By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… The birthday of our nation is coming up. I know it is two weeks away. However, I got to thinking about it when I was sent a video of a retired Marine singing the fourth verse of our National Anthem. I don’t believe I had ever heard it before and this gentleman broke out in song at a Tea Party gathering in Georgia. The words are amazing:

“O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!

Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!

Then conquer we must, When our cause it is just,

And this be our motto, ‘In God is our trust.’

And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

When I went on the internet to look up these words, I saw a debate had broken out as to whether this is the second or fourth verse. I really don’t care. I love the words and if you haven’t heard them, Google “Marine sings second verse of National Anthem” and listen to this rendition on You Tube.

If it doesn’t make the hair on the back of your neck stand-up, check your pulse for you are dead or a supporter of Nancy Pelosi. Either way, you lose.

I have included the other verses as well. Read the words and contemplate the greatness of our country.

Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,

O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket’s red glare, The bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there.

Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen thro’ the mist of the deep,

Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep.

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses.

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,

In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream

‘Tis the star-spangled banner. Oh! long may it wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

The third verse, below, was not sung during World War II because it offended our British allies.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion

A home and a country should leave us no more?

Their blood has washed out their foul footstep’s pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

In 1861, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. the father of the Chief Justice wrote a fifth verse that has been all but lost in history. It was a response to the South’s withdrawal from the Union.

When our land is illumined with liberty’s smile,

If a foe from within strikes a blow at her glory,

Down, down with the traitor that tries to defile

The flag of the stars, and the page of her story!

By the millions unchained, Who their birthright have gained

We will keep her bright blazon forever unstained;

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave,

While the land of the free is the home of the brave.

The Stars Spangled Banner was officially named the National Anthem in 1931. Today there are those from the Liberal Left who feel the song is too militaristic and should be replaced with something nicer and more politically correct. Maybe something like “I would like to buy the world a coke.”

No one asked me but… Since I have already offended my friends on the Liberal Left, let me go further and really upset them by mentioning the role religion has played in the development of our country.

What triggered this outburst of religious discourse? Believe it, or not, it was the attempt to rewrite American history by Sarah Palin supporters when she misspoke about Paul Revere’s ride. If the Left can, rightly so, object to misinterpreting American history by a representative of the Right, the Left’s attempt to deny religions effect on American history can surely also be challenged.

Most of the major figures included in the pantheon of Founding Fathers, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Hancock, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and more could be classified as Believers.

There were 95 Senators and Representatives in the First Federal Congress and adding them to the list of Founding Father does not dilute the Christian influence of the founding of the country. In this group were 88 Episcopalian/Anglicans, 30 Presbyterians, 27 Congregationalists, 7 Quakers, 6 Dutch Reformed/German Reformed, 5 Lutheran, 3 Catholics, 3 Unitarians, 2 Methodists and 1 Calvinist.

Not a single founding father was a card-carrying atheist.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence included 32 Episcopalian/Anglicans, 13 Congregationalists, 12 Presbyterians, 2 Quakers, 2 Unitarian or Universalists and one Catholic.

Both the Pledge of Allegiance and the hymn “My County T’is of Thee” were written by Baptist preachers.

Rev. Samuel Smith wrote “My Country T’is of Thee.” Prior to 1931, the song was used as our National Anthem.

Rev. Francis Bellamy wrote the pledge in 1892; however, the words “under God” were not added until 1954. Yes, I am aware that Rev. Bellamy was a socialist who left his church, but not the faith, disillusioned by the church’s refusal to allow blacks to attend services with whites.

It never ceases to amaze me how left leaning Americans today try to deny the nation’s religious roots. Now as an historian, I can accept that the godless of the country might decry the fact that Judeo-Christian philosophy played a major role in the development of the country, but to deny it is just not historically correct.

Were all of these leaders’ supporters of religious freedom? No. The point is they were in their own way God-fearing men whose religious beliefs affected the developing of this country.

Leftist may argue that this was not good but to argue that it was not the case is as silly as Palin’s remark that Paul Revere rode to warn the British that they would not be able to deny the colonist their right to bear arms.

Thought of the week… “When I die, I desire no better winding sheet than the Stars and Stripes, and no softer pillow than the Constitution of my country.”

– Andrew Johnson