Mary Steele, Broughton, to her half-sister Anne Steele, [Tuesday] 24 February 1789.

   When I consider that every human Being however insignificant is design’d by Providence to be useful in some way or other to those around them, I am ready to ask to whom can I now possibly be of any use? My Nancy arises to the Eye of Affection & I cannot help wishing tho’ I feel how ineffectually that I could in some way or other contribute to her pleasure or improvement; – but Alas, what can I tell her that she is not already better acquainted with – I can neither instruct by precept nor example.  I may however serve as a Beacon. I may point out those errors into which I have fallen that she may learn to avoid them.

   Life with an irresistible Current is gliding away & in a short Time Eternity all important Eternity will disclose its awful Scene to us all.   Is it not strange my Nancy that Persons united by the strictest ties of Affection who feel every other lesser interest for each other should so seldom express their mutual solicitous hopes & fears concerning Interests & Situations compar’d to which all besides are trifling as the Spoils of Childhood

   While reflecting on this Subject I am ready to say to my Friends

                                       “Assist me now!

   Now while your Love may profit, teach my heart

   All that your brighter hope & stronger faith

   Hath seen or tasted of the world unknown Joys to come!

   The inevitable hour demands it all

                                                               Theodosia

The force of habit in this as well as in every other respect is astonishing – Detesting every thing that wore the appearance of Ostentation or that sounded like Cant, I in early youth fell into the other extremes of total Reserve on the Subject that concern’d my everlasting Peace & many a mental difficulty here I struggled with which had I disclos’d to my kind Instructors I am persuaded their advice would have enabled me to surmount, & to this amongst many other Sins & follies I may perhaps attribute the little progress I have ever made in Religion & virtue. We are apt to think imagine that none think & feel like ourselves the each heart knoweth its own bitterness but we should remember what Dr Watts hath said ^even^ of[3] those who are safely arriv’d at the Regions of perfect felicity

Once they were Strangers here below

And wet their Couch with Tears

They wrestled hard as we do now

With Sins & Doubts & Fears

Let not my Dr sister follow my evil Example.  Happy should I be to be found with any degree of her Confidence but conscious how unable I am to assist her.  I cannot urge it but she is bless’d with a mother who is, did not a distressing diffidence often overcloud her mind, capable of animating advising & instructing her both by precept & Example.  

   I cannot suppose that my Dear Sister is void of Reflection, God is speaking to us all continually in his Word & by his Providence.  His longsuffering Goodness leadeth us to Repentance. To us my Sister he now speaks in Accents of peculiar Tenderness. He hath styled himself a Father of the Fatherless! & shall we not seek his favor implore his mercy & trust his promises – we are depriv’d of such a Father as scarcely any Children were ever bless’d with. Oh while we dwell with unutterable Love & Sorrow on his Dear Idea be it also ours to follow his Example that his dying predictions may be verified that “we ^may^ all rejoice together” – In Christ we are told God is reconciling the World to himself not imputing their trespasses unto them. Let not therefore a Sense of our Sins & Infirmities keep us from imploring his mercy.  Shall the sick defer sending for a Physician till his health is restored? No it is not ye Righteous, nor those who fancy themselves so, but Sinners that are called to Repentance.  The Scriptures we are told are able to make us wise unto Salvation. Let us study ^them^ my Dear Sister not as a set Task but to endeavor to gain that most important of all information the means of Happiness & let us not take our Ideas from human Creeds & Systems but endeavor as much as possible to think as we should have thought if it had been quite new to us.  Religion is a personal thing, it is something between God & our own Souls we may advize we may assist but it is impossible we should impart it to each other.  It may be perhaps in a general view be defin’d as a preference of Eternity to Time a looking ^not^ at the things that are seen but those that are unseen.  And Ah how easily Alas may we often determine which engages most of our Attention, but when once we are convinc’d of the insufficiency of everything ^here^ to fill the desires of the Soul “when the World emphatically proves itself vanity by Vanishing” (& such a Time will come to us all) we shall then naturally look to something beyond it, naturally seek for more permanent happiness & a firmer Support.  And Oh Blessed Assurance Him that Seeketh shall find & to him that knoweth it shall be opened.  Perhaps there is nothing more fatal to Devotion than ye false Ideas we are prone to form of the Great Supreme.  Sometimes we are ready to deem him such an One as ourselves too merciful not to connive at those Sins which we indulge ourselves in, at others as so awfully inexorable that conscious Guilt must check ^every^ Emotion but that of Terror but with what a mixture of mercy & majesty has the Scriptures exhibited him, tho’ of purer Eyes than to behold Iniquity tho’ he cannot look on Sin but with Abhorrence. Yet God so loved the World as to give his only Son that whosever believeth on him should not perish but have eternal life. – That gloomy unsociable Austerity who with which many have incorporated with Religion have been of infinite diservice to its cause – But if the finest Emotions of the human heart, If the Glow of Gratitude, if the ingenuous  Relentings of Contrition, if the expanded wish of Benevolence, if the Admiration, & Love of all that is truly Sublime & Excellent have any thing great, anything amiable in them, Religion must command our Affectionate veneration for such are the Emotions it inspires for – “Genuine Religion whatever be its form must be founded on the Love of God”!

   Let not My Dear Sister think I assume the Style of an Instructor.  I only wish to impart a hint which she will in a much better manner enlarge upon & to give her tho’ but a small proof yet the strongest in my power of that Solicitude for her happiness, which is ever felt by her Affectionate Sister &

                                 Friend

                                             Mary Steele

Feb 24th 1789

“May each return of this revolving Day

Thy Mind more lovely & more bless’d survey”

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, vol. 3, pp. 330-32 (annotated version); STE 5/11/ii, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. No address page. Anne Steele is most likely at the Tomkins’s home at Abingdon. If we take her words as sincere, then Mary Steele’s concern about her lack of religious affections, which she discussed at length in her spiritual autobiography c. 1780, appears to have been remedied by 1789.

References above are to Anne Steele’s ‘A Reflection on hearing the Bell at the Interment of a Friend’, from Miscellaneous Pieces (1780), p. 62; Isaac Watts's hymn, ‘The Examples of Christ and the Saints’, from Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 19th ed. (London, 1755), p. 290 (instead of ‘strangers’, Watts uses ‘mourning’).