America Must Pray
By Dr. Mal Couch
Public prayer, spiritual publications of poems and music, have always been a part of America, until recently. There are forces now trying to silence the Christian spiritual heritage of open and free expression to our God that made this nation great.
Each week I’ll add some historical tidbits as how Christian expression and public prayer was a vital part of our nation’s blessing. We may not fully know of the spiritual state of all the men we examine, but we do know none of them were fearful of prayers to the God of the Bible in the public setting.
If you are a pastor or Sunday school teacher, please print off these little bits of our history and share them with others.
Fanny Crosby
Struck by a rare inflammation of the eyes, Fanny became blind by a doctor who botched the operation to cure her. The blindness was permanent. But Fanny would not let this loss of sight limit her and she soon became a literary author to be reckoned with. She was celebrated as a poetess by Presidents Martin Van Buren and James K. Polk. Her work was often published in the New York Tribune. Fanny also influenced President Grover Cleveland when he was a young man working as a secretarial clerk at the New York Institute for the Blind, where she was a teacher.
At the age of thirty-eight, Fanny married Alexander Van Alstyne, a blind and gifted organist and composer. He wrote the music to many of her poems which totaled at the end of her life to be nine thousand numbers. Her first major success came with the publication of "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior" in 1864, just before the end of the Civil War.
Pass me not, O Gentle Savior,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou are smiling,
Do not pass me by.
Let me at a throne of mercy
Find a sweet relief;
Kneeling there in deep contrition
Help my unbelief.
This song became one of the most often used to appeal to sinners at revival meetings. No one can sing it without tears coming up in the eyes!