Fanny Crosby - Rescue Missions

Rescue Missions

While Crosby will probably always be best known for her hymns, she wanted to be seen primarily as a rescue mission worker. According to Keith Schwanz: "At the end of her life, Fanny’s concept of her vocation was not that of a celebrated gospel songwriter, but that of a city mission worker. In an interview that was published in the March 24, 1908, issue of the New Haven Register, Fanny said that her chief occupation was working in missions. Although, according to Schwanz: "Many of Fanny’s hymns emerged from her involvement in the city missions", including "More Like Jesus" (1867); "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Saviour" (1868); and "Rescue the Perishing" (1869), which became the "theme song of the home missions movement", and was "perhaps the most popular city mission song", with its "wedding of personal piety and compassion for humanity". Crosby celebrated the rescue mission movement in her 1895 hymn, "The Rescue Band".

As Crosby had lived for decades in such areas of New York City as Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, The Bowery, and The Tenderloin, she was aware of the great needs of immigrants and the urban poor, and was passionate to help those around her through urban rescue missions and other compassionate ministry organizations. Crosby indicated "from the time I received my first check for my poems, I made up my mind to open my hand wide to those who needed assistance". Throughout her life, Crosby was described as having "a horror of wealth", never set prices to speak, often refused honoraria, and "what little she did accept she gave away almost as soon as she got it". After her marriage, Crosby "had other priorities and gave away anything that was not necessary to their daily survival". The Van Alstynes also organized concerts, with half the proceeds given to aid the poor. Throughout New York City, Crosby's sympathies for the poor were well-known, but consisted primarily of indirect involvement by giving contributions from the sale of her poems, and by writing and sending poems for special occasions for these missions to the dispossessed, as well as sporadic visits to those missions.