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“Good blazing fires” — that’s one thing that helps if you are down. It is part of a witty, wise discussion of how to face down depression by the Anglican cleric Sidney Smith, whose life ran across the 18th and 19th centuries.
When we face an epidemic of mental illness and a febrile church, Smith’s advice and sense of humor repay study. In recent years, Anglicans have much over which they could get depressed. Smith helps us about face life’s ups and downs with faith.
Smith on Depression
Smith wrote to a friend, Lady Georgina Morpeth, who was suffering with what we would now call depression and listed 20 things that would help.
Alongside “good, blazing fires,” he recommended amusing books, seeing good friends, being outdoors as much as possible and keeping busy. He praised “short views of human life — not further than dinner or tea.”
There is a gentleness to Smith’s advice. “Don’t be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice.” He urged the recipient of his letter to ensure that the room where she usually sat was a pleasant place and that she avoid inactivity and try deliberately to “do good.” All valuable advice — active benevolence is a serious help in combatting low spirits. And solid common sense was spliced with gentle wit: “Don’t expect too much from human life — a sorry business at the best.”
Shrewdly, Smith advised, “Make no secret of low spirits to your friends, but talk of them freely — they are always worse for dignified concealment.” And there is a distinctly modern feel to his urging that Georgina “attend to the affects that tea and coffee produce upon you.”
And underneath this gentle, wise, warm letter was a darker side: “Lady Georgiana, Nobody has suffered more from low spirits than I have done — so I feel for you.” For all Smith’s geniality, he knew the curse that depression is — which is why he could be shrewd on how to fight it.
And beneath all was a firm faith. “Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion,” he advised his depressed friend. Smith’s playful wit should never be mistaken for skepticism. In a century when unbelief was becoming chic, Sidney Smith was solid on the need for faith and the need to exercise it.
Conclusion
I had grown tired of the present with its anger and fear and lies. I was losing faith in the future. I wanted to delve into our deep past, to be buttressed and braced by history.[1]
So writes Peter Ross in his recent volume, Steeple Chasing. We can learn from those who came before us. Sure, they had their failings (and Smith’s are easy to spot from the distance of two centuries). But people like Smith lived in difficult and confusing times, and when they showed strength, they give us a steer in the difficult and confusing times in which we find ourselves.
One of the grim characteristics of our age is how desperately unfunny it is. Anglicans should pray for a second Smith, to puncture the egos of all convinced of their rectitude.
Recovery of Smith helps Anglicans learn to laugh at ourselves. With him as our companion, we grow smaller, wiser, and happier.
And when he makes us laugh, especially when we remember to laugh at ourselves, he gives us a precious inoculation against the self-important indignation that so disfigures our age and, at times, the Anglican Communion.
[1] Peter Ross, Steeple Chasing: Around Britain by Church (Headline 2023), p.5.
The Rev. Dr. David Goodhew is vicar of St. Barnabas Church, Middlesbrough, England, and visiting fellow of St John’s College, Durham University.
