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About the Book
"The Daughters of Philip" follows the lives of three women, Funke, Lola, and Ngozi, as they navigate love, marriage, and motherhood in Nigeria. Set against a backdrop of societal expectations and cultural norms, the novel explores themes of family, friendship, and personal fulfillment. Through their individual journeys, the women discover their own strengths and desires, ultimately finding empowerment in their identities as daughters of Philip.
Hannah More
Beyond any doubt, Hannah More was the most influential female member of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the African Slave Trade. She was educated at Bristol, an important slave-trading town, and began to publish her writing in the 1760s, while she was still a teenager. Her first play, The Inflexible Captive, was staged at Bath in 1775. Later in the 1770s, and for much of the 1780s, she spent time in London and made the acquaintance of many important political and society figures, including Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, and Elizabeth Montagu. Her play Percy was produced by David Garrick in 1777, and Fatal Falsehood was staged in 1779, but she came to regard the theatre as morally wrong, especially after the death of her mentors; Garrick and Johnson. She turned to religious writing, beginning with her Sacred Dramas in 1782. In 1784-5, she 'discovered' Ann Yearsley, the so-called 'poetical milkmaid of Bristol', whose poems More helped to publish, although the two later fell out.
In the 1780s, More widened her circle to include religious and philanthropic figures, including John Newton, Beilby Porteus and William Wilberforce. In the summer of 1786, she spent time with Sir Charles and Lady Margaret Middleton at the their home in Teston in Kent. Among their guests were the local vicar James Ramsay and a young Thomas Clarkson, both of whom were central to the early abolition campaign. More and Clarkson met again in Bristol in 1787, while he was on his fact-finding mission to the city, but they did not become close. However, in the same year More met Wilberforce, and their friendship was to become a deep and lasting one. More contributed much to the running of the newly-founded Abolition Society including, in February 1788, her publication of Slavery, a Poem which has been recognised as one of the more important slavery poems of the abolition period. Her relationship with members of the society, especially Wilberforce, was close. For example, she spent the summer of 1789 holidaying with Wilberforce in the Peak District - planning for the abolition campaign, at that time at its height, formed a great deal of their conversation.
By the mid-1790s, More had become closely involved with the 'Clapham Sect' of evangelical Christians, many of whom were involved in the abolition campaign. The group centred on Henry Thornton's home in Clapham and included Wilberforce, James Stephen, and Zachary Macaulay, among others. Throughout the 1790s, she wrote a number of religious tracts, known as the Cheap Repository Tracts, that eventually led to the formation of the Religious Tracts Society. Several of the Tracts oppose slavery and the slave trade, in particular, the poem The Sorrows of Yamba; or, The Negro Woman's Lamentation, which appeared in November 1795 and which was co-authored with Eaglesfield Smith. However, the tracts have also been noted for their encouragement of social quietism in an age of revolution. She continued to oppose slavery throughout her life, but at the time of the Abolition Bill of 1807, her health did not permit her to take as active a role in the movement as she had done in the late 1780s, although she maintained a correspondence with Wilberforce and others. In her later life, she dedicated much time to religious writing. Nevertheless, her most popular work was a novel, Coelebs in Search of a Wife, which appeared in two volumes in 1809 (and which ran to nine editions in 1809 alone). In the 1820s she grew gradually less well, and decreased - but did not entirely halt - the amount of writing she produced. On her death in 1833, she left more than Ă‚ÂŁ30,000 to charities and religious societies (equivalent to about Ă‚ÂŁ2,000,000 or $3,000,000 in 2004).
© Brycchan Carey 2004
Labor Like You’re Loved
By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10) At one level, this passage contains one of the more surprising statements in any of Paul’s letters. “I worked harder than any of them,” he says — them, meaning the other apostles. Seemingly without any blushing or posturing, but just calmly stating the facts, Paul self-identifies as the hardest working of a select group who had been with Jesus, none of them known for laziness. Clearly in his letters and in the book of Acts, Paul demonstrates a kind of uncommon energy and intensity. Perhaps he would acknowledge that he had some unusual wiring. Again and again, however, he puts his uncommon exertions forward not as an exception to admire, but as an example to follow. Even still, what the apostle Paul is remembered for today, more than his hard work, is the precious truth we call “justification by faith alone.” Paul lived and taught that those who labor, and sing, and overcome, and run the race most energetically, do so not to earn God’s favor. They exert effort precisely because they can testify already, in Christ, “All is mine” — because they know that grace is a gift. First, Full Pardon Getting the order right is all-important. The first word, and foundational word, is that our human effort, no matter how impressive compared to others, cannot secure the acceptance and favor of the Almighty. God’s full and final acceptance — called justification — comes to us “by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24), not through our working (Romans 3:28). God’s choice of his people “depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Romans 9:16), and so, fittingly, his final and decisive approval and embrace of his people is through our believing in him, not our working for him (Romans 4:4–5; 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 3:5). In this way, the Christian faith is the world’s greatest rest from human labor, as Jesus invites “all who labor and are heavy laden” to come to him for his gift of rest (Matthew 11:28). And then, in this rest, God supplies remarkable, even supernatural, ambition for pouring out what energies we have for the good of others. Then, New Power In coming to Christ in faith, we receive another gift, not just justification: “the promised Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13). The Spirit not only produces in us the faith by which we’re justified, but he gives us new life in Christ — new desires, new inclinations, new instincts, and new energy. By the Spirit, our coming into such rest does not make us idle or lazy. Rather, Paul says, the Spirit begins to make us “zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14), eager and ready to do good (2 Timothy 2:21; 3:16–17; Titus 3:1–2), devoting ourselves to acts that serve the good of others (Titus 3:8, 14). Knowing we cannot earn the favor of God Almighty with our efforts, but that his smile has been secured for us by Jesus, we are liberated to pour our energy and time and skill and attention into blessing others. Few, if any, will match Paul’s labors. And yet right here in 1 Corinthians 15:10, where he identifies as the hardest-working apostle, we find a word of hope for those of us who feel that we can’t keep pace with him. He says he “worked harder than” the others, and he also affirms, “though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” Elsewhere, Paul makes a similar confession, that the key to his seemingly tireless labors is God at work in him (Philippians 2:12–13; Colossians 1:29). It is not in his own strength to do what he did. Rather, Christ is strengthening him (1 Timothy 1:12; Philippians 4:13). To This I Hold Paul would be quick to challenge today’s most energetic and aggressive personalities with the truth that, apart from God, our best labors will prove futile in the end. And for those who know they need help, who have more regrets about laziness than over-work, he would remind them, “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). Walk, not sprint. Our God doesn’t leave us to labor, and sing, and overcome, and run our race in our own strength. He has good works prepared for us ahead of time, and gives us his Spirit to empower them in and through us. He doesn’t demand a dead sprint, but invites us to walk in them, and to say with joy in the end, “Yet not I but through Christ in me.” Article by David Mathis
