Play “Songs of Fanny Crosby”

Frances Jane Crosby, known best as Fanny Crosby, was born March 24, 1820, in a one-story cottage in the town of Southeast, Putnam County, New York. Six weeks had barely passed by for little Fanny until it was found that because of a wrong treatment given to her eyes, she would spend a life in which she would never see the faces of friends, the flowers of the field, the birds of the air, the blue of the seas and the sparkling beauty of the stars. In this trying hour, both Fanny’s mother and grandmother saw that, to them, this was their opportunity to bestow greater care and love by filling Fanny’s mind with mental pictures of the beautiful, the true and the good.

Fanny’s grandmother was a woman of great piety, and day after day she took Fanny on her knee and gave her many useful lessons in life from the Bible and literature. A favorite spot to do this was grandma’s old rocking chair, at which Fanny learned so many of the beautiful stories of the Bible, after which they would kneel together at the old chair and repeat simple petitions of prayer. These times of instruction and enjoyment made such a deep and lasting impression upon Fanny that she remembered them all through her long life.

Early she took to composing poetry, and though her first poems had much to do with great scripture characters, it was not until her conversion experience in 1850 that the real gift that God would use in such a mighty way became evident – that of composing the scriptural word settings for the then “new” Gospel song.

From that time on she daily went to the Holy Bible and fed her soul, beautified her mental vision, deepened her love, giving herself that grip on God, man, freedom and immortality which was to be the support of her life down through her 95 years.

With these thoughts graven on her heart, it has so aptly been written – “She went to the altar-fires of the poet and returning with her harp of gold, she sang her songs into the souls of the wounded and healed the bruised, found the outcasts and sang them home, heard the cry of the penitent and opened mercy’s gate, listened to the Savior’s voice on Calvary’s rugged cross and wrote the words of her famous hymn, ‘I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice.’ (Draw Me Nearer)”

Fanny’s coronation was in the year 1915, when the Lord she loved and served so faithfully called her home to see Him and to be welcomed by a host whose lives had been touched and changed through her dedicated life and talent.

On her grave at Hartford is a small marker bearing the simple inscription, “Fanny Crosby – She did what she could.”

Alfred B. Smith

1972