Well, okay, so here’s a gospel hymn written by Fanny Crosby and resurrected by the Billy Graham Crusades decades later. I love how this choir and congregation sing, and how Dr. Gearhart makes this 947-rank Aeolian-Skinner sizzle like a side of bacon in a giant frying pan. (That’s not a gulf-moisture thunderstorm, that’s the 32-foot Contre Basson!) This hymn is somewhat unusual for Crosby, because it is not a song of personal testimony, but a glorious proclamation of the gospel. Especially dense for Crosby is the second stanza, which many recent hymnal committees have unfortunately cut due to misled blood squeamishness. God’s grace reaches the vilest offender, y’all. That means it reaches me.
To God Be the Glory
To God be the glory – great things He hath done!
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life an atonement for sin
And opened the life-gate that all may go in.
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
Let the earth hear His voice!
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
Let the people rejoice!
O come to the Father through Jesus, the Son,
And give Him the glory – great things He hath done!
O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood –
To every believer, the promise of God.
The vilest offender who truly believes,
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
Great things He hath taught us, great things He hath done,
And great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son.
But purer and higher and greater will be
Our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see.
– Fanny J. Crosby, 1875
TO GOD BE THE GLORY by William Howard Doane, 1875
Photo: Adoration of the Magi by Claude Vignon, c. 1619, creative commons 2.0
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