Don’t know the name Fanny Crosby (1820 – 1915)? If you’ve been to a church service that used a traditional hymnal (admittedly becoming less common), you’ve almost certainly sung one of her compositions. Among her most famous songs are “Blessed Assurance,” “Safe in the Arms of Jesus,” and “I Am Thine, O Lord.” She composed more than 9,000 hymns. Many continue as favorites in churches around the world. She was the most prolific American hymn writer ever. And she accomplished this despite losing her sight as a toddler.
Edith Blumhoffer has written what is generally regarded as the definitive Fanny Crosby biography, Her Heart Can See (2005, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.). Comprehensively researched, the book explains the context for Crosby’s brand of faith and how it was shaped and by whom. We learn what motivated Crosby. We also learn a fair amount about the landscape of 19th-century American evangelicalism.
That Crosby would not be engulfed in bitterness in response to her blindness is indicated by one of her earliest compositions. At age eight, she penned this prose:
Oh, what a happy soul am I: 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.
To weep and sigh because I’m blind, I cannot and I won’t.
As a young child, Fanny and her mother boarded in the home of a Mrs. Hawley, a widow and prominent member of Ridgefield, Connecticut, the community the Crosbys lived in for a time. Mrs. Hawley, a committed Christian, took a strong interest in Fanny. She helped her develop interest in the Bible and challenged her to memorize large swaths that Mrs. Hawley repeatedly read to her. Fanny quickly was able to recite the first four books of both the Old and New Testaments, many psalms, the Song of Solomon, and numerous poems. One of the keys to her prolific writing was surely her practice of meditating on Scripture she had committed to memory.
America in the first half of the 19th century had its share of reformers focused on the plight of the poor and disabled, including the blind. Many of these reform efforts were spurred on by evangelical Christians of various stripes. Doing good in the public sphere was seen by many as a natural outgrowth of evangelical faith. It seems safe to say that Fanny’s life trajectory was profoundly altered for the better by these programs. And she remembered how she had been helped, participating energetically in such initiatives later in life. She would come to be a strong supporter of temperance and anti-slavery movements, among other pursuits.
In 1835, at age 14, Fanny Crosby left her home in Connecticut and took residence at the new Institution for the Blind in New York. The Institution would be her home for the next 20 years. She came to love it, and she credited it with shaping her intellectually and spiritually. The instruction was indisputably rigorous, even by standards for the sighted. Students were called to a disciplined life. By 1846 Fanny had become a teacher herself of rhetoric, grammar, Roman history, and American history.
That Crosby often meditated on the subject of heaven and the Second Coming is clear from many of her texts. And like other blind hymn writers, she emphasized what she would see in the next life. The absence of sight in this life no doubt adds sweetness to seeing the glory of the Savior in the next.
Through the gates to the city in a robe of spotless white
He will lead me where no tears shall ever fall;
In the glad song of ages I shall mingle with delight,
But I long to see my Saviour first of all.
I shall know Him; I shall know Him
And redeemed by His side I shall stand.
I shall know Him; I shall know Him
By the print of the nails in His hand.
Her favorite text among the thousands she compiled? “Saved by Grace,” lyrics which point to her certain hope of seeing Christ face to face and the gratitude that was sure to wash over her.
Some day the silver cord will break,
And I no more as now shall sing.
But, O, the joy when I shall wake
Within the palace of the King!
And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story — saved by grace.