A Fanny Crosby Biography

I recently finished reading Her Heart Can See: The Life and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby written by Edith L. Blumhofer, a professor of history at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL. I thoroughly enjoyed the book! Biographies and history are two of my favorite kinds of books to read and this was a combination of the best of them. The book is well-written and well-researched. It is as much a history of American Protestantism in the 19th century as it is a recounting of the life of American's most prolific hymn writer. Her Heart Can See portrays Fanny Crosby in a completely unsentimental manner and effectively places her in the context of her times and the influences on her thinking and her work. Ms. Blumhofer begins by exploring Fanny Crosby's Puritan background but, in the course of the book, the reader becomes familiar with the social, political and religious climate of the times and the changes it underwent over Ms. Crosby's long lifespan of almost 95 years. The reader is particularly introduced to the other major figures of Protestant evangelicalism who effected Fanny Crosby's work. In addition, the author develops an understanding of how her blindness influenced the life that Fanny Crosby led, especially because of the long period of time she spent at the New York Institution for the Blind, first as a student and later as a teacher.

Many of Fanny J. Crosby's hymns were written for use in revival meetings and the new (at the time) Sunday schools. They were intended to convey the gospel in song, a simple statement of the message of salvation in Jesus Christ and the joy experienced through it, to be sung to a "catchy" tune and thus more easily remembered. Some have been dismissive of her simple hymns and many of those hymns have been forgotten but many, maybe even many of the now forgotten ones, have achieved their purpose in bringing the gospel message to those to whom it was needed, even those to whom it was not new. As Edith Blumhofer says of Fanny J. Crosby, "She sang of faith in an age of doubt, and millions grasped for certainty by joining her song." In that sense, Fanny Crosby's hymns are as relevant and needed today as they were in her time.