Proverbs
14:34 Righteousness
exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.
Each time we sing together the vividly descriptive
lines of the song “America the Beautiful”, I am moved emotionally as I
contemplate the wonders of our great nation. The scenic beauties, the courage of
the early settlers, and the sacrifices of heroes in battle all stir us to
appreciation of our country’s heritage. This national hymn does more than
inspire us to praise our great nation. It also encourages us to pray for it.
Each stanza ends with an earnest plea for God’s grace, God’s healing, and His
refining until we as a people achieve true brotherhood, law-abiding control,
and nobility.
We are
reminded that America owes its birth to the living, vital and dynamic faith in
God that our founding fathers demonstrated. There is a real need today for a
return to such a national dependence upon God as well as a renewed pride in our
gift of America.
The author of this hymn, Katherine Bates, was a
teacher and head of the English department at Wellesley College in
Massachusetts. She wrote the original lines of this text in 1893, while
teaching summer school in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of
grain, for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! America! America!
God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to
shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet whose stern impassioned
stress, a thoroughfare of freedom beat across the wilderness! America! America!
God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in
law!
O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife,
who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life! America!
America! May God thy gold refine, till all success be nobleness, and every gain
divine!
O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the
years, thine alabaster cities gleam – undimmed by human tears! America!
America! God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from
sea to shining sea!
