“One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind,
now I see” (John 9:25b).
According to her own words, when Frances Jane entered the world March 24, 1820, she “was born with a pair of as good eyes as any baby ever owned.” After six weeks, however, “a slight touch of inflammation” prompted her parents, John and Mercy, to call for medical help. A stranger claiming some medical knowledge treated the infant’s eyes with a poultice. Blindness resulted.
Five years later, hoping for a remedy, Mercy took her daughter to a famous New York City surgeon. Frances later recalled that after his examination, he patted her head and said, “Poor little girl!”
On the boat ride home, Frances said she heard the waves telling her, “Be brave . . . brighter days will come yet.” Three years later, she penned her first poem:
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, nor I won’t!
The youngster’s grandmother poured Scripture into the receptive young mind. Frances later reported that by age ten she had memorized the first four books of both the Old and New Testaments. She loved learning: “There was one terrible hunger that afflicted me during all these years: and that was for knowledge — knowledge — knowledge!” Daily she prayed: “Dear God, please give me light!”
At age 15, Frances enrolled in New York City’s Institution for the Blind. Learning to read, she mastered every subject except math, which she called “a great monster,” writing: I loathe, abhor, it makes me sick To hear the word Arithmetic!
Her knack for rhyming expanded. Soon she was reciting poems to famous dignitaries, including several U.S. presidents, who visited the institution.
Growing into adulthood, Frances stood a mere four feet, nine inches and weighed less than a hundred pounds. She transitioned from student to teacher, and her poetic abilities led to published books and collaborations with musicians and writers in New York. She produced poems for political celebrations and several times recited her work to Congress in Washington.
In 1858, she married Alexander van Alstyne, a blind scholar ten years younger than she. They once rejoiced over a child but shortly afterwards wept over their loss. The couple lived separately most of their married life, and Frances usually used her maiden name.
In 1864, William Bradbury, who had written the tunes to “Jesus Loves Me” and “Just as I Am,” asked Frances to compose Christian lyrics to which he would add music. Thus began the hymn career of Frances Jane. Sometimes writing seven hymns in a day, she would tuck away the lyrics in her memory until she dictated them to someone whose handwriting was legible. Hers wasn’t. Publishers typically paid her two dollars per hymn.
Perhaps you already have identified Frances as Fanny Crosby. She eventually wrote over eight thousand hymns, including “All the Way My Savior Leads Me,” “Blessed Assurance,” “I Am Thine, O Lord,” and “Rescue the Perishing.”
Reading her lyrics, one recognizes, as Frances Havergal put it, that, though her physical eyes were closed, her heart could see. One musician named Bing eventually popped up in the Crosby family line, but even he must take a backseat to this inimitable blind hymnist.
About the Columnist: Paul V. Harrison has pastored Madison FWB Church in Madison, Alabama since 2015. Previously, he pastored Cross Timbers FWB church in Nashville, Tennessee, for 22 years. He was an adjunct professor at Welch College for 17 years, teaching church history and Greek. Paul is the creator of Classic Sermon Index, a subscription-based online index of over 66,000 sermons, with clients including Harvard, Baylor, and Vanderbilt, among others: classicsermonindex.com.
