Anne Steele

Father of mercies, in thy word What endless glory shines!

For ever be thy name adored For these celestial lines.

We will sing later

And did the holy and the just, The sovereign of the skies,

Stoop down to wretchedness and dust, That guilty man might rise?

I don't know how familiar those lines are to you or whether in another context you could name the author. These two hymns are among six found in the most recent edition of Christian Hymns. The others are The Saviour calls let every ear, When sins and fears prevailing rise, Almighty God before your throne and what many rate as her best hymn

When I survey life’s varied scene, Amid the darkest hours

Sweet rays of comfort shine between And thorns are mixed with flowers.

In recent years Susan McCracken with Kevin Twit and Indelible Grace has made well known the hymn that begins

Dear refuge of my weary soul, On Thee, when sorrows rise

On Thee, when waves of trouble roll, My fainting hope relies

To Thee I tell each rising grief, For Thou alone canst heal

Thy Word can bring a sweet relief, For every pain I feel

All these are the work of Anne Steele born 300 years ago this year in the little village of Broughton, Hampshire. She is one of at least three people born in the British Isles in 1717 whose hymns are still sung. The other two are both men. Benjamin Beddome (1717-1795) grew up in Bristol (and at one point unsuccessfully proposed to Miss Steele). Welsh speaking Welshman Williams Pantycelyn (1717-1791) wrote at least 120 hymns in English.

Quite why they wrote as well as they did we do not know but they lived in an extraordinary period of great hymn writers and great hymns. Charles Wesley (1707-1788) and Philip Doddridge (1702-1751) were born 10 and 15 years earlier; John Newton (1725-1807) and William Cowper (1731-1800) eight and 14 years later. Anne Steele stands out in a small crowd as the leading woman hymn writer of the period. She has been called “the first major woman hymn-writer” (Watson) and “the mother ... of English women hymn-writers” (Routley).

We can divide our material into a series of sections all headed by word beginning with s (Stories, Setting, Scene, Strict Baptists, Schooldays, Sicknesses, Sylvan repose, Social circle/supporters, Spirituality, Suffering, Success, Spiritual songs, Sadnesses)

Stories

Tonight I want to tell you the story of Anne Steele. Had I been doing so before 2005 I could have told you a tragic story that included things like this.

At the age of three her mother died. She was brought up by her step mother who had her own daughter whom she may have favoured over Anne.

When she was 19 years old Anne was out riding and was tragically thrown from her horse injuring her hip and so becoming an invalid for the rest of her life.

Then when she was 20 years old and living in Ringwood, Hampshire, she was engaged to a young man called James Elcombe (1716-1737). In the words of the Victorian writer Emma R Pitman

Everything was arranged for the wedding, and the day was fixed. It dawned bright and fair, as did many another summer day: but, alas! It was destined to see the cup of bliss dashed from her lips. Early on that morning the intended bridegroom had gone to the river to bathe, and had sunk never to rise again. Someone who knew he had gone to bathe went to look for him, and aided in recovering his lifeless corpse. At the very time when, according to the nuptial arrangements, he would have been uttering the sacred vows, his lifeless body was brought home.

You can imagine the sadness of such a scene. Writing in 1986 Margaret Malson adds

After this Anne Steele remained at home, leading a life of peaceful retirement … Outward tranquillity concealed depths of pain, frustration and suffering as she progressed in her pathway of affliction to God.

It is true that Anne's mother died when she was three. She got on very well with her step mother, however, and the other two stories have both been challenged. It is a rather more ordinary and mundane life that we have to present this evening.

Setting

It is right that we begin with the broader background to Anne's life. An excellent brief biography by Sharon James (found in In trouble and in joy) begins by adverting to four factors that undoubtedly served to shape the person Anne was and how she wrote. These are dissent; womanhood; romanticism and Jacobitism to which we add the more obvious Particular Baptist faith.

Anne was born into a wealthy, dissenting family. More speicifcally, she was the daughter of a Particular or Calvinistic Baptist minister. She was a woman at a time when the status of women was still a very lowly one. Artistically, she saw the beginnings of the romantic movement and lived in a land that throughout her lifetime knew only a rather fragile national peace that was often under threat by Jacobitism. Let me say something about each of these briefly.

Dissenter – in 1662 an Act was passed in England and Wales demanding conformity to the Church of England and use of the Prayer Book. Some 2000 ministers and others felt conscience bound to dissent and either resigned or were expelled from the national church. Despite the 1688 Act of Toleration such people and their adherents remained second class citizens, disallowed from involvement in civil government, the practice of law and English university life. Three years before Anne's birth her namesake Queen Anne died. During that reign, nonconformists were hated by the Queen and her High Church advisors. Tory mobs would sometimes burn down dissenting meeting places. Things improved in the Hanoverian dynasty of the Georges that followed but nonconformists were still shut up to trade and establishing their own, usually very good, academies. Anne's father was a timber merchant and a minister and she spent time in a school possibly associated with a dissenting academy.

The status of women – Dr James observes that eighteenth century women were banned from almost everything but marriage. The one area where they were allowed some freedom was in matters literary. Women were increasingly likely to be educated, especially middle class ones like Anne, and increasingly explored the literary route as did she.

The Romantic movement - a cultural movement that reached its height early in the next century, began in the 18th Century and was characterised by a love of nature, a rejection of artifice and a stress on the importance of feelings, especially that of longing. Such themes can be found in Anne's writings.

Jacobitism  - this refers to the movement that supported the deposed Roman Catholic King James II and that was essentially Romanist in sentiment. In 1715 and again in 1745 Jacobite rebels seriously attempted to put a third James on the throne. The threat of civil war was very real and felt by Anne and her contemporaries.

Particular Baptist – Anne was a Calvinistic Baptist by upbringing and conviction. This theology shaped her beliefs, her life and her writings. Cynthia Aalders quotes Donald Davie's reference to a Calvinistic aesthetic as breathing “simplicity, sobriety and measure” and these are characteristic of Anne's writing.

Scene

Broughton is a peaceful little Hampshire village in the Test Valley between two Cathedral cities. Salisbury is 12 miles to the west in one direction and Winchester the same distance east in the other. Dr James describes the family home as “an elegant and spacious building called 'grandfathers' with fine furniture and pictures and beautiful gardens.” The Baptist work at Broughton had been concentrated on the village since 1690, having also been active decades before (from 1653) 12 miles west in Porton, Wiltshire. A prominent member of the church was Anne's grandfather, Henry Steele (1655-1739). He joined the church in 1680 and became pastor in 1699. It was not necessary to pay him a stipend as he was a successful timber merchant with a lucrative British navy contract.

Henry had no son but his nephew William Steele III (1689-1769) helped him both in the business and in the ministry. When Henry died in 1739, William took over leadership of both.

By then his children, his son William Steele IV (1715-1785) and his daughter Anne, born two years after, were in their twenties. They also had a younger half sister. In 1720 Steele's first wife, Anne Froud Steele and her infant had died in childbirth. Three years later William had remarried another Anne, Anne Cater Steele and a year later they had a little girl, Mary, known as Molly.

Like her predecessor, the second Anne was a godly Particular Baptist. She kept a journal and some 15 years of entries have survived. It has become a chief resource for knowing about Anne, whom she nicknamed Nanny. Mrs Steele appears to have been a worrier. She was anxious that her own daughter Molly would get on with her step daughter. She prayed for all three children and was overjoyed when they came to know the Lord and were baptised. She and her step daughter became very close, especially after the other two left home.

Strict Baptists

In Broughton Chapel there were services every Lord's Day, morning and afternoon. Psalms and hymns were sung with the clerk or precentor lining out each one. There was sometimes an informal discussion Sunday evenings as well as a midweek meeting for prayer and a lecture. Communion, open only to those baptised by immersion, was celebrated monthly.

In 1727 a baptistery was installed and in 1731 Anne, 14, and her brother, 16, were baptised in it. First, they “gave in their experience” that is spoke to the church meeting about how they professed conversion. Then they and nine others were baptised and became church members. Members were expected to be diligent in attendance and to pray for each other.

Before Anne joined, membership was around 51. With the addition of herself, her brother and the others the number went up to 62. In 1745 numbers peaked at 91. In the 1730s there were 37 baptisms but a decline followed 1745-1755 when only four were baptised. Things improved a little in the 1760s but modestly compared with what was happening among Anglicans and Methodists around them affected by revival. Anne's parents went at least twice to hear George Whitefield and Methodist preachers would sometimes speak at the chapel.

Schooldays

While she was still young, Anne was sent to boarding school, over 40 miles away in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. A letter home survives from when she was 12. They spent most of their time, it seems, sewing headcloths. She calls the mistress an “odd-tempered woman”.

In April 1733 Anne was 16 and Molly 9 and they were sent to another school in Salisbury. There was a body of opinion in the chapel that feared this would expose the girls to worldly influence. Mary Steele agonised over the decision and a visit from Henry Steele who opposed the idea left her ruffled but determined to persevere with her plan.

Anne and Molly had their differences growing up and there is evidence of a stormy relationship at times, something for which Anne Cater tended to blame herself. She feared she sometimes favoured her own Mary over Anne.

The three children travelled to visit friends and family in various places. For example, in summer 1734 they visited Haycombe near Bath to be with their cousins, the children of Anne Cater Steele's sister and her husband, Jane Gay (1680-1756) and John Gay (1666-1729). From there Anne wrote to her stepmother assuring her Molly was well. That same year Anne spent three weeks in Whitchurch.

Travel was becoming easier in the eighteenth century. The stagecoach was beginning to come into its own. Roads were not good, however, and highwaymen and bad weather meant that travel could often be dangerous. When Anne was 18 her father was thrown from his horse travelling to a preaching engagement and his leg was badly damaged, leaving him with one leg shorter than the other the rest of his life. It is true that Anne herself was also thrown from her horse the following year, injuring her hip. There is no evidence, however, that this left her an invalid as some have speculated.

From Salisbury, Anne and Molly moved on to Ringwood, 25 miles south west of Broughton to stay with friends, the Manfield family. There Anne supervised Molly's education continuing to gain an education herself more informally through communication and correspondence with a wide circle of family and friends. Social evenings involved not only conversation but reading and writing poetry too.

Sicknesses

Biographers of Anne Steele have a good deal to say about her health. Even at the age of 14 her step mother was writing of Anne and Mary suffering intermittently from “the ague”. In 1988 consultant pathologist, Michael Dixon, and Steele descendant, Hugh Steele-Smith, wrote an article arguing convincingly that Anne suffered from malaria, a common disease in England at the time, especially in low marshy areas of the country such as Broughton was in, near the Wallop marshes. The disease would have left Anne often weak, anaemic and susceptible to other infections. It would also have caused fits with a high fever and left her vulnerable to TB. Her step mother thought she had consumption, as it was called then, and she would die young but this was not so.

Anne would often be ill throughout her life and was often in great pain. Her frequent stomach pains were probably the result of a peptic ulcer. Like many of her contemporaries, in days when dental hygiene was primitive and treatment barbaric, she often suffered the toothache, too.

Dr James catalogues some of her sufferings at different ages:

32 Ill for four months continually. She often groaned with stomach pains.

34 So bad she went with her sister for May and June to Bath but was too ill to bathe, drink the waters or enjoy anything.

37 She was very ill for most of this year

40 A nervous disorder began probably a result of the malaria

43 She began often to be short of breath

From the age of 43-54, her health fluctuated. In her final six years she was effectively housebound. Such sufferings, by God's grace, left her well able to sympathise with fellow sufferers.

Singleness

Another perennial for Steele biographers is her marital status. She remained single all her life. I have given you the story of the tragic death of her fiancé, as told before 2005. There was certainly some sort of courtship with James Elcombe but when John James Manfield sent his butler with a letter to Broughton in May 1737 explaining Elcombe's death in a bathing accident, he professes himself unsure how far Elcombe “may have prevailed in the affections of Miss Steele”. There was no engagement and the accident certainly did not happen the day before the wedding.

The myth can be traced back to Baptist historian and Ringwood native Joseph Ivimey (1733-1834) who relied on his local knowledge to tell the story. The idea that the incident haunted her and coloured her attitude through the rest of her life is also without foundation.

When Anne was 25 she received a written proposal from Benjamin Beddome, pastor at Bourton on the Water in the Cotswolds. How he might have met Anne is uncertain. It may have been that they met in Haycombe, if Beddome preached there. Anne refused the proposal but kept the letter. Beddome went on to marry the daughter of one of his deacons.

In 1749 Molly married a Joseph Wakeford (1719-1785) and moved up to Andover. She was 25. She and Anne often wrote to each other using the pseudonyms Amira and Sylviana respectively. Anne would often visit the Wakefords.

The two sometimes discussed the pros and cons of marriage, with Mary always eager to persuade Anne of its advantages. When Anne revealed that she had refused a marriage proposal, she had to endure a rebuke from Mary but defended herself by saying she was happy as she was and not keen to take on thorny marriage. Their light hearted banter demonstrates that Anne was far from being the sad and lonely character sometimes portrayed in the older literature.

Dr James writes

Anne remained single. She was in many ways privileged. She enjoyed financial independence; she had a comfortable home, a warm family circle and the freedom to visit friends. In her many sicknesses her stepmother proved to be a devoted nurse. Anne had the time and opportunity to write. Her father had fixed an elegant room for her with the latest shelving and a fireplace. She enjoyed constant visits to the large and elegant home built near to “Grandfathers” by her brother William. His home had a beautiful terrace and a walkway lined with fir trees, where Anne wrote some of her verse. It is unsurprising, then, that she described her lifestyle as “a fine even path” and that she hesitated to exchange it.

Dr James fears that had Anne become a busy pastor's wife she would never have given the time to writing that she did and could not have left the legacy that we have today.

Sylvan repose

Anne lived in Broughton most of her life with few notable events to break the monotony. Evenings of animated conversation and extempore rhyming were common. She often reflected with pleasure on God's goodness to her in his providence, recognising her privileged position. Though a well off member of the community, she did what she could to help the poor. She loved the countryside in day when it was popular to do so. Her contemporary William Cowper famously wrote that “God made the country, and man made the town”. Anne found village life highly conducive to her favourite activities – reading, writing, meditation and prayer.

Social circle and supporters

Several men and women were in Anne's circle of correspondence. Nancy Cho describes a coterie of literary females that included

Mary Steele (Silvia 1753-1813), her niece, the author of Danebury or The Power of Friendship: A Tale with Two Odes (1779)

Mary Scott (Myra 1751-1793), author of the proto-feminist work The Female Advocate; A Poem occasioned by reading Mr Duncombe's Feminead (1774)

Hannah More (1745-1833), the well known evangelical author, who visited the Steeles at least once

We could perhaps add Anne's second cousin Jane Attwater (1753–1844) in Bodenham near Salisbury. Dr James lists several ministers in Anne's circle. These are

John Lavington (1690-1759) Exeter based Presbyterian who began the Western Academy in 1752

Philip Furneaux (1726-1783) Hebrew scholar made a DD in 1767 who was first an assistant in a Presbyterian church in Southwark then minister of an Independent one in Clapham

James Fanch (1704-1767) A local minister who began in Whitchurch, moved to Romsey and also began a church in nearby Lockerly

Caleb Evans (1737-1791) Pastor at Broadmead, Bristol, succeeding his father. Also involved in the academy; he was principal from 1779 until his death.

John Ash (1724-1779) Minister at Pershore, studied at Bristol and authored a dictionary.

We may add Fanch's brother-in-law, hymn writer Daniel Turner (1710-1798) who preached in Broughton, 1756; another hymn writer, Samuel Stennett (1727-1795) and in a less personal way James Hervey (1714-1758) whose poems she read and responded to in her own writing.

Fanch, Lavington and Furneaux came to see Anne in 1751, the latter two introduced by the Wakefords who attended an Andover Independent church. Furneaux visited again in 1755 and 1757 and helped her to be published in 1760.

Spirituality

Dr James quotes a letter of Anne's that has survived. It brings out her admirably spiritual attitude.

I really believe your writing to me would be very useful, both to improve my understanding, and to exalt my thoughts more to the solid pleasures of virtue in religion; the most necessary important subjects. What are all the amusements of sense, to the divine contemplations of eternal things? They are empty and unsatisfying in their nature and short in duration, but these lift the thoughts to Heaven and fill the soul with the most refined lasting joy! But alas my mind is covered with a senseless stupidity: the continual din of a noisy town seems to dull my senses, and turn my thoughts all into confusion. O how desirable is the quiet enjoyment of the solitary fields! where no clamorous noise, or hurry, torments the ear, or disturbs the sight but the eyes and thoughts are at Liberty to contemplate the wonders of creation in all their blooming pride and native beauty. But ah why do I blame the change of place; hen the chief fault is in myself: for though noise and company may sometimes take up the thoughts, yet 'tis my own carelessness which sinks me into such a dead inactive frame; and dulls the nobler faculties of my soul. Could we consider as we ought to the all-seeing eye of God which surveys the inmost recesses of the heart, and marks every wandering thought; and have our minds filled with a religious awe of his divine presence: it would certainly make it more tender & careful of offending him by our sinful frames who cannot endure sin in his sight, and who hates all the workers of iniquity – how miserable then are we, our hearts are depraved in sin, we have lost the original purity of our first creation; and are utterly incapable of ourselves of doing anything acceptable in the sight of God, but must acknowledge our impotence and fly to the blood of the Redeemer: where alone relief is to be found. ….

Suffering

We have already suggested that Anne suffered a great deal. She dealt with it wisely, under God. In 1763 she wrote sympathetically to her sister-in-law who was also suffering

Past experience affords great encouragement to look up with humble hope and trust to the kind hand which hitherto has helped us. I know that faintness and dejection of spirit often attends long protracted pain and weakness, but while the Eternal God is our refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms, we can never be utterly cast down. It was a good saying of Dr Watts in his sickness “The business of a Christian is to bear the will of God as well as to do it”. but in this part of the Christian's duty as well as in all others we have need (in a conscious sense of our own weakness) to pray for a firm and constant assurance in almighty power and goodness … Perhaps if the path were always smooth and easy and we met with no cold storm or distressing accidents we should rather sit down or at least loiter by the way, and be forgetful of our journey's end.

Success

Anne wrote her hymns initially for personal use but they were then used by her father in worship at the chapel. Baptist churches that sang hymns in those days used Watts' hymns, which they often supplemented with their own efforts, usually versified forms of the sermon. They varied in quality. In Broughton, it was Anne's hymns that were sung.

After testing them out in Broughton they were finally published for general use. Under the date November 29, 1757, her father's diary has an entry

This day Nanny sent part of her composition to London to be printed. I entreat a gracious God, who enabled and stirred her up to such a work, to direct in it and bless it for the good of many.

This must refer to the 1758 publication of 22 pieces in Psalms and hymns. A full two volume set was printed in Bristol two years later, containing hymns and poems. In 1769, Evans and Ash produced their Bristol Collection. Besides hymns by Watts, it included 62 of Anne's hymns and a number by other Baptists. This Bristol hymn book was a notable challenge to the rule of Watts.

All her writings were signed Theodosia, gift of God. She was thus able to remain anonymous to most. Two years after her death in 1780 that anonymity ended when an additional volume of her work was published with the previous two, containing an introduction by Dr Caleb Evans. He paid tribute to her unfailing cheerfulness even amid the great pain of her closing years. There were 150 hymns and 52 versified psalms. It was in 1863 that the complete works were published with a memoir by the writer John Sheppard of Frome (1765-1879).

While Anne's hymns are not of the very highest order they never plunge into mediocrity but keep up a steady, modest pace and are, above all, useable. If they become dour and introspective, it is never for long. They cover a wide range of subjects, always evangelically and sometimes evangelistically.

Spiritual songs

One writer (Ronald Thomson) identifies three predominant characteristics in her work. He speaks of

1. An intense devotion to Christ's person. This he demonstrates with reference to two hymns

The Saviour! O what endless charms Dwell in the blissful sound!

Its influence every fear disarms, And spreads sweet comfort round.

And

Jesus, the spring of joys divine, Where all my hopes and comforts flow;

Jesus, no other name but Thine, Can save me from eternal woe.

2. What he calls a morbid dissatisfaction with life, in part reflecting the state of her health but also reflecting the religious mood of the time. His examples here are

Ah! why should this mistaken mind Still rove with restless pain?

Delight on earth expect to find, Yet still expect in vain?

The brightest day, alas, how vain! With conscious sighs we own;

While clouds of sorrow, care and pain, O'ershade the smiling noon.

He suggests that throughout her work this sense of dissatisfaction with “mortality's unnumbered ills” is reflected alongside a balancing longing for heaven and a desire to leave “this low world and seek the skies”.

3. Where Anne Steele shines, he says, is in a close attention to the works of Watts and Doddridge, from whom again and again she catches the true note of the hymn writer.

He says her best work bears comparison with the best of Watts and Doddridge, and it was these poems which were quickly taken into use as hymns. We catch many echoes of Watts as in

Come, dearest Lord, extend Thy reign, Till rebels rise no more;

Thy praise all nature then shall join And heaven and earth adore.

Another fine hymn begins

Father, whate'er of earthly bliss Thy sovereign will denies,

Accepted at Thy throne of grace, Let this petition rise:

Give me a calm, a thankful heart, From every murmur free;

The blessings of Thy grace impart, And make me live to Thee.

Thomson notes that the Baptist Church Hymnal (1900) included five hymns and the Revised editions of 1933 and 1962, two: The Saviour calls and Father of mercies, in Thy word which is in many, many other hymn books and some think it her greatest hymn. Originally, it had 12 verses, The best of these has been chosen to make the present hymn.

Steele's hymns quickly became very popular in America. In 1808, when Trinity Church, Boston, grew tired of singing psalms they published their own hymn book and 59 of its 152 hymns were by Anne Steele.

She devoted the profits from her first two volumes to “purposes of benevolence”. Caleb Evans in 1780 said that the profits of that volume were being devoted to the Bristol Education Society.

Sadnesses

From 1760 Anne knew many sadnesses. In 1760 her stepmother died and Anne took over the duties of housekeeper and nurse to her aged father. Two years later, her close friend and sister-in-law Mary Bullock Steele, William's wife, died, leaving behind nine year old Mary, known as Polly. Her upbringing now fell chiefly to Anne. In 1769, perhaps the bitterest blow fell when her father died a month before he turned 80. He had preached two weeks before with his usual vigour, 60 years into his pastorate. In 1762 Nathaniel Rawlings (1734-1809) succeeded him.

At this point Anne moved in with her brother and his new wife, Martha Goddard Steele (1734-1791). Just three years after her father's death, in 1772, Anne's half sister Mary died. She was only 48. Only William was left and he and his wife took care of her until her death in November, 1778. She is said to have said at death I know that my Redeemer liveth.

In her life time then, she remained anonymous and it was only after her death that people began to learn of who this godly woman was.

*

There was an occasion in Anne Steele's life when she received a very gracious letter from a lady who had been much helped by her poems. Anne replied to her in the following verse, which may fitly conclude our story

If aught you find in Theodosia's lays, To profit, or to please, transfer the praise

To Him whose bounty every gift bestows; Since all unmerited that bounty flows.