The long hot days of summer bring on a longing for summer camps. Through the years, Christians have found summer camps not only to be fun, but to be a time for spiritual growth. So was the case for the famed hymn writer, Fanny Jane Crosby.

The year was 1890 and Fanny was attending a camp meeting in Poughkeepsie, New York. During the week long meetings, one of the principle speakers passed away, leaving behind this statement, “The grace that God gives us to live as Christians will be the same grace He gives us to die as Christians.” Taking the events of the week to heart and mind, Fanny would write a new poem. She entitled it her Heart’s Song; but unlike other poems, this one she kept to herself.

Two years later, attending another camp meeting at D.L. Moody’s campgrounds in Northfield, Massachusetts, Fanny was invited to speak one afternoon. After sharing how God had blessed her through the years, even though blind all her life, she closed with a poem—her personal poem, Heart’s Song. Not wanting the poem to be set to music, she instructed Sankey, Moody’s song leader, to leave it alone. But God had a different plan. A reporter for the English publication, The Christian, was there that afternoon. Within months, the poem was in print. Seeing that her Heart’s Song was destined to be a new song, Fanny finally allowed George Stebbins to compose the musical setting.

Sixteen years later, on August 13th, Ira Sankey was on his death bed. As loved ones gathered to bid farewell to the man who had set two continents singing for Christ, he would sing his last song, Fanny’s Heart Song which today we know as Saved by Grace. As night fell, Sankey began the hymn here on earth; and because of God’s grace, he finished it in Heaven:

Someday the silver cord will break,
And I no more as now shall sing;
But O the joy when I shall wake
Within the palace of the king!
And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story saved by grace;
And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story—saved by grace.