• God Is Enough
God Is Enough After celebrating her sixty-ninth birthday on February 7, 1901, Hannah wrote this to her friends:
There is one thing which the death of my son-inlaw, Frank Costelloe, has accomplished and which I do not believe anything else could, and that is it has made me want to live! I feel as ifI will really be needed for about ten more years to maintain an English home for my grandchildren and to avoid the complications that would inevitably arise in regard to their guardianship if I should die.
I confess it feels very funny to want to live after having so long looked forward with such an eager desire to go. However, so it is, and I give you liberty to wish me many happy returns on my future birthdays— or rather I should say ten happy returns, for in ten years both Ray and Karin will be ofage and will be free from the Chancery Court and from all danger of interference by any opposing guardian. Ifyou had only known this when you wrote me those lovely letters on my 69th birthday, you might have freely wished me those ten happy returns.
. J It was curious that in this letter, Hannah predicted
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
within a few months her remaining years on earth.
Though lame with arthritis, Hannah still went everywhere, using a cane when necessary. By 1903, she could barely hobble, so she was wheeled about in a bath chair
(the forerunner of the wheelchair). She was, however, enjoying life greatly and her sense of humor really flowered as she grew older.
Meanwhile, Ray and Karin were attending Kensington High School, a good, modern-day school in London, and living with their grandmother at Grosvenor Road. Logan,
Alys, and Bertie were nearby.
All was not going well with the Russells. Although Alys adored her husband and did throughout her life, Bertie was beginning to find her irritating. By 1902, he had admitted to Alys he no longer loved her. When pressed for a reason, he said that their previous happiness had been a delusion that Alys was too much like her mother. He had come to dislike all of Alys's relatives, but he particularly loathed
Hannah and said that Alys reminded him of his mother-inlaw in too many fatal ways.
In his old age, when Bertie had mellowed, he confessed that all of his other excuses for casting Alys aside were humbug. The real reason was his fickle nature. This did not make matters easier for Alys, who remained totally devoted to her husband. She persuaded Bertie to continue to live with her to carry on a common life of mutual interests and pursuits. From 1902 to 1911—when he finally forced Alys to agree to a separation—the estranged couple continued to live under the same roof.
Alys had a complete breakdown in 1902, and had several successive breakdowns in the subsequent years as she tried to win back his love. Once she even tried to commit suicide.
There is not much doubt that the famous Lord Russell was cold and callous as far as his personal relations with women were concerned during his youth and middle-age.
Alys was so humiliated by her husband's alienation from her that she would not tell anybody, not even her
HANNAH WH1TALL SMITH
mother. Hannah attributed her daughter's ill health to the fact that she had overextended herself trying to help others.
During this traumatic period in her life, Alys, like Mary, often worried that her nervousness was inherited from Robert. Her mother disagreed. "I simply will not consent to thy thinking thee has inherited (Robert's) nervousness, for thine is an entirely different kind and quite to be accounted for by overwork." 2
Some space has been taken to record the spiritual erosion taking place in the lives of Hannah's remaining children, simply to report the facts as they were. But these grand slides into unbelief were not the only facts. A captive of her ailing body, hemmed in by children who were cold to all she believed, Hannah now entered what was perhaps the most heroic period of her faith—and perhaps the most triumphant.
It is obvious where the eyes of her soul were set when Hannah wrote this note to Mary:
My darling Daughter, Thy letter .
. interests me very much. It shows that after all, your "top eyes" are not entirely closed, and your spirit is not altogether bound.
. My soul was always so full of inspirations that a God was a necessity to me. I was like a bird, with an instinct of migration upon me, and a country to migrate to was as essential as it is to the bird. But you have seemed content to sit on a branch and merely flap the wings that were meant for flying, and to let your horizon be bounded by the fences of one little field, with no longing for the great spaces of the eternities. But thy letter gives a glimpse into other and higher needs ofyour nature, and I am delighted to see that you would like to fly, ifyou knew where the beautiful lands lie for which your spirit longs. I feel hopeful.
. 3
Hannah never would give up hope for her children. And
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
never would she stop declaring, as long as her tremorous hand could scratch words on a page, her utter hope in God and His goodness. Since she had retired from public work, she threw her remaining energies into writing. In late 1902, she was putting the finishing touches on her spiritual autobiography, which she titled The Unselfishness ofGod and How I Discovered It. That Hannah's faith remained steadfast is indicated in this statement to her friends:
It has been most interesting work, recalling all the various stages in my religious experience and recording the peaceful result of them all in my present quiet rest in the glorious salvation that is ours in the Lord Jesus
Christ. 4
As a teenager, Karin was becoming quite deaf. There were operations and visits to ear specialists, all of which caused great consternation for Hannah. Ray was not quite as intelligent as Karin but was good at games, cheerful, and showed an early inclination to excel in leadership, which delighted her grandmother. She, like Hannah, was to become involved in public work, particularly in the struggle for women's rights.
In 1904, Hannah was mostly confined to a wheelchair.
Since Ray and Karin were away at school, Mary, Logan, and Alys decided that their 74-year-old mother should not be living alone. The houses at Grosvenor Road and Friday's
Hill were given up. Hannah lived in an apartment for two years, but in 1906 she and Logan settled in Iffley—a village near Oxford—in a pleasant house called Court Place, overlooking the Thames River.
Hannah became a renowned religious figure in her old age. Letters arrived from admirers all over the world, telling her how her books had changed their lives. Some of her followers were actually worshipful and described how they slept with her books under their pillows. They made pil-
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
grimages to Iffley just to see the venerable old lady.
One woman, Mrs. W., arrived in 1908 and begged Logan for the merest glimpse of the face of the woman whom she had so admired for so many years. Hannah had developed such serious bladder trouble by that time that she tried to avoid callers. The worshipful lady was so insistent that Logan gave in.
Mrs. W. rushed into the room, knelt in front of Hannah's wheelchair, and burst into tears. Then, seizing Hannah's arthritic old hand in her own, she covered it with kisses.
"To think that I should have this inestimable privilege!" she said over and over.
Logan was standing in the doorway, his mouth puckered, as if he had just eaten a lemon. The gushy scene was too much for him. He turned tail and fled.
Hannah, meanwhile, tried to extricate her hand from the moist kisses of the adoring lady. She was feeling anything but saintlike since her bladder was beginning to act up.
Finally, Mrs. W. stood up dramatically, clasped her hands in front of her ample bosom, and gazed tearfully at Hannah. "I will treasure these moments all the rest of my life," she said, then turned and left.
Hannah, who never did know how to handle such hero worship, later commented, "The poor soul must have been sadly disappointed not to see my halo and wings!" 5
By this stage of her life, Hannah saw no human being as saintly or sinless. She constantly warned against overpiousness, convinced that those who were put up on a spiritual pedestal nearly always fell off with a resounding crash. Much on her mind, of course, was what happened to her own husband Robert.
The unexpected period of peace after years of turmoil brought out a mischievous streak in Hannah. She said of her admiring correspondents: "I do wonder if a procession of all the people I have helped will come to greet me when
I enter heaven! Or will they have discovered that I had everything wrong and only hindered them instead of helping
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
and so come to try to persuade Peter to shut the gate against me!"6
In 1908, there was talk of her having an operation for her bladder trouble, although the doctors eventually decided against it. She wrote to Mary in Italy: IfI should die, which of course is always possible, I would like no weeping relatives to appear. I do not expect to make an edifying speech on my deathbed and I should far rather no one should "gather around" it. 1
During the whole last decade of her life, it is most important to note that Hannah continued to try to bring her children and grandchildren into a relationship with Jesus
Christ. In letters to Mary, in particular, she made pointed comments about her own faith and how it had kept her going. In May 1910, she wrote Mary a passionate declaration of her love of Jesus. There was a wistful yearning in that letter, a plea that Mary would somehow find her way back to faith. Then in one of her last letters, written in a very shaky hand on April 22, 1911, she urged Mary to read the Bible for its literary merit, hoping by some circuitous method to interest her daughter again in Christianity. Almost with her last breath, she was trying to talk Mary into being a believer. Mary turned a deaf ear to all these appeals.
Hannah had become very frail by 1910 and was eagerly looking forward to her release. She had to sit in her wheelchair all day and all night. She even had to sleep sitting up, since she was unable to get into a bed. The year before, she had written to Mary, anticipating death and telling her with characteristic humor, / have forbidden you to mourn for me. You are not to wear mourning, nor shed any tears or I will haunt you in the shape of a waterspout}
On Wednesday, April 27, 1911, Hannah had a slight stroke. Logan told her that he didn't think it was anything but an attack of indigestion. At this she turned on him quite fiercely and said, "Thee is not very encouraging, Logan." 9
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
From some scribbled words, probably written by Mary on the back of a pamphlet, came these notations: She died on May 1, 1911. She always said she would be "free to go" once Ray and Karin were grown up. Shortly before Mother died, Alys entered her room, her face bearing the marks of tears. "What is it, Alys? What did the doctor say?"
Alys began to cry. "He says thee is losing thy hold on life, Mother"
"Oh, good!" she said—and then ceased to breathe. 10
A recap of Hannah's children and grandchildren is sobering, from a spiritual viewpoint. After Hannah's death
Mary continued to play her role in the glittering circle of artists and intellectuals who congregated around Florence,
Italy. Bernhard Berenson was becoming famous and also financially comfortable. Mary was very much a part of his work. In between her hunts for obscure masterpieces and liaison work between Berenson and the American dealers who provided a market for the paintings they discovered, she had several love affairs. Her infidelities made her husband angry, but somehow they always managed to patch things up. She and B.B. led a life of emotional entanglements and upheavals. Mary died in March 1945.
Almost immediately after Hannah's death in May 191 1, Bertie told Alys that he wanted a divorce. Alys agreed to a formal separation, still holding a forlorn hope that she and Bertie might get back together. Alys and Logan then set up housekeeping together, first at Ford Place in Sussex and later in a beautiful old Tudor farmhouse on the Solent
River. A frustrated mother, Alys satisfied her maternal needs by filling her home every summer with numerous children of her friends and relatives. She remained devoted to Bertrand Russell all her life, although she finally agreed to a divorce in 1920. Alys died in 1951. Of the three, she was most like her mother—brave, kind, competent, and uncomplaining, though she too remained an unbeliever.
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
Logan became a writer and achieved a measure of literary success. His best known book was a collection of witty aphorisms named Trivia and More Trivia. He became manic-depressive in his old age—apparently he had inherited the family disease that was passed on to him from his father's side.
Soon after her grandmother's death, Ray married Oliver Strachey of the famous Strachey family. They had two children, Barbara, born in 1912, and Christopher, born in 1916. Ray was cheerful, independent, and enjoyed life. She wrote a number of books, including one called The Cause, on the women's movement in Great Britain. In 1918, when the Women's Suffrage Bill was passed, Ray was in the gallery of parliament: How altogether fitting and proper that the third generation of the fighting Whitall women should have been on the scene when the vote was given to women a victory for which Hannah, Alys, and Ray had been fighting since the 1880s. Ray died following an operation in 1940 at the age of 53.
Karin married Adrian Stephen, brother of the famous writer Virginia Woolf, in 1914. She and her husband entered medical school when they were in their thirties and became pioneers in psychiatry. The five-year medical course was especially difficult for Karin because of her deafness. At Cambridge University in 1911, she had won the first "star" of distinction in philosophy ever given to a woman as an undergraduate. She and Adrian had two children, Ann, born in 1916, and Judith, born in 1918. When
Adrian died in 1948 following army service in World War II, Karin became a victim of that family disease of depression. Being a doctor, she began to slip unnoticed into overprescribing morphia for herself. In December 1953, she took a deliberate overdose.
Of Hannah's four great-grandchildren, Barbara Strachey would marry twice. She had a son, Roger, by her first husband. In 1984 she was a widow, still living in Oxford,
England, enjoying an active life as a writer, traveler, and
HANNAH WH1TALL SMITH
gourmet cook. By the time of the second edition of this book in 1993, she has been slowed down by health problems but still retains much of her old buoyancy. Christopher, a brilliant mathematician, made a name for himself in computers at Oxford and died in 1975. Ann and Judith Stephen both married and had numerous children. Ann became a doctor and is still living in England. Judith died in 1972.
This is Hannah's legacy, to all who recall her: She intensely loved her children and grandchildren, flaws and all.
And they loved her, flaws and all. She ached when they did not accept her faith, but she loved them all regardless and prayed for them until the day she died. Who is to say that later generations will not benefit from her life of faithfulness and from her prayers?
Hannah's married life with Robert may seem strange to us today, but it was not so in the nineteenth century. People who fell out of love stayed married because of a sense of commitment and because it was the thing to do. They had seemed right for each other at the beginning. They did produce seven children. Their joint speaking and teaching ministry, brief as it was, indicated a spiritual compatibility.
Nor was Robert a boorishly authoritarian husband.
But the question remains: What went wrong in this family, which boasted one of the leading spiritual voices of the last century? Digging into family records and archives turns up few clues. There might have been a misplaced gene in Robert that caused bouts of abnormal behavior and depression that was inherited by Logan, Alys, and their granddaughter Karin. There were obvious flaws in Robert's character.
But he was one of God's soldiers—a gifted teacherpreacher who led people to the Lord. Why would God let this happen to one of His own? How many times must Hannah have asked that question? Yet she never doubted Robert's eventual salvation.
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
And why didn't the Lord answer Hannah's prayers that her children become believers? Or her grandchildren? The person looking for fairness and justice in all of God's dealings with His children will be terribly upset by the returns
Hannah Whitall Smith received for a lifetime of Christian service.
Was Hannah Whitall Smith bitter at the end?
Not in the least. She insisted her life had been blessed and in many ways it was. She died quite peacefully, with total trust in her God.
To those countless Christians who today are trying to cling to belief although their lives are filled with pain, illness, disappointment, and heartbreak, Hannah would say:
"Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."
He is not some kind of magic dispenser who exists only to give us what we think we need to make us happy.
Hannah's last book, God of All Comfort, refers to God's "shaking process." She wrote:
God's love for us is so great that when He sees His beloved ones becoming too secular or resting their souls on things that can be shaken, He sometimes removes those things from their lives in order that they may be driven to rest only on the things that cannot be shaken.
The old mystics used to teach what they called "detachment," meaning the cutting loose of the soul from all that could hold it back from God. This need for "detachment" is the secret ofmany ofour "shakings."
We cannot follow the Lord fully so long as we are tied fast to anything else, anymore than a boat can sail out into the boundless ocean so long as it is tied fast to the shore.
But we do not realize this and when the overturnings and shakings come, we are in despair and think we shall never reach the city that has foundations at all. But it is these very shakings that make it possible for us to reach it. The psalmist had learned this, and after all the shakings and emptyings of his eventual
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
life, he cried, "My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be moved.
In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God" (Psalm 62:5-7).u
And so it was with Hannah—and can be for any of us, as she said:
When everything in our lives and experience is shaken that can be shaken, and only that which cannot be shaken remains, we are brought to see that God only is our rock and our foundation. Then we learn to have our expectation from Him alone.
In an introduction to the 1952 edition of The Christian's Secret ofa Happy Life, the publishers spoke of Hannah Whitall Smith as being "a happy passenger in the Chariot of God, always in the van and never a despondent straggler in the rear.
. Life to her was no dismal journey between the peaks of birth and death; it was the scene of a continuing triumphal entry into the courts of God." 12
In one sense, this was true. Yet I'm convinced that few people in our time have had to face as many personal heartbreaks and disappointments as Hannah experienced.
The last chapter of God of All Comfort is titled "God Is Enough." In it she summed up her belief:
No soul can be really at rest until it has given up all dependence on everything else and has been forced to depend on the Lord alone. As long as our expectation is from other things, nothing but disappointment awaits us. Feelings may change, and will change, with our changing circumstances; doctrines and dogmas may be upset; Christian work may come to nought; prayers may seem to lose their fervency; promises may seem to fail; everything that we have believed in or depended upon may seem to be swept away, and only God is left, just God, the bare God, if I may be allowed the expression; simply and only God.
HANNAH WH1TALL SMITH
This, then, is what I mean by God being enough.
It is that we find in Him, the fact ofHis existence and of His character, all that we can possibly want for everything. God is, must be, our answer to every question and every cry of need. If there is any lack in the One who has undertaken to save us, nothing supplementary we can do will avail to make it up; and if there is no lack in Him, then He of himself and in himself is enough.
The all-sufficiency of God ought to be as complete to the child of God as the all-sufficiency of a good mother is to the child of that mother. We all know the utter rest ofthe little child in the mother 's presence and the mother's love. That its mother is there is enough to make all fears and all troubles disappear. The child does not need the mother to make any promises; she herself, just as she is, without promises and without explanations, is all that the child needs.
God's saints in all ages have known this and have realized that God was enough for them. Job said out ofthe depths ofsorrow and trials, which few can equal,
'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him."
Therefore, O doubting and sorrowful heart, cannot thee realize with Job and the saints of all ages that nothing else is needed to quiet all thy fears, but just this—that God is.
God is enough! God is enough for time. God is enough for eternity. God is enough! 11
Explanation ofDocumentation:
All the dialogue scenes, narrative, quotes, and other personal material on Hannah Whitall Smith and her family were taken directly from her letters, her journals, family papers, and published material. The only exception was the scene in the last pages of Chapter Ten. This scene was based on informed guesswork rather than strict documentation.
It is known that there was a final rift between Hannah and Robert that occurred around 1882-1883. Logan spoke of thirty years of congenial married life between his parents, although they were actually married forty-seven years.
Walt Whitman, with the sensitivity of a poet, noticed some infelicity between Hannah and Robert between 1882 and 1888.* In his later years, Robert was unfaithful to his wife.
No record survives of when this infidelity began. Therefore it seems logical to assume that Hannah discovered during 1882-1883 that Robert had taken up with another woman.
I have included the scene at the end of Chapter Ten, placing the date at January 1, 1882, not only because that fitted in with Logan's dating, but also because Hannah's very poignant letter to Priscilla Mounsey seemed to correspond with the feelings she might have had upon discovering that Robert had been unfaithful to her.
Marie Henry Remarkable Relations, pp. 73-74.
Time Line of Hannah Whitall Smith's Life February 7, 1832 Hannah Whitall was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the oldest child of well-to-do Quaker parents, John Mickle Whitail and Mary Tatum Whitall. John Whitall was a former sea captain, owner of a prosperous glass works.
Hannah's sister Sarah was born.
Hannah's brother, James, was born.
Hannah's younger sister, Mary, was born. (Mary married a doctor, James Thomas, and was the mother of pioneer educator,
M. Carey Thomas. Hannah was very close to her two sisters.
She and Mary and Sarah [Sally], along with a cousin, Carrie Lawrence, and a Mrs. Little referred to themselves as the "five birds" and confided and shared with one another throughout their lifetimes.) 1842-1848 Hannah was educated in various Friends' schools in Philadelphia.
HANNAH WH1TALL SMITH
1848-1851 Hannah taught geometry at one of the schools she had attended.
November 5, 1851 Hannah married Robert Pearsall Smith, a Philadelphia Quaker. Robert was a descendant of James Logan, William
Penn's secretary. His people were very bookish, being publishers, printers, and librarians.
August 1852 A daughter, Nellie, was born to Hannah and Robert.
August 1854 A son, Frank, was born. He was a docile, tractable, seriousminded boy, a devout Christian.
Martha Carey Thomas was born. She was Hannah's favorite niece and became the first woman president of Bryn Mawr
College.
Christmas Day, 1857 Daughter Nellie died of bronchitis, age 5, the first of four children that Hannah and Robert lost through death.
Robert and Hannah resigned from the Quaker Meeting due to the influence of Methodists. They were baptized. Robert became a Presbyterian and Hannah joined the Plymouth Brethren. They were banned from their parents' homes.
Mary Pearsall Smith was born. That same year the family moved from Philadelphia to Millville, New Jersey, where the Whitall-Tatum Glass Works was located.
(Lloyd) Logan Pearsall Smith was born.
(Alice) Alys Pearsall Smith was born.
(Rachel) Ray Pearsall Smith was born.
The family moved back to Philadelphia. The Smiths and Whitalls had gotten over the horror of Robert and Hannah's leaving the Friends and were close again.
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
July 1872 Frank, age 18, died of typhoid fever.
1872-1873 Robert's second nervous breakdown. (The first one must have occurred in 1861 and was supposedly the result of a fall from a horse.) He "took the cure" at Clifton Springs, New York.
Hannah's youngest child died in infancy.
Summer 1874 Hannah traveled to England. She and Robert conducted evangelistic meetings at homes of British aristocrats.
Robert's triumphant series of evangelistic meetings in Europe, culminating in meetings in Brighton, England, in June. Publication date of The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life.
June 1875 The scandal that ruined Robert's ministry became public in England.
Summer 1875 Robert was in disgrace. The Smiths went back to Philadelphia.
1875-1876 Robert's third nervous breakdown. He began to lose his faith.
June 1877 Hannah's father, John Mickle Whitall, died.
1877-1884 The Smiths took summer trips to scenic spots in the U.S., camping out. They visited Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Adirondacks, and Maine.
January 1880 Hannah's mother, Mary Tatum Whitall, died.
February 1880 Ray (youngest child of Robert and Hannah) died, age 1 1 , of scarlet fever.
1880-1900 Hannah became a public figure. She traveled and spoke at W.C.T.U. meetings and campaigns for women's suffrage.
Mary, age 19, attended Smith College. She began to lose her faith.
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
Mary attended Harvard Annex (later known as Radcliffe). Logan attended Harvard. Mary fell in love with a Roman Catholic Irish barrister (lawyer) named Frank Costelloe. The family traveled to Europe in the summer. Mary and Frank were married in Oxford, England, in September.
February 18, 1886 Hannah's sister, Sarah (Whitall) Nicholson, died, age 52.
June 4, 1887 (Rachel) Ray Costelloe born to Frank and Mary.
Logan, age 22, gave up working for the family glass business and decided to pursue a literary career.
Hannah's last surviving sister, Mary (Whitall) Thomas, died in July of breast cancer. The Pearsall Smith family moved to England, leased a house in London, 44 Grosvenor Road, four doors away from the house where Frank and Mary Costelloe lived. Alys was still in the U.S., in college at Bryn Mawr. Logan enrolled at Oxford.
March 1889 Catherine Elizabeth Costelloe (called Karin) was born.
The family leased a summer place in Sussex called Friday's Hill. It became a gathering place for various American and British intellectuals during the 1890s. Friends of Mary, Logan, and Alys met there to solve the problems of the world. They included Beatrice and Sidney Webb, George Santayana,
Roger Fry, Bertrand Russell, Bernhard Berenson, and George Bernard Shaw.
1889-1890 Mary became disillusioned with her marriage with Frank and suffered a partial breakdown. Bernhard Berenson showed up at Friday's Hill.
Mary left Frank and the two little girls, ages two and four, and went off to Italy to "study art" with Bernhard Berenson.
Alys and Bertrand Russell were courting. Alys, age 27, and Bertrand, age 22, were married in December.
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
April, 1898 Robert was "safely gathered."
December 1899 Frank Costelloe died of cancer of the ear.
Court battle for custody of the grandchildren. In December, Bernhard Berenson and Mary were married.
Bertrand Russell told Alys he "didn't love her anymore." Alys suffered a breakdown, but was so close-mouthed about her marriage that Hannah thought the illness was caused by overwork.
The Unselfishness of God, Hannah's spiritual autobiography, was published. She was increasingly crippled with arthritis.
Hannah, Ray, and Karin moved from the house on Grosvenor Road to a new flat in London.
God of All Comfort (Living in the Sunshine) was published.
This was Hannah's last book. She was immobilized by arthritis or rheumatism by that time, and suffered from shingles and bladder problems. She moved to the village of Iffley, near
Oxford, to live with her bachelor son, Logan, age 41.
May 1, 1911 Hannah was "safely gathered."
Endnotes Chapter 1
. H.W.S. (Hannah Whitall Smith), The Unselfishness ofGod and How I Discovered It (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1903), pp. 106-109.
2. Smith Archive, Oxford, England (in the keeping of Barbara Strachey Halpern), Journal of H.W.S., Volume II (1849, April
3, 1849).
3. The Unselfishness of God, p. 133.
4. Journal, Volume II.
5. Smith Archive, Letters of H.W.S. , Letter to cousin Carrie (February 17, 1850), p. 4.
6. Journal, Volume V (April 7, 1851).
7. Journal, Volume V (June 16, 1851).
Chapter 2 Smith Archive, Journal of H.W.S., Volume VI (1851-1856; July
22, 1852).
2. Journal, Volume VI (November 7, 1855).
3. Journal, Volume VI (December 6, 1852; November 5, 1855), Volume VII (March 16, 1857).
4. Journal, Volume VII (December 28, 1857).
5. Journal, Volume VII (December 28, 1857).
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
6. Journal, Volume VIII (February 2, 1858).
7. Journal, Volume VII (December 30, 1857).
8. Journal, Volume VIII (September 2, 1858).
Chapter 3 1. The Unselfishness of God, p. 82.
2. Smith Archive, Journal of H.W.S., Volume VIII (January 31, 1859).
3. Journal, Volume VIII (September 25, 1859), and Smith Archive, Letters to H.W.S., Letter to sister Sally (October 30,
1859).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to sister Sally (October 30, 1859).
Chapter 4 1. The Unselfishness of God, pp. 195-196.
Ibid., p. 201.
Ibid., pp. 205-206 (pronouns changed).
4. The God of All Comfort, 1956 edition (Chicago: Moody Press), pp. 12-13; p. 210 (pronouns changed).
5. The Unselfishness of God, pp. 218-219.
Ibid., pp. 218-219.
Chapter 5 1. Smith Archive, Journal of H.W.S., Volume VIII (Atlantic City, August 1861).
2. Smith Archive, Letters of H.W.S., Letter to sister Mary (February 28, 1864).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to mother-in-law (June 7, 1864).
4. The Unselfishness of God, pp. 238-245.
Ibid., pp. 288-289.
6. Smith Archive, Journal of H.W.S., Volume X (June 10, 1869).
Ibid., p. 288.
Chapter 6 Smith Archive, Letters of H.W.S., Letters to friend (August 15,
1872).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Anna Shipley (August 24, 1872).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (Robert Pearsall Smith), (November 3, 1873).
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to sister Sally (July 14, 1873).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (June 22, 1873).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (July 4, 1873).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (July 7, 1873).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to cousin Carrie (August 8, 1873).
9. Letters of H.W.S., Letter to cousin Carrie (August 30, 1873).
Chapter 7 1. The Unselfishness of God, pp. 205, 260.
2. Barbara Strachey, Remarkable Relations (London: Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1980), pp. 41-42.
3. Smith Archive, Unpublished manuscript by Ray Strachey, Chapter 3, p. 4.
4. Smith Archive, Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Mrs. Beck (September 24, 1874).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (December 8, 1873).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (March 7, 1875).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (March 27, 1875).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (March 7, 1875).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (April 17, 1875).
10.
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to sister (May 23, 1875).
Hannah Whitall Smith: Religious Fanaticism, Edited with an 1 1 introduction by Ray Strachey (London: Faber & Twyer, Ltd.,
1927), pp. 251-252.
11. Smith Archive, Unpublished manuscript by Ray Strachey, Chapter 3, p. 2.
12. Unpublished manuscript, Chapter 3, pp. 12-13.
Chapter 8 Smith Archive, Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Mrs. Beck (July 7,
1875), Remarkable Relations, p. 46.
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Mrs. Beck (July 7, 1875).
3. Smith Archive, Unpublished manuscript by Ray Strachey, Chapter 3, p. 14.
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to friend (July 7, 1875).
5. Remarkable Relations, Chapter 3, p. 48.
Ibid., Chapter 4, p. 50.
7. Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian's Secret ofa Happy Life (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1952; originally published in 1875), Chapter 12, p. 149.
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (June 5, 1877).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (June 20, 1877).
10.
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (June 20, 1877).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (June 20, 1877).
1 1 12.
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (May 31, 1877).
13.
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Anna (May 20, 1878).
Chapter 9 1. Philadelphia Quaker, p. 41.
Ibid., p. 46.
Ibid., pp. 57-59.
4. Smith Archive, Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (August 911, 1883).
5. Philadelphia Quaker, pp. 67-68.
Letters of H.W.S., Circular letter (January 26, 1889).
Chapter 10 1. Smith Archive, Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Mrs. Wilson (July 2, 1877).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to mother (June 10, 1878).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Anna (February 9, 1880).
4. Smith Archive, Journal of H.W.S., Volume X (December 30, 1880).
5. Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Anna (February 9, 1880).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to sister Sally (September 2, 1880).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (April 16, 1878).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Priscilla Mounsey (January 1, 1882).
Chapter 11 Helen Whitall (Thomas) Flexner, A Quaker Childhood (New Ha-
ven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1940), pp. 86-87.
2. Smith Archive, Letters of H.W.S., Letter to R.P.S. (April 1877).
Chapter 12 Smith Archive, Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Anna (September
3, 1884).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Carrie (February 22, 1880).
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (November 14, 1883).
4. Hannah Whitall Smith, Philadelphia Quaker, Edited by her son Logan Pearsall Smith (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1950), p. 65.
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (January 27, 1883).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (February 7, 1883).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Mr. Palmer (1884).
Letters of H.W.S., Letters to daughter Mary (January 20, 1885; January 23, 1885; February 24, 1885; March 11, 1885;
March 14, 1885).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (September 19, 1910).
10.
Letters of H.W.S., Letters to daughter Mary (January 20, 1885; January 23, 1885; February 24, 1885; March 11, 1885;
March 14, 1885).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Priscilla Mounsey (May 29, 1885).
1 1 12.
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (March 4, 1885).
13.
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (September 13, 1885).
Chapter 13 Remarkable Relations, p. 111.
Ibid., p. 114.
Ibid., p. 117.
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (November 1892).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (October 17, 1892).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (January 13, 1893).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (January 13, 1893; January 17, 1893).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (March 21, 1893).
9. The Unselfishness of God, pp. 298-299.
Chapter 14 1. Remarkable Relations, p. 127.
Ibid., p. 106.
Ibid., p. 135.
4. Smith Archive, Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (April 26, 1894).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (April 26, 1894).
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
6. Remarkable Relations, pp. 137-144.
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Alys (February 14, 1895).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Alys (February 14, 1895).
Chapter 15
. Rachel (Ray) Costelloe Strachey, A Quaker Grandmother (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1914), pp. 22-23.
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to friends (June 3, 1895).
3. Smith Archive, Unpublished manuscript by Ray Strachey, Chapter 6, p. 4.
Chapter 16 Smith Archive, Letters of H.W.S., Letters to Alys (January 28,
1895).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Alys (February 2, 1895).
3. Remarkable Relations, p. 187.
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to friend (April 30, 1898).
Letters of H.W.S., Circular letter (December 20, 1900).
Letters of H.W.S., Circular letter (December 20, 1900).
7. Remarkable Relations, p. 193.
Letters of H.W.S., Circular letter (December 20, 1900).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (November 6, 1904).
10. Hannah Whitall Smith, Everyday Religion (Chicago: Moody Press, 1966; originally published by Fleming H. Revell in 1893), p. 90.
Chapter 17 1. Philadelphia Quaker, pp. 139-140.
2. Smith Archive, Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Alys (May 17, 1902).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to Mary (February 16, 1902).
Letters of H.W.S., Circular letter (November 3, 1902).
Letters ofH.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (February6, 1908).
Letters ofH.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (February 5, 1906).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (November 13, 1908).
Letters of H.W.S., Letter to daughter Mary (April 22, 191 1).
9. Remarkable Relations, p. 256.
HANNAH WHIT ALL SMITH
10. Smith Archive, Family Documents.
Hannah Whitall Smith, God of All Comfort (Chicago: Moody 1 1 Press, 1956; originally published as Living in the Sunshine by Fleming H. Revell in 1906), pp. 150, 151, 154, 157, 158.
12. The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, pp. 7-8.
13. God of All Comfort, pp. 243, 246, 249, 252, 253.
Bibliography Flexner, Helen Whitall (Thomas). A Quaker Childhood. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1940.
Hardy, Robert Gathorne. Recollections of Logan Pearsall Smith:
The Story ofa Friendship. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1950.
Parker, Robert Allerton. The Transatlantic Smiths. New York: Random House, 1959.
Russell, Bertrand. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (three volumes). Boston: Little, Brown, 1967.
Secrest, Meryle. Being Bernhard Berenson, a biography. New York:
Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1979.
Smith, Hannah Whitall. Child Culture or the Science of Motherhood. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1894.
. The Christians Secret of a Happy Life. Old Tappan, N.J.:
Fleming H. Revell Co., 1952. (Originally published by Fleming H. Revell in 1875.) . Everyday Religion. Chicago: Moody Press,
1966. (Originally published by Fleming H. Revell in 1893.) . God of All Comfort. Chicago: Moody Press, 1956. (Originally published as Living in the Sunshine by Fleming H. Revell in 1906.)
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
-. Philadelphia Quaker: The Letters ofHannah Whitall Smith.
Edited by her son Logan Pearsall Smith, with a bibliographical preface by Robert Gathorne Hardy. New York: Harcourt
Brace & Co., Inc., 1950.
— . Religious Fanaticism: Extracts from the Papers ofHannah Whitall Smith. Edited with an introduction by Ray Strachey.
London: Faber and Gwyer, Ltd., 1928.
— . The Unselfishness ofGod and How I Discovered It: My Spiritual Autobiography. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1903.
Smith, Logan Pearsall. Unforgotten Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1939.
Sprigge, Sylvia. Berenson: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., Ruskin House, 1960.
Strachey, Barbara. Remarkable Relations. London: Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1981.
Strachey, Rachel (Ray Costelloe). The Cause: A Short History of the Women's Movement in Great Britain. London: G. Bell &
Sons, Ltd., 1928.
. A Quaker Grandmother. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1914.
. Shaken by the Wind: A Story ofFanaticism. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1928.
Warfield, Benjamin Breckenridge. Perfectionism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1931.
Webb, Beatrice and Sidney. The Letters of Beatrice and Sidney Webb. Volume I: Apprenticeships, 1873-1892; and Volume II:
Our Partnership, 1892-1912. Edited by Norman McKenzie.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
Willard, Frances E. Women and Temperance, or, The Work and Workers ofthe Women's Christian Temperance Union. Hartford,
Conn.: Park Publishing Co., 1883.
**4*jUWJH*A'i.w*- -'> Her Books Have Helped and Challenged Millions of Christians-Now Read About Her Extraordinary Life!
'annah Whitall Smith cessful husband, the birth of her wrote one of the most children— with delight and hope.
Then personal tragedy thun- / / beloved Christian clas- (J sics of all time — The dered in:
Christian j Secret ofa Happy Life.
And in the hundred years since Her family would shun her for seeking spiritual answers outside their publication, her books have her own Quaker upbringing. been read by millions of Death would claim four of her Christians who have been children. helped to discover the abundant Her husband, a celebrated life Jesus promised. evangelist, suffered a nervous breakdown and later fell victim Yet so many difficult circumto a scandal that wrecked his stances conspired to crush all joy ministry.. .and faith. and meaning from her life. It She would make a shocking was the mid1800s, and the discovery about her husband and approaching Civil War cast a his "female friends." spirit of tension and anxiety over One by one, the faith of her three the nation. As a young wife and grown children became infected mother, Hannah met the simple with the intellectual skepticism joys of life— the love of her sucthat was weakening the church. itall*ltli is a powerfully told biography that brings the charm, the strife of war, and the revivalist atmosphere of the 1800s vividly to life. More importantly, it will help you find, as Hannah did, the "secret" of a life of unshakeable peace and happiness.
BETHANY MOUSE PUBLISHERS
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA 55438
ISBN l-55bt3l-31t3-M 781556"613166
I BB wmm.