Fanny J. Crosby was one of the great hymnwriters of the 19th century. We still sing many of her songs today. Just look up her name in the author index of your hymnal and prepare to be impressed.
One of the interesting things about Mrs. Crosby is that she was blind. If you’ve grown up around church, you probably knew that. It’s one of those little facts that isn’t taught but you somehow manage to pick up anyway: “True fellowship involves food, passing notes during the sermon usually leads to trouble, and Fanny J. Crosby was blind.”
But here’s something you probably didn’t know, even if you’ve been to church all your life — how Mrs. Crosby became blind and what she thought of her blindness. I came across the following quote when I was skimming her autobiography earlier this week. I was astounded. May God grant each of us to see our own limitations as clearly as this blind saint saw hers. (more…)
Rarely do men talk about how they ought to prepare themselves [for marriage] — in their study, in their work ethic, in their behavior. When they do talk about it, they talk a lot about how their wives will have to do this or that. When this is the case, young men should knock it off and grow up.
(Doug Wilson, Future Men, 170)
Say we are dealing with a young man who has dyed his hair purple. I am giving him counsel and I tell him (as I would tell him) that this was sinful. He would want me to look up “purple hair” in my concordance and show him where the Bible prohibits it. But this is as unreasonable as the demand to find a list of English obscenities in a Greek lexicon. The Bible condemns rebellion, and the purple hair means rebellion. If he agrees, he has admitted the sin. If he disagrees, then he is an empurpled ignoramus, as the Sex Pistols would readily tell him, were they here.
(Doug Wilson, Future Men, 160-61)
When a man marries, he is stepping into headship and responsibility. He cannot do this well if he has never done it before. If right up to the wedding his mother is cutting his meat for him, and his father is tying his shoes, don’t look for that marriage to wind up in the hall of fame.
(Doug Wilson, Future Men, 146)
Young boys need to be taught to stand when a woman enters the room. They should be taught to hold open doors for women. They should seat their mother at the dinner table. These are not arbitrary or random cultural practices which have no meaning. They are a constant daily reminder to males — whose lusts when unmortified always degrade women — that women must not be degraded, but rather honored. Manners are therefore a form of sexual discipleship; they are sexual discipline. A boy who has learned to honor women everywhere will have difficulty in despising one in the back seat of a car.
(Doug Wilson, Future Men, 136)
