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Her Heart Can See: The Life and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby (Library of Religious Biography Series)
Her Heart Can See The Life and Hymns of Fanny J Crosby - Library of Religious Biography Series Author:Edith L. Blumhofer "Her Heart Can See" offers an intimate, informed look at the life and times of Fanny J. Crosby (18201915), the most prolific of all American hymn writers. Though long gone, Crosby is still hot: her songs, including such all-time favorites as "Blessed Assurance," "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior," "Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross," "Rescue the P... more »erishing," "Safe in the Arms of Jesus," "I Am Thine, O Lord," and many others, continue to be sung all over the world. Born into a poor family in Putnam County, New York, Fanny Crosby lost her sight in infancy through the negligence of a doctor attempting to treat an illness that had caused her eyes to inflame. While scarring her eyes, this tragic event did not scar her heart. Fanny went on to compose more than 9,000 hymns during her lifetime, along with many secular songs, cantatas, and lyrical productions of various kinds. Celebrated in her own day for her gospel hymns, Crosby was also very publicly involved with New York City's rescue missions and with other benevolent efforts, and she rubbed shoulders with the likes of Henry Clay, Grover Cleveland, Winfield Scott, Dwight L. Moody, Ira Sankey, Jenny Lind, P.T. Barnum, and many other famous figures who people these pages. Drawing on primary sources including thousands of unpublished Crosby manuscripts held in the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College Edith Blumhofer sorts fact from fiction in the life of this remarkable woman whose biographers have often cared more about inspiration than about accuracy. Blumhofer sets Crosby fully in the context of her times and responsibly limns her life as a gifted nineteenth-century northeastern Protestant woman, in the process showing why "this diminutive woman" held and still holds such fascinating appeal.« less