Crosby’s words in stanza one give six commands to the Christian: Rescue, care, snatch, weep, lift, and tell. The text is directed to Christians, but it is implicit. 7 Too often, Gospel songs reflect personal piety and do not mention our duties as Christians living in a secular society. Paul Scholling, who was a consultant to the Hymnal Revision Committee, argued in deliberations to keep this hymn because it is one of the few Gospel hymns that express “the gospel imperative” to minister to our neighbors. That night, when Fanny Crosby went home, she wrote the words “Rescue the Perishing.” 6 It should be noted that Crosby wrote texts pertaining to the temperance movement and this hymn carries the same overtones.Ĭrosby’s hymn appears in The United Methodist Hymnal in four stanzas and has been included in Methodist hymnals since 1882. After ardent prayer with Crosby and everyone attending the service, he accepted God’s justifying grace. 5 A young man came up to Crosby and said that he would like to see his mother in heaven, but according to the way he was living his life, he was convinced it was not possible. She was concerned about their spiritual well-being and earnestly pleaded with the men that if there was someone “who had wandered from his mother’s home and teaching,” to please come and see her at the end of the service. Crosby was inspired to write “Rescue the Perishing” after she met the men who were housed in a New York City mission. Eventually, she wrote six or seven hymns a day and her hymns were sung at many evangelistic services in the U.S. Bradbury, encouraged Fanny Crosby to begin writing sacred, instead of secular, texts. In the mid 1860s, the composer and publisher, William B. However, in 1850, she experienced a conversion at Chelsea Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City and converted to Methodism and was attracted to the work the denomination was doing with those on the margins of society.

3ĭuring the 1840s, Crosby did not identify with any particular denomination. Later on, Crosby joined the faculty at the school and married Alexander van Alstyne, who was also blind and a teacher at the school. Her skills as a musician were well noted and they showed that she had incredible memory and intelligence. Crosby eventually entered the New York School for the Blind. That same year, Crosby’s father died and she was then raised by her mother and grandmother. At six weeks old, she had an eye infection and it is believed that she received improper treatment, which caused her to become blind, from a man who pretended to be a doctor. 1 Two of Crosby’s most famous hymns that cross many denominational boundaries are “To God Be the Glory” and “Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine.”īorn in Putnam County, New York, on March 24, 1820, Fanny Crosby was a part of a Presbyterian family. She composed nearly 8,500 texts in her lifetime, including approximately 1,000 found in 1972 by the Hope Publishing Company. When thinking of Gospel hymnody, one of the first people who comes to mind is Fanny J.

Pure hearts rescue address