More Than Words - Hannah More

1745–1833

A writer needs to get used to rejection. Many successful authors could paper their walls with rejection letters from publishers. Hannah More was a great writer who regularly transformed rejection into redemption.

Her upbringing was humble. At one point, Hannah’s father thought he had a substantial amount of money coming to him, but the courts rejected his claim. A highly educated man, he set up a school to teach his children and others. Hannah benefited from this training and became a teacher herself.

Then love got in the way. Engaged to an affluent young man, Hannah gave up teaching to prepare for her roles as wife and mother . . . except she waited six years for the marriage to happen and was ultimately rejected. In a legal settlement, though, the man provided her with a healthy annuity, which enabled Hannah to embark on a writing career.

More’s writing style was far ahead of her time, with strong word choices, energetic sentence structure, dramatic themes, controversial opinions, and a tone that could be romantic, preachy, or conversational. Over the following years, she wrote plays, poetry, fiction, and essays that proved to be quite popular in England. She took up with the elite artistic community of London, becoming one of that culture’s celebrities for a time.

But fame is fickle, and there were a few more rejections along the way, including an embarrassing accusation of theft from another poet who had been a close friend. Hannah left the London crowd and moved out to the country. But there, an even more important chapter of her life began.

She always was a woman of faith, but she now wrote more books and tracts on faith and ethics, gave her money to charity, and met with evangelical leaders such as John Newton and William Wilberforce. Her poem “Slavery,” published in 1788, typified her new commitment. In it, she lambasted so-called Christians who were involved in the slave trade. It was a powerful salvo in the British fight for abolition.

How do you handle rejection? It’s no fun to see your dreams dashed, but Hannah More seemed to find new dreams in the ruins of the old ones. Perhaps our best question is, What are God’s dreams for us?

“I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

Jeremiah 29:11