Hannah More and Radical Discipleship

31/01/25

Ruth Lukabyo is Dean of Women and Senior Lecturer at Youthworks College.

What does a radical disciple of Jesus look like? I think it looks like Hannah More, a woman who trusted in God’s providence, used her gifts, cared for the poor, taught children and fought for justice.

Hannah More was born in 1745, one of five sisters. Following their father’s example, all the sisters became teachers and opened a school for girls.

When Hannah was 22, she became engaged to a wealthy man named William Turner. However, the engagement lasted for six years! He pushed back the wedding date three times, and in the end literally left her at the altar.

In the 18th century to be engaged was a serious commitment, with the expectation that a woman was to be cared for if an engagement was broken. To his credit, William Turner fulfilled his responsibility and gave Hannah a very generous yearly income.

Hannah did not become bitter, but trusted God’s providence in her life. As a single woman with means, she now had freedom to develop her remarkable gifts in writing which she would later use in service to God.

Hannah moved to London to become a playwright and poet and there she met other evangelicals. Under their influence she stopped writing plays and wrote short stories that taught Christian morals. Tracts like ‘The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain’ and ‘Tawny Rachel’ became bestsellers. She would later use some of the money that she made to support the needy young clergy that she mentored.

William Wilberforce, the wealthy man who led the campaign for the abolition of slavery in the English parliament, became her friend. Wilberforce was involved in many projects, including the Church Missionary Society, the RSPCA and the plan to send evangelical chaplains and teachers to the colony of NSW. To achieve his plans, he gathered a group of evangelicals around him, including Hannah.

One day Wilberforce visited Hannah, and they went for a walk through the nearby villages. He was horrified by the poverty and that there were no clergy caring for the people. He was also distressed by the lack of education for the village children.

Hannah and one of her sisters, Patty, shared his concern and decided to set up Sunday Schools. Hannah found the teachers to teach the children to read and understand the Bible, and Wilberforce funded them.

There was a great demand for these schools and soon the numbers grew. By 1796, there were about 1,700 students in ten parishes. The schools had a wonderful impact on young people’s lives - for example, Patty wrote in her journal that ‘two grown-up lads, farmers’ servants … appeared struck to the heart, and showed truer marks of conversion than any we had met before.[1]’

Hannah did not only care for children, but she also cared for men and women who had been enslaved by British slave traders in the slave trade. She was appalled that slave traders transported slaves from West Africa to sell in the colonies in the Americas and the Caribbean. There they were made to grow goods like cotton, sugar and rum, which were then imported to England.

Hannah joined Wilberforce in his quest to abolish the slave trade. Wilberforce fought to change the laws in parliament, while Hannah and other evangelicals worked hard to influence public opinion. Hannah used her writing skills and wrote poems and stories of slaves such as ‘The Black Prince, a True Story.’ She encouraged a public boycott on sugar and took a drawing to fancy dinner parties that showed the hulk of a ship with slaves chained on the floor side by side, with no room between them.

Hannah and other evangelicals challenged the norms of the day by insisting that slaves were human beings just like white people. They used the phrase ‘One blood’, which was later used by Christians in the colony of NSW to object to the treatment of Indigenous Australians by convicts and settlers.

On July 26, 1883, slavery was abolished in the British Empire through the advocacy of Hannah, Wilberforce and other evangelicals. Wilberforce achieved his life objective then died three days later. Hannah died two months after Wilberforce.

What can we learn from Hannah?

·       First, Hannah had plans for her life that were disappointed, but God opened other ways that she could serve him. God is sovereign in our lives too, whether we are married or single, he will use us.

Because she was single but financially comfortable, Hannah was able to use the gifts that God had given her. She was not in vocational ministry as we may understand it, but her writing and advocacy did good in her country and helped to build the Church. Are there ways that you can be a Christian in your workplace or church, using your gifts and money to serve God?

·       Second, I am inspired by Hannah’s love for children and her desire for them to be able to read and so escape poverty. Furthermore, she also wanted them to be converted. She raised the money needed for schools, and found the teachers to do the job.

·       Finally, her desire for justice. She was appalled at the treatment of fellow human beings by the slave trade. She strove to change public opinion and convince her nation to do what was right. Hannah and Wilberforce remind me of the story of Daniel, who became a senior civil servant in Babylon where he stood up to corruption and prayed. Even though it was a city that did not recognise the Lord, he did good and was faithful.

May we follow the example of Daniel and of Hannah.

Excerpt from Hannah’s poem, ‘Slavery’.[2]

She tears the banner stained with blood and tears,

And, Liberty! thy shining standard rears!

As the bright ensign’s glory she displays,

See pale Oppression faints beneath the blaze!

The giant dies! no more his frown appals,

The chain, untouched, drops off, the fetter falls.

Astonished echo tells the vocal shore,

Oppression’s fallen, and slavery is no more!

The dusky myriads crowd the sultry plain,

And hail that mercy long invoked in vain.

Victorious power! she bursts their two-fold bands,

And Faith and Freedom spring from Britain’s hands.

And Thou! great source of Nature and of Grace,

Who of one blood didst form the human race,

Look down in mercy in thy chosen time,

With equal eye on Afric’s suffering clime:

Disperse her shades of intellectual night,

Repeat thy high behest — Let there be light!

Bring each benighted soul, great God, to Thee,

And with thy wide Salvation make them free!

[1] Quoted in Karen Swallow Prior (2014) Fierce Convictions, the extraordinary life of Hannah more – poet, reformer, abolitionist. Tennessee, Nashville: Nelson Books, 150.

[2] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51885/slavery