Читать книгу The World's Christians - Douglas Jacobsen - Страница 55

Frances Jane van Alstyne (1820–1915), who is better known by the name Fanny Crosby, is the most prolific hymn writer of all time. She was a Baptist, but her songs appealed to Protestants of all stripes. Crosby was blind from infancy and served briefly as a lobbyist for the sightless in Washington, DC, but her lifelong vocation was writing. She composed her first hymn in 1844 and during the next six decades she penned 8,000 more. Her poems and song lyrics became so popular that some publishers used aliases (including Henrietta E. Blair, Ellen Dare, Grace Lindsey, Wilson Meade, and Hope Tryaway) to make it appear that they were drawing from a wider base of writers. While Crosby’s hymns touch on many different subjects, the believer’s emotional connection with God was especially prominent. That theme is evident in two of her most popular songs, which are excerpted here.