Spiritual Laws—with the engine of the Christian life being the facts as declared in Scripture, the coal car representing our faith in those facts, and the caboose (obviously much less vital) representing our feelings. I have no doubt that The Christian's Secret influenced Bill Bright's illustration. Here's Smith's word on the subject:

The one chief temptation that meets the soul…is the question as to feelings. We cannot believe we are consecrated until we feel that we are; and because we do not feel that God has taken us in hand, we cannot believe that He has. As usual, we put feeling first, and faith second, and the fact last of all. No, God's invariable rule in everything is, fact first, faith second, and feeling last of all.

I did find one thing strange in her chapter on “Difficulties Concerning Guidance.” In this chapter she outlines “four ways in which He reveals His will to us—through the Scriptures, through providential circumstances, through the convictions of our own higher judgment [common sense], and through the inward impressions of the Holy Spirit on our minds.” Most of us have heard these ways many times. What struck me as odd is the fact that she, so steeped in Quaker thought and practice, says absolutely nothing in this chapter about corporate guidance, about seeking counsel from Christian friends, or about trying to arrange a committee for clearness. On the other hand, in regard to discerning the inner voice of Christ, I found her advice both simple and profound:

If the suggestion is from Him, it will continue and strengthen; if it is not from Him, it will disappear, and we shall almost forget we ever had it. If it continues, if every time we are brought into near communion with the Lord it seems to return…we may then feel sure it is from God, and we must yield to it, or suffer an unspeakable loss.

Two very important chapters at the end of the book are “The Joy of Obedience” and “Divine Union.” Right after that comes “The Chariots of God” and “The Life on Wings.” The lessons in these latter two chapters may be the most difficult ones for modern readers to appropriate since they rise out of Smith's convictions that God is in everything that happens to us. No, she doesn't believe that God causes sorrow, tragedy, and trial, but she's convinced that God desires to use all such experiences in our lives as “chariots sent to take the soul to its high places of triumph.” The secret, according to Smith, is willingness on our part to respond to such trials with surrender and trust—twin themes that recur throughout the book.

Again, I'm convinced this book needs to be rediscovered!

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