Fanny J. Crosby: An Autobiography by Fanny J. Crosby

In the present era, with its many modes of rapid transit, one is quite liable to forget that most of them have come into being within less than fifty years, and I am sometimes amazed at the thought that not until after I was born did the first locomotive turn a wheel on this Western continent. When I ride in the mighty express trains that fly across the country, how marvelous it seems! But do not think that I belong to that class of people who looking back over many years, think the old times better than our own. It is only the memory of the past that I cherish and that memory thrills me with a pathos which I cannot, nor do I wish to forget. As I am writing, the horseback journeys of our old postman seem to have been but last week, so well do I remember how horse and rider used to flit across the landscape like the shuttle in an ancient loom, and I see again the tall, well-built kindly man (which the sound of his voice told me he was) when he came to our door the first time.

We were staunch friends in a few days, for one of my household duties was to get the mail from him each Thursday. I was greatly interested to know that he had a little girl about my own age and size, and in my fond daydreams I hoped for a meeting with her some time when both of us became a little older. But I never met her, although her father continued his weekly visits for a number of years, until one morning a younger man came with the mail and announced himself as the son and successor of our old post-rider. But he did not succeed to the place in my affections occupied by his father. A few weeks after my fifth birthday one balmy morning in early April, Mother called me to her side and said,