FANNY CROSBY wrote more than eight thousand hymns and used more than two hundred pen names.

Under contract to a music publisher, she wrote three new hymns each week during much of her adult life.

The fact that she was blind didn't diminish her productivity. She would formulate an entire song in her mind and then dictate it to a friend or a secretary.

Pheobe Palmer Knapp, wife of the founder of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, composed a tune in 1873 and brought it to Crosby in Brooklyn.

"Play it for me on the organ," Crosby asked. Knapp did and then asked, "What does this tune say?" She turned to see Crosby kneeling in prayer.

Knapp played it a second time and then a third. Then the blind woman responded,

"That says, 'Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine!'"

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine!

Heir of salvation, purchase of God, Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long; This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight! Visions of rapture now burst on my sight; Angels descending bring from above Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission--all is at rest, I in my Savior am happy and blest; Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

~Fanny Jane Crosby {1820-1915}

"Now, when sins have once been forever forgiven and forgotten, there is no need to offer more sacrifices to get rid of them.

And so, dear brothers, now we may walk right into the very Holy of Holies, where God is because of the blood of Jesus.

This is the fresh, new, life-giving way that Christ has opened up for us by tearing the curtain--His human body--to let us into the holy presence of God."