"I

instantly felt the impulse to write a patriotic hymn of

my own adapted to the tune, (so) picking up a scrap of

waste paper which lay near me, I wrote at once, probably

within half an hour, this hymn." Samuel F. Smith,

1829

We

Lutherans and Baptists have been working together for a

long time - we just haven't always known it.

Paul Harvey

would call this "the REST of the story."

Samuel

Francis Smith was born in Newton Centre, Mass., in 1808.

He was graduated from Harvard in 1829 in the same class

as Oliver Wendell Holmes, and he graduated from Andover

Theological Seminary in 1832.

Smith was

editor of the Baptist Missionary Magazine for a year and

a half, and from 1834 to 1842 was minister of a Baptist

congregation in Waterville, Maine, and also professor of

modern languages at Waterville College (now Colby

College).

He returned

to Newton Centre, where he served the First Baptist

Church from 1842 until 1854 when he became secretary to

the Baptist Missionary Union, a position he held until

1869. He died in 1895.

Samuel F.

Smith wrote nearly 100 hymns, 26 of which were included

in The Psalmist, which he edited and which contained

1,180 hymns. This hymnal is recognized as the finest

hymnal the Baptists had created to that point and

continues still to influence Baptist and other hymnals

even today.

In 1880

Smith journeyed far from his native Massachusetts to tour

the mission fields of Asia and Europe and returned to

write a book encouraging the support of this important

work.

Samuel F.

Smith also had a son, The Rev. Dr. A. W. Smith, who was a

Baptist missionary to Burma, where the younger Smith

served as president of the theological seminary at

Rangoon.

Back in

1829, as he was graduating from Harvard as a young man,

Samuel F. Smith had a friend return from Europe with a

number of German Lutheran music books, which the friend

gave to mutual friend (and future famous hymn writer)

Lowell Mason. Since Mason could not read German, he

passed these books along to Smith.

Leafing

through the books, Smith was struck by the German

Lutheran hymn "Gott segne Sachsenland"

("God Bless Our Native Land") and its tune by

the German musician Siegfried August Mahlmann, whose

children's songs are still known in Germany nearly 200

years later.

Smith

recalled later about that night in 1829, "I

instantly felt the impulse to write a patriotic hymn of

my own adapted to the tune, (so) picking up a scrap of

waste paper which lay near me, I wrote at once, probably

within half an hour, this hymn."

"My

Country, `Tis of Thee" was first sung at a Fourth of

July celebration at the Boston Sabbath School Union at

Park Street Church in 1831, and has been in hymnals of

all Christian denominations since.

Why not

clip this great hymn from this paper, display it on your

refrigerator or similar place of prominence, and let it

be a part of your Fourth of July celebration this week?

My country,

`tis of thee,

Sweet land

of liberty,

Of thee I

sing:

Land where

my fathers died,

Land of the

pilgrims' pride,

From every

mountainside

Let freedom

ring.

My native

country, thee,

Land of the

noble free,

Thy name I

love;

I love thy

rocks and rills,

Thy woods

and templed hills;

My heart

with rapture thrills

Like that

above.

Let music

swell the breeze,

And ring

from all the trees

Sweet

freedom's song;

Let mortal

tongues awake;

Let all

that breathe partake;

Let rocks

their silence break,

The sound

prolong.

Our

fathers' God, to Thee,

Author of

liberty,

To Thee we

sing:

Long may

our land be bright

With

freedom's holy light.

Protect us

Great God,

our King!

Happy

Fourth! God Bless America!

(Kollmeyer

is senior pastor of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in

Fayetteville. He credits Hymnal Companion to the Lutheran

Book of Worship, Marilyn Kay Stulken, editor, as his main

source for this article.)