She’s been called the “poet of the Sanctuary,” and even “the all-time champion Baptist hymn-writer of either sex.” She penned hymns as a contemporary of Charles Wesley, John Newton, and William Cowper. Here’s a sample:
Awake, awake, the sacred song,
To our incarnate Lord;
Let every heart and every tongue
Adore th’ eternal Word.
And she also proclaims God’s amazing grace:
Lord, we adore thy boundless grace,
The heights and depths unknown,
Of pardon, life, and joy, and peace,
In thy beloved Son.
Still not jogging your memory? You’re probably not alone. These are the lyrics of Anne Steele (1717–78).
If she was so popular in the 18th century, why do few know about her today? Maybe, at least in part, because she was a Particular (Reformed) Baptist and an unmarried female (not named Fanny Crosby), and she suffered from poor health her entire adult life.
Approaching the Great Physician
Writing amid debilitating physical symptoms and emotional pain, Anne Steele didn’t spend time in the limelight. Her stepmother’s journals and letters reveal that Steele’s childhood included high fevers and fits caused by malaria—which eventually led to a nervous disorder—as well as severe toothaches, stomachaches, and other bodily afflictions. And, like most in her day, she endured the loss of family and friends in her youth.
The death of young people particularly affected her spirit. She took her pen to the Lord in the hymn “The Great Physician”:
Ye mourning sinners, here disclose
Your deep complaints, your various woes;
Approach, ‘tis Jesus, he can heal
The pains which mourning sinners feel.
To eyes long clos’d in mental night,
Strangers to all the joys of light,
His word imparts a blissful ray,
Sweet morning of celestial day!
Steele knew spiritual pain and emotional darkness. A few stanzas later, she closed with a petition about physical infirmities, showing us how to pray for the sick to get well:
Dear Lord, we wait thy healing hand;
Diseases fly at thy command;
O let thy sovereign touch impart
Life, strength, and health to every heart!
Then shall the sick, the blind, the lame,
Adore their Great Physician’s name;
Then dying souls shall bless their God,
And spread the wondrous praise abroad.
Steele was remarkably attuned to her own sin, sin’s curse on creation, and the believer’s dependence on God. In another hymn, she lamented a young person’s death:
When blooming youth is snatched
By death’s resistless hand,
Our hearts the mournful tribute pay
Which pity must demand.
And she concluded,
Great God, thy sovereign grace impart,
With cleansing, healing power;
This only can prepare the heart
For death’s surprising hour.
Steele’s words express both the gravity of the circumstance and the hope of a believer facing tragedy. (Listen also to her beautiful hymn “Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul,” put to music by Matthew Merker.)
Affection for the Savior
Steele remained unmarried for her 61 years of life—but not for lack of courters. For example, she declined a proposal from pastor and hymn writer Benjamin Beddome. Steele was happy with the freedom of the single life as she fixed her affections on her Lord. Consider the first and final verses of “Devoting the Heart to Jesus”:
Jesus, what shall I do to show
How much I love thy glorious name?
Let my whole heart with rapture glow
Thy boundless goodness to proclaim. . . .
O teach my heart, my life, my voice
To celebrate thy wondrous love!
Fulfill my hopes, complete my joys,
And bid me join the songs above.
Steele offers a model of honest vulnerability in meditation and prayer.
Awe at the Wonder of Salvation
Living in a family of timber merchants and bivocational pastors, Steele wrote many hymns for her father’s Particular Baptist congregation in Broughton, England. This means she was a Reformed (or Calvinistic) Baptist. Steele understood God’s holiness and mercy, our great sin and our even greater Savior, and the sovereignty of God coupled with our responsibility to respond to his grace.
The first and the final two stanzas of “The Saviour’s Invitation” illustrate her theology:
The Saviour calls; let every ear
Attend the heavenly sound;
Ye doubting souls dismiss your fear;
Hope smiles reviving round. . . .
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.
I’ve spent more than five years studying Steele and her hymns. As my sister in the faith, she has reminded me of God’s holiness that makes me tremble—and God’s compassion that never fails. Because of her ministry, I’m slower to be spiritually flippant and quicker to run to Jesus for comfort. Steele has helped me keep this life’s suffering in perspective as I look forward to heaven’s joy. She has deepened my love for the beauty of words, emotions, and God’s creation.
Though now home with her Lord, the best hymn writer you’ve never heard of can still speak to you today—even as she has to me.
The Gospel Coalition