Rescue the perishing, care for the dying

Rescue the perishing, care for the dying. Fanny Crosby* (1820-1915). Published in William Howard Doane*’s Songs of Devotion for Christian Associations (1870). The theme is said to have been suggested to Crosby by Doane in 1869 (Taylor, 1989, p. 154). It formed itself in Crosby’s mind after a meeting of the New York City Mission, at which she took part, and made ‘a pressing plea that if there were a boy present who had wandered from his mother’s home and teaching, he would come to me at the close of the service’. A young man came to her, saying ‘I promised my mother to meet her in heaven, but as I am now living that will be impossible’. After those present had prayed for him, the young man...