Getting The Point - Anna Warner + Susan Warner

1827–1915 1819–85

Maybe you’re still reeling from the recent economic crisis, but such financial downturns are nothing new. The Panic of 1837 touched off a seven-year recession, creating high unemployment and widespread business failure. Henry Warner, a wealthy New York City lawyer, was one victim. His family had to move out of their luxurious town house and into a Revolutionary-era home on an island in the middle of the Hudson River. Writing about this move, his daughter Anna called the new place “nondescript”—and yet here they would have to “live out our lives, fighting the fight, wrestling with sorrow, gathering up the joy.”

If it weren’t for their economic necessity, Anna and Susan might never have gotten so serious about their writing—first poems and stories for magazines, and then novels. Susan’s book The Wide, Wide World (published under her pseudonym, Elizabeth Wetherell) was a huge success, going through fourteen printings in two years. In it, a young woman faces various crises and learns to trust God. While the novel is quite preachy, it is still studied in some college classes as a glimpse into the lives of women in that time. Meanwhile Anna Warner was also writing novels, but she gained her greatest fame for writing the words to “Jesus Loves Me.”

The Warner sisters carried out one other remarkable ministry. Beginning in 1875, they held Bible studies for cadets at West Point, the military academy across the river from their home. Eventually it became a much-anticipated Sunday event for the young men who were ferried across to the island for the afternoon. The Warners would teach the Bible, lead discussions on it, and then serve tea and gingerbread. They would also maintain a correspondence with cadets who wanted to know more about the faith. Anna continued this tradition even after Susan’s death, until her own death in 1915.

The roster of national leaders who passed through West Point in those years is impressive. How many of them were touched, directly or indirectly, by the faithful ministry of Susan and Anna Warner?

Bad things happen, forcing us in directions we might not want to go. But they can give us the opportunity to see what new talents might awaken in us as we cope with the new circumstances. They can also show us how we can impact the lives of others.

Work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile.

Jeremiah 29:7