MUSIC AND WORSHIP
During this month of July, I wanted to give special attention to the patriotic songs that we sing as a nation. Daniel Crane Roberts, rector of the St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Brandon, Vermont wrote "God of our Fathers, Whose Almighty Hand" in 1876 for the centennial Fourth of July. The hymn tune to which it was originally sung was RUSSIAN HYMN. The hymn was sent anonymously to the committee revising the Episcopal Hymnal of 1872 and it was accepted. Several hymn tune names have been given to this hymn but George C. Warren, the organist at New York City’s St. Thomas Episcopal Church, composed NATIONAL HYMN in 1892. This is the tune we are most familiar with.
Francis Scott Key wrote the patriotic hymn known as our National Anthem on September 14, 1814 in Baltimore, Maryland near the end of the War of 1812. Key had been on assignment as an agent of the United States to negotiate the release of a prisoner held by the British fleet. Though the British agreed to free the prisoner, they kept Key with the fleet to keep secret the plans of an attack on Fort McHenry. All day on September 13, and throughout the night, Key and his party watched helplessly until by the light of day, the U.S. flag was still flying over the garrison. The tune is the work of an unknown composer and had been known in the United States as early as 1793. Congress made "The Star Spangled Banner" the national anthem on March 3, 1931.
Samuel Francis Smith who became one of the outstanding Baptist preachers of the 19th century wrote "My Country ‘Tis of Thee" in 1832. It is a strange coincidence that the tunes of our two most frequently sung patriotic songs—"The Star-Spangled Banner" and "My Country ‘Tis of Thee’ have unknown origins. Ironically, both tunes come from England, the country from which the nation won its independence over 200 years ago.
Katherine Lee Bates, a New England college teacher, wrote "America the Beautiful" one summer evening in 1893 at Colorado Springs after visiting the summit of Pike’s Peak with a group of friends. It is one of the worthiest and certainly one of the most moving and popular of all our American patriotic songs. The imagery of the "alabaster cities" used in the last stanza was prompted by a visit to the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago during that same year. Samuel A. Ward composed MATERNA for the hymn "O Mother Dear Jerusalem." There are two different dates for the origin of this tune: one in 1882 and the other is 1885.
One of the most moving pieces of music played at the funeral of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 is "Eternal Father, Strong to Save" otherwise known as the Navy Hymn. William Whiting wrote the hymn in 1860 for a student at Winchester College who was about to sail to America. John B. Dykes composed MELITA in 1861 and no other hymn should be sung to this tune.
Source: Handbook to the Baptist Hymnal
Dennis Bucher
