298. Close to Thee

The Story Behind the Hymn

"Close to Thee" was published in 1874 in Songs of Grace and Glory, a collection edited by William F. Sherwin and Silas J. Vail for temperance reformers Horace Waters and W. F. Sherwin. Two different accounts survive of how the hymn came together. According to Ira Sankey, Vail — a former hatter and clerk who had become a successful, if only amateur, composer — wrote the tune first and brought it to Fanny Crosby asking her to supply words. As he played it for her, she reportedly said at once, "That refrain says, 'Close to Thee, close to Thee,'" and the hymn took its title from her remark.

Crosby's own account, however, places the words first: she recalled sitting in her room one evening in 1874, reflecting on the nearness of God through Christ, when the opening lines came to her unprompted. Which version is more accurate is impossible to say with certainty at this distance, and both have been repeated in hymn histories ever since.

Whichever came first, words or tune, the finished hymn reads as a request for companionship rather than comfort — not asking to be spared toil or suffering, but only to be allowed to walk close to Christ through whatever the pilgrim journey holds, including, in its final verse, the vale of shadows itself.

Vail, who compiled numerous song collections despite having no formal musical training, and Crosby, already established as one of the most prolific hymn writers of her era, produced in "Close to Thee" one of the more understated entries in either of their catalogs — a quiet request for nearness rather than a dramatic testimony of change.