Hannah Whitall Smith grew up in a strict Quaker home in Philadelphia, given to what she called "morbid introspection" that brought little spiritual peace. Though religious, she found no relief in her own spiritual striving.
Finding Peace After Child Death
In 1851 she married Robert Pearsall Smith, another Quaker. But it was the death of their five-year-old daughter that finally unlocked the gates of heaven for Hannah. Unable to bear the thought that her child had gone into cold, impersonal nothingness, she desperately sought a ray of light.
At that time, Philadelphia businessmen were gathering for noon prayer meetings. Hannah wondered what prompted so many to give up their lunch hour and went to see. What she found transformed her.
God Not Based on Feelings
By August 30, 1858, Hannah recorded a full commitment to belief in Christ as her savior from sins. The key insight that changed everything was this: "I saw that salvation was not based on feelings but on God's facts."
"I had been living all my life under an utterly false impression," she later wrote. "I had thought that God was a stern judge... But now I saw that He was actually the most unselfish being in the universe."
Christian Secret Happy Life
This revelation - that God was good, unselfish, and trustworthy regardless of her fluctuating feelings - became the foundation of her classic book "The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life" (1875). In it she taught that Christian joy comes not from spiritual effort but from simple trust in a loving God.
Hannah's message of rest in God swept through America and England. Her "Higher Life" meetings drew thousands, including support from D.L. Moody. Her book has never gone out of print and continues to bring peace to troubled souls who, like Hannah, have exhausted themselves trying to feel their way to God.
