14. Fanny Crosby (1820–1915)
I believe myself still really in the prime of life!” wrote Frances Jane Crosby at the age of eighty-three. She lived twelve more years, and when she died on February 12, 1915, the news flashed around the world that America’s beloved composer of gospel songs, Fanny Crosby, was home with her Lord and at last could see.
Donald P. Hustad, a recognized authority on hymnology, has called Fanny Crosby “the most prolific and significant writer of gospel songs in American history.” She wrote more than eight thousand songs, most of which are now forgotten. But many continue to minister to God’s people: “To God Be the Glory,” “Blessed Assurance,” “Praise Him! Praise Him!” “Redeemed,” “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross,” “Rescue the Perishing,” “All the Way My Savior Leads Me,” and others. The Hope Publishing Company has hundreds of Fanny Crosby’s poems in their files just waiting to be set to music.
She was born in Putnam County, New York, on March 24, 1820. When Fanny was only six weeks old she developed a minor eye inflammation, and the doctor’s careless treatment left her blind. “It seemed intended by the blessed Providence of God that I should be blind all my life,” she wrote in her delightful autobiography Fanny Crosby’s Life Story, “and I thank Him for the dispensation.” The doctor who destroyed her sight never forgave himself and moved from the area, but Fanny Crosby held no ill will toward him. “If I could meet him now,” she wrote, “I would say ‘Thank you, thank you’—over and over again—for making me blind.”
In fact, she claimed that if she could have her sight restored, she would not attempt it. She felt that her blindness was God’s gift to her so that she could write songs for his glory. “I could not have written thousands of hymns,” she said, “if I had been hindered by the distractions of seeing all the interesting and beautiful objects that would have been presented to my notice.”
She wrote her first poem when she was eight years old. Here it is.
Oh, what a happy child I am,
Although I cannot see!
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don’t!
So weep or sigh because I’m blind,
I cannot, or I won’t!
Fanny was greatly influenced by her mother and grandmother (her father died when she was very young). When the family moved to Connecticut, a neighbor, Mrs. Hawley, read to her from the Bible and taught her Bible stories. It seems unbelievable, but by the time Fanny was ten years old, she could recite the first four books of the Old Testament and the four Gospels! She could also repeat “poems almost without number.” She sometimes compared her mind to a writing desk, with little compartments filled with information readily available.
It was clear that Fanny would need formal education, so on March 3, 1835, her mother took her to the famous Institution for the Blind in New York City. She proved to be an excellent student in everything except mathematics. In rebellion against the subject, she wrote the following poem:
I loathe, abhor, it makes me sick,
To hear the word Arithmetic!
Before long, she became the resident poet for the school, and the superintendent was concerned that the growing praise might go to her head. So he called her into his office and gently warned her to beware of pride. He also urged her to use her gifts to the glory of God. “His words were bombshells,” she later admitted, “but they did me an immense amount of good.” But the real bombshell fell some months later when she was instructed not to write any poems for three months. It was a great trial to the young girl, because even though she did not write them down, the poems came into her mind almost unbidden.
Then a strange thing happened. A noted phrenologist came to visit the school and offered to “read the bumps” on the heads of students and faculty. He correctly identified the leading mathematical genius in the school, and when he came to Fanny Crosby, he said, “Why, here is a poet! Give her every advantage that she can have; let her hear the best books and converse with the best writers; and she will make her mark in the world.” The next morning, the superintendent called Fanny to his office and said, “You may write all the poetry you want to.”
In 1844, she published her first book of poems, and it contained the first hymn she ever wrote: “An Evening Hymn.” A second volume of poems followed in 1851 and a third in 1858. It is interesting to note that in the 1851 volume she noted her declining health in the preface, yet she lived for sixty-four more years!
Fanny Crosby’s family was a great spiritual influence in her life, and so was Hamilton Murray, one of the instructors at the school. But it was on November 20, 1850, that Fanny Crosby received the assurance of her salvation. She had been attending revival meetings at the Broadway Tabernacle Methodist Church in New York City, and had even gone to the altar twice. But it was during the singing of “Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed?” that God met her need. “My very soul was flooded with celestial light,” she said. “For the first time I realized that I had been trying to hold the world in one hand and the Lord in the other.”
Fanny Crosby was married in 1858 to Alexander Van Alstyne, who had also been a student at the school for the blind and, like Fanny, had taught there. He was a gifted musician and a perfect partner to the poetess. He died on June 18, 1902.
During the 1850s and early sixties, Fanny Crosby wrote the lyrics to many popular secular songs, some of which were even used in minstrel shows. But the turning point of her life came on February 2, 1864, when she met William Bradbury, the famous hymnwriter and publisher. “For many years, I have been wanting you to write for me,” he told her. “I wish you would begin right away!” She did begin, and the result was her first gospel song, “Our Bright Home Above.” Little did anyone realize that God would use her to pen over eight thousand songs in the next fifty-one years.
How did Fanny Crosby write her lyrics? “I never undertake a hymn,” she explained, “without first asking the good Lord to be my inspiration in the work that I am about to do.” It helped her to hold a small book in her hand, something she often did when she lectured or gave concerts. She would pray and meditate until she was in the right mood, and sometimes she would quote several hymns to herself to prime the pump. Then the ideas would come, and she would write the song in her mind and commit it to memory. At times, she would have as many as forty different songs stored away in her mind. She would let each song lie still for a few days before dictating it to a friend, who would then send it off to the publisher.
Like many prolific writers, Fanny Crosby used various pseudonyms; in fact, she used nearly two hundred. Some of them are Julia Stirling, Frank Gould, Carrie M. Wilson, Lyman Cuyler, Victoria Stewart, Maud Marion, and Ella Dale.1 D. L. Moody’s associate, Major Daniel Whittle, wrote many hymns under the pseudonym “El Nathan,” so this was not an uncommon practice.
We are shocked to learn that Fanny Crosby was paid an average of only two dollars for each of her poems, although in later years it was increased to ten dollars (of course, a dollar went further back in those days). But she certainly earned eternal rewards through her ministry of song, and we today are the richer for her faithfulness.
Fanny Crosby was just a few weeks away from her ninety-fifth birthday when she was called home, a hope she had often written about in her songs. For the first time, she could see and, best of all, she could see her Savior. Have you ever noticed how often she wrote about seeing in her lyrics? Watch for these references the next time you sing a Fanny Crosby song. Perhaps the best known of all is the chorus of “Saved by Grace.”
And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story—Saved by grace.
Fanny Crosby’s Life Story has been long out of print (I found my copy in an old barn in Rumney, New Hampshire), but you can secure two recent books to help you get better acquainted with this charming lady. Fanny Crosby Speaks Again, edited by Donald P. Hustad, is a collection of 120 previously unpublished poems by Fanny Crosby. The brief foreword and the pictures enhance the volume. It is published by Hope Publishing Company. The second volume is Fanny Crosby by Bernard Ruffin (Pilgrim Press), a careful biography of this composer whom the author calls a Protestant saint. Her Heart Can See by Edith L. Blumhofer is excellent. It is part of the “Library of Religious Biography” published by Eerdmans.
It was said of another blind hymnwriter, George Matheson, that God made him blind so he could see clearly in other ways and become a guide to otehrs. This same tribute could be applied to Fanny Crosby, who triumphed over her handicap and used it to the glory of God.