True Happiness

Celestial content, inexhaustible treasure

Author: Anne Steele (1780)
Published in 1 hymnal

Representative Text

Celestial content, inexhaustible treasure!
The man that enjoys thee requires no addition;
In thee he possesses wealth, honour, and pleasure;
O happy condition!

With pity he looks on the many, pursuing
The trifles of earth with such eager attention,
And straining, in chase of their utter undoing,
(Tho' distant) unfolding.

On inviolate truth while his hopes are depending,
Nor terrors affright, nor afflictions depress him;
Assur'd, tho' to death's gloomy mansions fast tending
His God will still bless him.

Releas'd from the sorrows of time his glad spirit
Shall leave its weak partner, and joyfully soaring,
The promis'd possession begin to inherit;
With angels adoring.

He knows that his body, the grave now detaining,
In Jesus' bright image hereafter arising,
Shall surely rejoin him, no sorrow remaining,
Corruption despising.

Then with heaven's fair armies in triumph ascending
Partake of delights ever new and abounding;
Enraptur'd before the bright throne lowly bending
Salvation resounding.

Source: Miscellaneous Pieces in Verse and Prose #25

Author: Anne Steele

Anne Steele was the daughter of Particular Baptist preacher and timber merchant William Steele. She spent her entire life in Broughton, Hampshire, near the southern coast of England, and devoted much of her time to writing. Some accounts of her life portray her as a lonely, melancholy invalid, but a revival of research in the last decade indicates that she had been more active and social than what was previously thought. She was theologically conversant with Dissenting ministers and "found herself at the centre of a literary circle that included family members from various generations, as well as local literati." She chose a life of singleness to focus on her craft. Before Christmas in 1742, she declined a marriage proposal from contemporar… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: Celestial content, inexhaustible treasure
Title: True Happiness
Author: Anne Steele (1780)
Language: English
Publication Date: 1780
Copyright: This text is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before 1929.

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Miscellaneous Pieces in Verse and Prose #25

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