Fanny Crosby and William Doane wrote To God Be the Glory in 1875, nearly fifty years into her career of hymn-writing. The hymn captures a life of praise and public ministry, and Crosby was meticulous about where the praise landed.
The hymn opens not with the self, but with God: To God be the glory, great things He has done. Only after establishing that the glory belongs to Him does Crosby turn personal: So loved He the world that He gave us His Son. The logic is clear. The great thing God did was redemption, paid in blood.
Crosby's refrain becomes a kind of testimony: Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear His voice. She spent her life singing this, making it heard in churches across America. A woman who could not see the faces of those she reached spent decades reaching them anyway, convinced that the gospel's reach was more important than her comfort or her sight.