A Safe Retreat

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 >

My God, 'tis to Thy Mercy-seat. Anne Steele. [The Mercy-Seat.] First published in her Poems on Subjects chiefly Devotional, &c, 1760, vol. i. p. 133, in 6 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed: "Refuge and Strength in the Mercy of God." It was repeated in the 2nd edition of the Poems, &c., 1780, and in Sedgwick's reprint of her Hymns, 1863. It is in common use both in its original form and as "Dear Father, to Thy Mercy-seat." The latter form is chiefly in use in America.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)