“You see what I wanted to say is just so and so, not something else.” — Cecil Frances Alexander | V2Melody

“You see what I wanted to say is just so and so, not something else.”

Her firm stance against well-meaning editorial alterations to her hymns · Conversation (as recorded by William Alexander)

Cecil Frances Alexander

About Cecil Frances Alexander

Cecil Frances Alexander

14 April 1818–12 October 1895

Cecil Frances Alexander, born Cecil Frances Humphreys on 14 April 1818 and dead on 12 October 1895, became one of the most widely sung and influential hymn writers of the nineteenth century. Her name may be less immediately familiar than the opening lines of her best-known hymns, yet “Once in Royal David’s City,” “All…

More by Cecil Frances Alexander

Poems by Cecil Frances Alexander

More remarks by Cecil Frances Alexander

“I have not attempted to write down to the children, but to write up to them.”

Expressing her respect for children’s spiritual and intellectual capacity · Preface to Hymns for Little Children (1848)

“In some measure [may it] tend to make Sunday a pleasant day to children. May it help to teach them to praise God, the Father, Son, and Spirit; to contemplate life and death and their own hearts as Christians should”

Her hope that poetry would form young minds in faith and contemplation · Preface, The Sunday Book of Poetry

“Thank God! I do like to hear that.”

Her spontaneous response on learning her hymn had transformed a worldly man's life · Conversation (as recorded by William Alexander)