Inspiration by Word and Life
It seemed intended by the blessed Providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank Him for that dispensation.
Fanny Crosby, Fanny Crosby’s Life Story
The words above come from the first lines in the first chapter of Francis Jane, better known as Fanny, Crosby’s book, Fanny Crosby’s Life Story.1 They are shocking words. Could a person blind since infancy be thankful for the loss of her sight?
Fanny often stated that she saw her blindness as a blessing. In one of her first poems, written at the early age of eight, she wrote:
Oh, what a happy soul I am,
Although I cannot see!
I resolve that in this world
Content 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!
“I was born with a pair of as good eyes as any baby ever owned,” she also wrote in that first paragraph. Crosby was born in 1820 in Putnam County, New York. Just six weeks later she developed an eye inflammation and a doctor was called. The doctor prescribed hot mustard poultices, which the family believed damaged her eyes beyond repair. There is some disagreement about both the cause of blindness and the malpractice that may have led to it. Some have written that the local doctor was out of town, and instead a quack administered the advice and fled when he learned of the damage he had caused. Crosby simply refers to him as a doctor who was so grieved he left town. Some think the blindness was congenital, but because of her young age went unnoticed. She and her family, however, attributed the cause to the doctor who treated her. Quack, malpractice, or congenital disorder, it didn’t matter to her condition. Other doctors confirmed the damage was permanent. Nothing could be done.
This was a perfect opportunity for Crosby to harbor hate and resentment, but she held no such animosity toward the man potentially responsible for her permanent loss of vision. She stated that if she had met him years later, she would thank him. Thank him! Crosby had the rare ability to find blessing in what others called misfortune. To her, blindness freed her from distraction, allowing her to focus on what mattered.
A second tragedy struck the family just a few months later when John Crosby, Fanny’s father, died, which forced her mother to find work as a maid. Crosby makes no mention of what caused his death.
An Unbelievable Mind
Crosby was a prodigy, highly intelligent, articulate, self-confident, and in love with words and music. She developed an amazing memory. While she was young, her godly grandmother and others would read the Bible to her, much of which she committed to memory. She had a goal of memorizing five chapters a week and could, as a child, recite the first five books of the Bible, the Gospels, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and many of the Psalms. This memory she described as being like a desk with drawers. Later she would write:
After any particular hymn is done, I let it lie for a few days in the writing-desk of my mind, so to speak, until I have leisure to prune it, to read it through with the eyes of my memory, and in other ways mold it into as presentable a shape as possible. I often cut, trim, and change it.2
She could recall hundreds, perhaps thousands of poems. Her mind was a storehouse.
School
In 1835, when she was fifteen, she enrolled in the New York Institute for the Blind, where she would remain a student for eight years and two more as a graduate student. The school proved pivotal for her in several ways. There she learned to play several instruments and to sing. Her future husband had also been a student there. She became a teacher at the institution and served in that capacity for over a decade.
Perhaps one of the most influential events—and certainly the strangest—occurred when the school invited a phrenologist to visit. Phrenology was a popular study at the time. Practitioners of the “science” studied the shape and bumps of the skull in a belief that they could ascertain, among other things, a person’s skills. Today the practice is dismissed by science, but it was a popular belief during Crosby’s school days. When Dr. George Combe, the phrenologist, reached young Crosby, he laid his hands on her head to feel its size, shape, and contours. She later said she trembled and felt the impulse to run.
Dr. Combe 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 school took him at his word. She was encouraged to write poetry and received great instruction in the art. Phrenology might be quackery, but that day, the phrenologist’s diagnosis opened a significant door for the greatest American hymn writer. Crosby wrote: “I was indebted to Phrenology, and the good Dr. Combe.”3
A Fountain of Production
Fanny would pen one thousand secular poems and eight thousand hymns. The bulk of her work, and the work that consumed her throughout her adult life, was the penning of praise set to music. Crosby was so prolific that she had to write under pen names—approximately two hundred of them.
She was under contract to send three hymns a week to her publisher, and had days when she produced twice that many. She was usually paid one to two dollars per hymn produced.
William Doane, for whom Crosby had written hymns, showed up at her home in dire need of a hymn. He had composed the music but needed the lyrics. “Fanny, I have just forty minutes to catch the cars for Cincinnati; during that time you must write me a hymn, and give me a few minutes to catch the train.”4 He hummed the melody. Fifteen minutes later he left with the words to, “Safe in the Arms of Jesus.”
Fanny Crosby was capable of writing more complicated hymns and music, but she preferred something closer to the heart that could be used in evangelism—in other words, simple to learn and easy to sing. Her material reflected an orthodox Christian view but also a faith born of experience. Worshipers still sing her words a century after her death.
A list of her works show five autobiographies, four books of poetry, seven cantatas, and five popular (secular) songs. Her professional writing spanned over fifty years.
Her hymns are familiar to anyone who has spent much time in church:
“All the Way My Savior Leads Me”
“Blessed Assurance”
“He Hideth My Soul”
“More Like Jesus”
“I am Thine O Lord”
“Near the Cross”
“Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior”
“Praise Him! Praise Him! Jesus, Our Blessed Redeemer”
“To God Be the Glory”
The list goes on. Just the mention of a title will, for some, release a flood of lyrics.
Although blind all her life, she often spoke in her hymns of seeing Jesus face-to-face. She believed that when she died, the first person she would see with heavenly eyes would be her Savior. Until then, she would write of his light even though her world was forever dark.
Two Contributions to the Church
Fanny Crosby contributed much to the church, helping worshipers express emotions and thoughts that would not otherwise find release. The excellence of her poetry and music is enduring and of such encouraging quality they have ministered to millions of people. She will always be remembered for her contributions to the heart and soul of the church.
She also contributed the example of her life. Eight thousand hymns is almost too much to fathom and places her as one of the greatest hymn writers alongside Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley. Her example of inner strength, determination, and ability to face the difficulties of blindness with humor, modesty, and faith is an example and an encouragement to anyone facing life’s challenges.
All of this from a blind girl who refused to feel sorry for herself or accept limitations and had an unending desire to write for God.
When she died in 1915, just shy of her ninety-fifth birthday, she had been working on a hymn. Her last written words were, “You will reach the river brink, some sweet day, by and by.”