This amazing lady has justly been called “The Queen of Gospel Hymnody,” with perhaps as many as 10,000 gospel songs to her credit! No hymnal is complete without a substantial number of her best-known hymns.
And of course, Blessed Assurance.
Frances Jane Crosby was born into a family of strong puritan ancestry in Putnam County, New York, on March 24, 1820. When she developed an eye infection, a poorly trained doctor applied a mustard plaster poultice when she was only six weeks old. The infection did clear up, but scars formed on her eyes, and the baby girl was left blind for life, all the way to her 95th year. A few months later, Fanny’s dad became ill and died. Mercy Crosby, widowed at the young age of 21, hired herself out as a maid while Grandmother Eunice Crosby took care of little Fanny.
Even in her childhood, she realized she had a special gift. When only 9 years of age, she wrote:
O 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.
Her grandmother took the education of her little granddaughter on herself and became the girl’s eyes, vividly describing the physical world. Grandmother’s careful teaching helped develop Fanny’s descriptive abilities. But Grandmother also nurtured Fanny’s spirit. She read and carefully explained the Bible to her, and she always emphasized the importance of prayer. When Fanny became depressed because she couldn’t learn as other children did, Grandmother taught her to pray to God for knowledge.
In 1834 Fanny learned of the New York Institute for the Blind and knew this was the answer to her prayer for an education. She entered the school when she was twelve and went on to teach there for twenty-three years. She became something of a celebrity at the school and was called upon to write poems for almost every conceivable occasion. She memorized five chapters of the Bible each week from age 10, with the encouragement of her grandmother and later Mrs. Hawley. By age 15, she had memorized the four Gospels, the Pentateuch, the Book of Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, and many of the Psalms, as well as many of Paul’s epistles. She would have several songs in her mind all the time, working and re-working the lyrics back and forth between them until she was satisfied.
On March 5, 1858, Fanny married Alexander van Alstine, a former pupil at the Institute. He was a musician who was considered one of the finest organists in the New York area. One evening, Fanny’s friend and composer Phoebe Palmer Knapp was visiting and played a tune on the piano, asking Fanny what it sounded like. Fanny responded, “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine!” Phoebe and Fanny then continued to sing the melody and write the lyrics together.
Stanza 1 reminds us that we can have assurance of salvation, and that when we do, it is a “foretaste,” and “appetizer” of the joy that awaits us in glory. The first-person nature of Christianity is unique among religions. “Jesus is mine” is matched by the realization that “I am His.” Purchased by Jesus, and therefore His precious possession, I am also His! And this is ours because the Spirit has caused us to be born again (1 Peter 1:3).
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
The refrain drives home that personal dimension with the possessive pronoun “my” coming six times in the two lines!
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
Stanza 2 is especially powerful when we remember that this was a lady who was physically blind for her entire life, and yet could sing that “visions of rapture now burst on my sight.” Obviously, the most important sight is spiritual vision to see the Lord by faith. What a day it must have been when, as her physical life came to an end in 1915 and she opened her eyes in glory, she saw her Savior (as we will, too), no longer “in a mirror dimly,” but “then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Stanza 3 also includes a surprising reference to sight from a blind composer: “watching and waiting, looking above.” In many ways, Fanny could see more clearly than sighted people when it came to spiritual things. She lived Philippians 4:11, being perfectly content in the condition in which God had placed her in this life. And what inspiring imagery, to be “filled with His goodness” and “lost in His love.”
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
What a marvelous testimony of contentment and joy in the Lord, despite our outward situation. It reminds us of Paul’s testimony from jail in Philippians 4, that he had learned to be content in every circumstance. Did you notice in Blessed Assurance how many references there were to sight (“visions of rapture now burst on my sight,” “watching and waiting, looking above”), coming from the pen of a physically blind woman? In her autobiography, she said that if she could have had her sight restored, she would not wish it, since she had learned to see so much more with her mind and heart than she could have with her eyes!
At the age of ninety-four, “Aunt Fanny” (as she was affectionately known) dictated her autobiography. In it she wrote this.
Some people seem to forget that blind girls have just as great a faculty for loving and do love just as much and just as truly as those who have their sight. When I was about 20, a gifted young man by the name of Alexander Van Alstyne came to our institute. He was also blind and a musician. We soon became very much concerned for each other… I placed my right hand on his left and called him ‘Van.’ From that hour, two lives looked on a new universe, for love met love, and all the world was changed. On March 5 in the year 1858, we were united in marriage. I became a mother and knew a mother’s love, but the angels came down and took our infant up to God.
Because of her long life, Fanny Crosby had an extraordinary relationship with several United States presidents, even penning poems in their honor on occasion, and she was influential on the spiritual life of or a friend to Presidents Martin Van Buren (8th), John Tyler (10th), James K. Polk (11th), and Grover Cleveland (22nd and 24th). She addressed a joint session of Congress on the topic of education for the blind and was influential in the establishment of schools for the blind in many states.
Middle class women in the nineteenth-century United States had little voice in worship, however. One of the only ways for a woman to claim the authority to be heard was by direct personal illumination from God. Fanny Crosby readily claimed God’s personal inspiration as a source for her hymns; her personal inspiration then became a communal inspiration as Christians throughout the world sang her hymns and confirmed her love for Jesus as their own.
Here is an example of congregational singing of this gospel song with “gospel-style” piano accompaniment.
And here is a very well-done 45-minute movie about the life of this amazing lady.
Finally, here is a mini-concert I played at Penney Memorial Church on June 26, 2020. These are organ arrangements of hymns by Fanny Crosby.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=405668557056702