Pass me not, O gentle Savior

I. Origins 

This gospel hymn features words by Fanny Crosby (1820–1915) and music by William H. Doane (1832–1915). It was one of the first songs they wrote together. Fanny Crosby related the circumstances of their meeting in her autobiography Memories of Eighty Years (1906):

In the year 1867 I met Dr. William H. Doane under very interesting circumstances. He had come from his home in Cincinnati to New York to visit his friend Dr. Van Meter of the Five Points Mission, and they were looking for a hymn that might be used on a certain anniversary. A number of standard hymns were given to Mr. Doane, but he did not find them appropriate. About this time I had been writing “More Like Jesus,” and Dr. Lowry asked me why I did not send it to Mr. Doane. I said, “Well, I will,” and accordingly sent it by a messenger boy. The latter handed my words to Mr. Doane, who happened to be at the moment talking with Dr. Van Meter, and he laid them down for a few minutes. When he took up the letter and glanced over its contents he started after the boy, but could not find him. He returned to Dr. Van Meter disheartened, but determined to find me if I was anywhere to be found in the city.

He again went out and hunted for me the rest of the day, and it was not until about eight or nine in the evening that he was finally directed to my boarding place. I went to the door, and he asked, “Are you Fanny Crosby?” On being informed I was that person he said, “Oh, how glad I am to find you; I have been trying to do so a long while, and at last I have succeeded.”

At the close of our interview he said, “I must pay you for the hymn that you sent and which I was more than glad to receive.” He put into my hand what he supposed to be a two-dollar bill, and then bade me good night. It struck me that I ought to ask him how much he had given me, that there might be no mistake about it. He came back; I showed him the bill, which proved to be twenty dollars. Of course, I declined to take that amount, but he said that the Lord had sent that hymn, and therefore meant that I should have the twenty dollars for it. The following evening he renewed his visit and gave me the subject “Pass me not, O gentle Saviour.”[1]

In her other autobiography, Fanny Crosby’s Story of Ninety-Four Years (1915), she said she wrote “Pass me not” in 1868 using a subject supplied by Doane.[2] The 1867 date for the meeting of Doane and Crosby is corroborated in other biographies, while the completion of the song in 1868 is attested in multiple early sources. For unknown reasons, it wasn’t immediately published, at least not in a permanent form. It evidently was not completed in time for inclusion in Silver Spray (1868), but it was included in Doane’s next publication, Songs of Devotion (1870 | Fig. 1), given in four stanzas with a refrain. In this case, Crosby was not credited on the page, but she was credited in the index, while Doane’s music was marked by a special emblem containing his initials.

In the first stanza, the word “smiling” was changed to “calling” in Doane’s Chautauqua Carols (1878), but otherwise this alteration was not repeated in other publications edited by Doane. Some other common alterations made by other editors include “Thy throne” (2.1) and the singular “merit” (3.1).

A popular story, often repeated from Kathleen Blanchard’s book, Stories of Wonderful Hymns (1947), pp. 76–77, describes her visit to a Manhattan prison in the spring of 1868, where a man (or men) cried aloud “Good Lord! Do not pass me by,” after which she wrote the words to this hymn “with the men’s plead­ing wail still in my ears.” None of Fanny Crosby’s autobiographies mention such an event, nor is it mentioned in Ira Sankey’s book, My Life and the Story of the Gospel Hymns (1906), nor could it be located in any book or newspaper from that time period. Biographer Edith Blumhofer said the song was “born in one of the New York City rescue missions that Crosby frequented.”[3] The story seems to have a kernel of truth behind it, but it cannot presently be validated from any primary or early sources. For example, it was not known to Methodist editors Charles Nutter in 1911 or Robert Guy McCutchan in 1937.

II. Analysis

The first stanza establishes the first-person perspective of someone who is clamoring to be seen by the Savior. This is most naturally interpreted as an unsaved person seeking redemption. One biblical episode with a similar sentiment is the story of blind Bartimaeus (Luke 18:35–43), who called out to Jesus as he was passing by, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” See also the cry of Abraham in Genesis 18:3, “O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant.”

The second stanza includes the phrase “Help my unbelief,” which echoes the cry of the father of the demon-possessed boy in Mark 9:24, “I believe; help my unbelief!” The third stanza includes concepts like unmerited salvation by grace alone (Eph. 2:9–10) and spiritual healing. The final stanza includes a reference to Psalm 73:25, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.”

The song is sometimes perceived to contain theological errors. Baptist writer Hugh T. McElrath briefly glossed over these concerns when he wrote, “Despite some theological objections to the song’s apparent concern for self above the needs of others and the hint of God’s capriciousness or unwillingness to look in mercy on all who call for it, this song has continued in popular use.”[4] Methodist hymnologist Carlton R. Young was more specific in his complaints, writing, “The hymn has been rightly criticized for its faulty exegesis of this scripture since it is not Jesus who is calling, but the beggar; further, it is contrary to the scriptural account to suggest that Jesus Christ, God’s universal gift of salvation (John 3:16), could, should, would—and in this instance did—pass anyone by.”[5]

But these complaints are easily dismissed. First, by using the term “exegesis,” Young imposed a level of interpretation on this hymn it cannot and should not bear. The hymn does not mention Bartimaeus, nor does it serve as a narrative or interpretive retelling of that story; it only implies such a connection. Second, in the context of Genesis 18, the Lord was indeed the one who was calling, and it was Abraham who replied, “do not pass by your servant.” Third, consider also the plea of David, “Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me” (Ps. 51:11). Multiple stories in the gospels describe people clamoring to get help from Jesus before he passes through a town. The triumphal entry was marked by cries of “Hosanna!” (“save us!”). The hymn is written similarly from a human perspective, expressing a human need, and does not convey a “capriciousness or unwillingness” on God’s part. Fourth, nowhere in the hymn does it it say Jesus “in this instance did” pass by the author or singer who asked for help. Lastly, the New Testament relays a time in which Jesus was rejected by the people of the Nazareth, after which he instructed his disciples, “If any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them” (Mk. 6:11); or consider the confrontation in which Jesus effectively turned away the rich man (Mk. 10:17–22); meaning, the Bible does not convey the kind of wholesale acceptance imagined by critics of the hymn.

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
24 June 2021

Footnotes:

1. Fanny Crosby, Memories of Eighty Years (Boston: J.H. Earle, 1906), pp. 123–124: Archive.org

2. Fanny Crosby & S. Trevena Jackson, Fanny Crosby’s Story of Ninety-Four Years (NY: Fleming H. Revell, 1915), pp. 64, 86: Archive.org

3. Edith L. Blumhofer, Her Heart Can See: The Life and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), p. 245.

4. Hugh T. McElrath, “Pass me not, O gentle Savior,” Handbook to the Baptist Hymnal (1992), p. 218.

5. Carlton R. Young, “Pass me not, O gentle Savior,” Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal (1993), p. 553.

Related Resources:

Ira Sankey, “Pass me not,” My Life and the Story of the Gospel Hymns (NY: Harper Brothers, 1906), pp. 218–220: Archive.org

Charles Nutter & Wilbur Tillett, “Pass me not, O gentle Saviour,” The Hymns and Hymn Writers of the Church (NY: Eaton & Mains, 1911), pp. 177–178: Archive.org

Robert Guy McCutchan, “Pass me not, O gentle Saviour,” Our Hymnody, 2nd ed. (NY: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1942), pp. 273–274.

William J. Reynolds, “Inspired at a prison service,” Songs of Glory (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), pp. 225–226.

Hugh T. McElrath, “Pass me not, O gentle Savior,” Handbook to the Baptist Hymnal (Nashville: Convention Press, 1992), p. 218.

Carlton R. Young, “Pass me not, O gentle Savior,” Companion to the United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: Abindgon, 1993), p. 553.

Robert Cottrill, “Pass me not,” Wordwise Hymns (28 October 2011): https://wordwisehymns.com/2011/10/28/pass-me-not/

“Pass me not, O gentle Savior,” Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/text/pass_me_not_o_gentle_savior