Sadly forgotten today, the Baptist writer Anne Steele (1717–1778), has been rightly called the ‘mother of the English hymn’, and at the close of the 19th century she was as famous as Isaac Watts, John Newton or William Cowper.
Anne was the daughter of William Steele, the Pastor of the Particular Baptist Chapel in Broughton, Hampshire, a village situated roughly mid-way between Salisbury and Winchester. Converted in 1732 and baptised the same year, she grew to be a woman of deep piety, genuine cheerfulness, and blessed with a mind hungry for knowledge. Her piety was wrought in the furnace of affliction. She wrestled most of her adult life, it appears, with ongoing bouts of tertian malaria and terrible stomach pain.
She never married, although there were two proposals of marriage – one from none other than the Baptist pastor and hymnwrit-er Benjamin Beddome (1717–1795). Anne, however, made a conscious choice to remain single. In a letter she wrote to her stepsister after refusing one of these proposals, she said that the suitor had offered his hand to help her over the stile, that is, get married. But when she looked over into the meadow of marriage, she wrote the following words. ‘I looked over and saw no flowers, but observ’d a great many thorns, and I suppose there are more hid under the leaves, but as there is not verdure enough to cover half of ‘em it must be near winter, as I think it generally happens when I look into the said Meadow.’
Devoted to hymns
So Anne remained single. But her single-ness gave her the time to devote herself to poetry and hymn-writing, a gift with which the Lord had richly blessed her. About 10 years before her death, 62 of her hymns were published in A Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship (1769), a Baptist hymnal edited by John Ash and Caleb Evans. This gave her hymns a wide circulation throughout Baptist circles and played a critical role in the revival of the Baptist cause in England at the close of the 18th century.
Her most famous song?
One of the very few of her hymns that is still sung today shows how this wide circulation of her hymns would have played a part in revitalising areas of the Particular Baptist cause. Originally entitled ‘The Saviour’s Invitation’, it was based on Jesus’ words in John 7.37: ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink’ (KJV).
The Saviour calls—let every Ear
Attend the heavenly Sound;
Ye doubting Souls, dismiss your Fear,
Hope smiles reviving round.
For every thirsty, longing Heart,
Here Streams of Bounty flow,
And Life, and Health, and Bliss impart,
To banish mortal Woe.
Here, Springs of sacred Pleasure rise
To ease your every Pain,
(Immortal Fountain! full Supplies!)
Nor shall you thirst in vain.
Ye Sinners come, ‘tis Mercy’s Voice,
The gracious Call obey;
Mercy invites to heavenly Joys,—
And can you yet delay?
Dear Saviour, draw reluctant Hearts,
To Thee let Sinners fly;
And take the Bliss Thy Love imparts,
And drink, and never die.
Based on Jesus’ open invitation to sinners to come to Him and drink, that is, find eternal life, Steele urges ‘every Ear’ to ‘attend’ to Christ’s heavenly invitation. He calls all who are ‘thirsty’ and ‘longing’ to come to Him, where they will find ‘Life, and Health, and Bliss’, – in sum, ‘Springs of sacred Pleasure’ that will ease every woe. This invitation is a command – ’the gracious Call obey’ – and a free offer – ’can you yet delay?’
But Steele is also aware that the ‘thirsty, longing Heart’ is not sufficient in itself to come to Christ. In the final analysis it is a ‘reluctant Heart,’ filled with doubt and fear. Hence, she prays: ‘Dear Saviour, draw reluctant hearts.’ And this is a prayer that can be prayed with confidence, for the Saviour to whom she speaks is an ‘Immortal Fountain’, Mercy incarnate who loves sinners and delights in bestowing on them ‘heavenly Joys’.
As Particular Baptist men and women sang this hymn, it was preparing them for the revival that came to their community in the final decades of the 18th century. Oh that this were true of our hymnody today!
