Worship Arts Notes ♫♫

There are songs that very nearly sing themselves - songs that unite our minds and hearts, and in a matter of minutes transport us to a lofty place and another time. Such is the hymn “My Country ‘Tis Of Thee.”  

Samuel Francis Smith, age 24, was thrilled as he heard a children's choir at Park Street Church in Boston sing, for the first time in public, a song he had written several months earlier. The presentation was on July 4, 1832. 

One afternoon Samuel, a student at Andover Theological Seminary in Andover, Mass., was sitting in his room on the campus. The school was near the church in which the lantern was hung during Paul Revere's famous ride. Lowell Mason, a music publisher, had given young Samuel, who spoke several languages, a number of European music books, asking him to translate some of the songs into English. Mason thought, perhaps, they might be used in a new hymnal being compiled. 

As Smith began the task, his eyes fell on a German song entitled "God Bless Our Native Land." The tune had already been used in England for more than 100 years as "God Save the King." 

Instead of translating the original lyrics, Samuel decided to compose a new message for the musical setting. Thirty minutes before sundown he began the task. As the sun was setting, he wrote the last line, finishing what was to become one of the most famous of all American songs. He later declared that he had not intentionally tried to write a patriotic song, but it soon took on a life of its own. It served as our unofficial national anthem until the adoption of "The Star-Spangled Banner" in 1931.