The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith
THE CHRISTIAN’S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE
Hannah Whitall Smith is best remembered as the author of one of the most popular devotional/Christian living books of all time, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life.
Born into a strict Quaker home in Pennsylvania in 1832, Hannah Whitall suffered from deep spiritual doubts during her early years. Her inner struggle continued into her marriage to Robert Piersall Smith in 1851, but in 1858 the couple committed their lives to Christ and decided to leave the Quaker faith to join the Plymouth Brethren.
A further spiritual experience in 1867 led Hannah and Robert to undertake a speaking tour on the “Higher Christian Life” in the United States and Europe. As Robert’s health declined, the couple stayed in England and observed the 1874 founding of the Keswick Convention. It was at a Keswick conference in 1887 that Amy Carmichael would feel the call of God to the mission field.
Hannah Whitall Smith penned The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life in 1875 and wrote eighteen other books, as well, including The Unselfishness of God and How I Discovered It in 1903. She was active in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, supported woman’s suffrage and other issues of sexual equality, and studied the various religious movements that blossomed in the late nineteenth century.
Smith was stricken with arthritis for the last seven years of her life and was ultimately confined to a wheelchair, but she still entertained admirers of her writings. She died in 1911.