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I had the privilege of being the Copy Editor again for this edition, along with a contributing article! It was such a joy to work on this edition—it is a labor of love! Below is the article that I wrote for this edition, I pray that you read about Hannah More and feel inspired to transform your world around you.
Hannah More:
Changing the World with a Pen
“Amazing Grace how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me,” is a familiar line from the beloved
hymn penned by John Newton. However, less familiar among Newton’s writings is a
collection of published letters titled Cardiphonia, which is translated The
Utterance of the Heart or The Voice of the Heart. Many have been
touched by Newton’s compelling story as the captain of a slave ship that
birthed the great hymn. But one woman, moved by Newton’s collection of
writings, was also moved to change the world.
Hannah More was an English
playwright and poet, and later a religious philanthropist. She was born in
Bristol, England on February 2, 1745. More was a lively, quick-witted, and
charming young woman, who taught in a boarding school established by her father
before embarking in a literary career. Early on, Hannah displayed a flavor for poetry,
spending most of her childhood writing sonnets and essays. This served her well
as she grew to become a popular playwright. She was involved with the literary
crowd in London and was a member of the Bluestocking Group—a group of
elite literary and intellectual women.
More was a strict moralist and this
challenged some of her literary and social circle.[1] It was becoming evident to
her friends that she desired to withdraw herself from society to devote her
talents to a useful purpose. She preferred the Bible to all other books; it was
her daily companion, and the more she studied it the more she fell in love with
its words. She began to write “Sacred Dramas,” together with an epistolary poem,
entitled Sensibility, which gave her much joy and fulfillment. While
More was writing these dramas and poems, she became deeply captivated with
religious subjects. Her views of the doctrines of Christianity underwent
somewhat of a change. “She now saw that salvation by faith was the only method
recognized in the word of God, and her deep humility, and her anxiety after
religious instruction, are convincing evidences that, in the language of the
Saviour, ‘she was not far from the kingdom of God.’”[2]
In 1780, during the peak of her
high-society life in London, a friend gave More the book that forever changed
her life—Cardiphonia. In the years following her reading of Newton’s
collection of letters, she became “disenchanted with the trappings of high
society and turned more fully toward the Christian faith she had assumed all
her life but not embraced with full intention.”[3]
Because the book had been published
pseudonymously, More was not aware who Newton was. After much inquiry and
searching she discovered that Newton was the author and went to hear him preach
at St. Mary Woolnoth, where he was pastor. The two spoke for some time after
church, and he changed her life forever, “It was Newton—his writings, his
sermons, and his friendship—who convinced More to devote her life to promoting
spiritual education and reformation across British society.”[4] The two were friends for
life.
In 1776 More began to be involved
in the anti-slavery movement. In 1787, she met William Wilberforce, another
encounter that changed her life. Wilberforce was an evangelical member of
Parliament who fought for the abolition of the African slave trade, and of slavery
itself. Wilberforce fought for forty-six
long years to see both abolished. His bill to abolish the slave trade was
defeated eleven times before it finally passed in 1807. The abolition of
slavery however, did not gain victory until 1833—just three days before he
died.
More was so taken with Wilberforce’s
integrity and character that she became a member of his group known as the Clapham
Group or Clapham Sect. Wilberforce started the group to deal with
the moral decay engulfing England. The Church of England was becoming less
desirable as the theater and comic operas seemed to infiltrate the culture. He heard
with certainty the call of God; “He jotted in his diary those now immortal
words: God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the
slave trade and the reformation of manners.”[5]
This commission was the motivation behind the foundation of the Clapham Group to
reform society.
The Clapham Group were great
influencers of society; “never have the members of one congregation so greatly
influenced the history of the world. The effect of their prayers and actions
not only profoundly altered the religious and social life of this country, it
was also felt in Africa, in the West Indies, in India and in Australia.”[6]
The group believed the most beneficial way to see reform in their country was
to be involved in society; “We can fulfill Christ’s commission to disciple the
nations by using the talents and skills God has given us and doing business
with them.”[7]
The group lived by this principle, understanding this to be the way to reach
people with the Gospel. “The Clapham Group had members who were in professions
such as banking and law, others did research, and others were church leaders.
But they all worked together to reform the nation.”[8]
In spite of the moral decline, the Clapham Sect was determined to see reform,
and became involved in the communities in which they lived. For Wilberforce and
the Clapham Group, reform did not come from government or from an ideology; the
reformation of society was achieved through the redemption of souls.
The
group was involved in every area, from health and education to humanitarian
efforts and even the media, publishing a Christian newsletter, The Christian
Observer. Hannah helped give the abolition movement a public voice
with her writings. In 1788, she wrote Slavery, a Poem, to coincide
with Wilberforce's parliamentary campaign for abolition. The poem
dramatically described a mistreated, enslaved female separated from her children,
and it questioned Britain’s role in the slave trade.
Wilberforce saw a link between
social good and eternal good, and when he saw the terrible plight of the poor
people in Mendip Hills, he urged More to establish a school to teach them to
read. By 1789, Hannah, along with her sisters, Patty and Marta, founded and
provided schools for the poor in Cheddar and Mendip Hills, as well as Sunday
schools and adult classes—all underwritten by Wilberforce. She taught children
to read from lessons based on the Bible and began to write her famous Cheap
Repository Tracts to provide them with wholesome literature. Within a year
of their publication, “two million had been sold—and the total population at
that time was under eight million!”[9] More’s heart is revealed in
her letter to Wilberforce regarding the schools: “What a comfort I feel in
looking around on these starving and half-naked multitudes, to think that by
your liberality many of them may be fed and clothed; and O if but one soul is
rescued from eternal misery how we may rejoice over it in another state!”[10]
More was one of the leading women
among the evangelicals of her day. Admired and loved by her friends, she became
known as the “bishop in petticoats.” Her moral essays influenced her country
for over thirty years; “she was a pioneer in social and moral education.”[11]
Martin Luther wrote, “If you want
to change the world, pick up your pen and write.”[12] Hannah More changed the
world with her pen and by putting her faith into action. James 1:27 says, “Pure
and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is
this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to
keep oneself unstained by the world” (NASB). More was the
exemplification of this. She herself wrote, “Action is the life of virtue, and
the world is the theatre of action.”[13] She
died just weeks after Wilberforce and the Clapham Group’s long fight in 1833, when
England finally abolished slavery. She was a pioneer and one of the first
evangelical women philanthropists who changed the shape of society in Britain.
Hannah More serves as an example
for women today who seek to make a difference in the world. If you want to
change the world, pick up your pen, or whatever gift God has graced you with,
and go reform the world.
*Originally posted in the 12th Edition of SHINE Magazine September 2019*
[1]
Clifford Hill, The Wilberforce Connection
(Grand Rapids: Monarch Books 2004), 29.
[2]
S.G. Arnold, Memoirs of Hannah More (New York: Carlton & Porter,
1840), 28.
[3]
Karen Swallow Prior, Fierce Convictions (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2014),
107.
[4]
Ibid., 108.
[5]
John Piper, Amazing Grace in the Life of
William Wilberforce (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2006), 61.
[6]
Hill, 47.
[7]
Stephen K. McDowell, Building Godly
Nations (Charlottesville: Providence Foundation, 2004), 18.
[8] Cindy
Jacobs, The Reformation Manifesto
(Grand Rapids: Bethany House Publishers, 2008),145.
[9]
Hill, 28.
[10]
Piper, 45.
[11]
Hill., 29.
[12] GoodReads,
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/83789-if-you-want-to-change-the-world-pick-up-your,
accessed August 13, 2017.
[13] Hannah More, An Estimate of the Religion of the
Fashionable World (Dublin: printed for T.
Cadell, 1791).
