Fanny Crosby

Frances Jane Crosby was born on March 24, 1820, in Brewster, New York. When she was six weeks old, she developed an inflammation in her eyes. A man who claimed to be a doctor applied a poultice of hot mustard, and the treatment destroyed her sight. She never saw again. Her father died before she was a year old, and her mother worked as a maid to support the family. Her grandmother cared for her and taught her to love the Bible. She memorized large portions of Scripture as a child, and she later said that she could recite the first four books of the New Testament and the Pentateuch and many Psalms.

She showed an early talent for rhyme. At the age of eight, she wrote a short poem in which she said that she was happy to be blind and would not trade her state for sight. This was not meant to be a boast but a decision of the will. She sought to turn her loss to good. At fifteen she entered the New York Institution for the Blind, where she studied for many years. She learned music and became a skilled organist and pianist, and she stayed on as a teacher for more than ten years. She also gave poetry readings and became known in the city.

In 1850 she attended a revival meeting at the Broadway Tabernacle in New York. There, as the congregation sang a hymn, she felt a surge of faith, and she gave herself to Christ. She said that she had been an observer before but that now she was a believer. She joined a church and began to think about writing sacred songs. In 1858 she married Alexander Van Alstyne, a blind musician. They had a daughter who died in infancy, and the loss was a deep grief. She did not speak of it much.

In 1864 she began writing hymns for the publisher William Bradbury, and soon she was working with several composers, including William Doane, Robert Lowry and Ira Sankey. She wrote at a steady pace, often composing a hymn in her mind and dictating it to a friend. She wrote under a number of pen names, since the publishers did not want to have too many hymns under one name. She is believed to have written more than eight thousand hymns, including Blessed Assurance, To God Be the Glory, Rescue the Perishing, Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior and Safe in the Arms of Jesus. They were sung in revival meetings and churches across the English-speaking world.

She also lived for the poor. She spent much of her time working in the slums of New York and in the rescue missions of the Bowery. She taught, spoke and gave away much of what she earned. She often lived in poverty because she did not hold on to money, and she was cheerfully content with little. She helped many alcoholics and prostitutes by speaking to them of the love of Christ. She said that she hoped to meet those she had helped in heaven.

She was not free of difficulty. She was often accused of putting words in a simple style that some thought too sentimental, and critics said that her verse was often shallow. She did not argue. She said that she wrote for ordinary people who needed words to express their love of God. She was also saddened by the way that some publishers took advantage of her, paying her only a small fee for her songs.

She lived to be ninety-four. She died on February 12, 1915, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Her last words are said to have been of a vision of the Lord. Her life shows that physical loss can be turned into a source of blessing, and that many are helped by a faith that is expressed in simple songs.