I love to preach on the theme of the cross of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the axis of salvation, the climax of the cosmic conflict between good and evil. So Fanny Crosby’s ‘Near the Cross’ is a favourite of mine. Her writing career flowered at a school for the blind in New York where she received acclaim as a poet. Then on November 20, 1850 at Thirtieth Street Methodist Church she went forward to the altar and found Christ as her Saviour.