s were suggested to her by
publishers or musical composers. At other times a musician would play a
tune for her and ask her to write words for it. It was in 1868 that
William H. Doane, the popular hymn composer, came to her one day and
said: "Fanny, I have a tune I would like to have you hear." He played it
for her, and she exclaimed, "That says 'Safe in the arms of Jesus!'" She
went to her room immediately, and within half an hour the words had been
written.

Although Fanny Crosby never permitted the fact of her blindness to make
her life gloomy, there are many touching allusions in her hymns to her
affliction. "All the way my Saviour leads me" suggests how much a guiding
hand means to the blind. The same thought appears in the song, "God will
take care of you," especially in the lines,

Tenderly watching, and keeping His own,
He will not leave you to wander alone.

There also are pathetic passages in her hymns that reflect the hope that
some day the long night of blindness would be ended--in heaven.

Here let me wait with patience,
Wait till the night is o'er;
Wait till I see the morning
Break on the golden shore.

That is also the constant refrain heard in the exquisite hymn, "Some day
the silver cord will break."

And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story--Saved by grace.

Nevertheless, she never permitted any one to express sympathy on account
of her blindness. Once a Scotch minister remarked to her, "I think it is
a great pity that the Master, when He showered so many gifts upon you,
did not give you sight."

She answered: "Do you know that, if at birth I had been able to make one
petition to my Creator, if would have been that I should be made blind?"

"Why?" asked the surprised clergyman.

"Because, when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my
sight will be that of my Saviour," was the unexpected reply.

At a summer religious conference in Northfield, Mass., Miss Crosby was
sitting on the platform when the evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, asked her
for a testimony concerning her Christian experience. At first she
hesitated, then quietly rose and said: "There is one hymn I have written
which has never been published. I call it my Soul's poem, and sometimes
when I am troubled I repeat it to myself, for it brings comfort to my
heart." She then recited:

Some day the silver chord will break,
And I no more as now shall sing: