Mayday Mystery 09 Feb 2007 Delivery

You've heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, well the three individual pictures from the Orphanage can be described in three words: "Let Freedom Ring." What do Samuel F. Smith, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James R. Lowell have in common? Please read the following info extracted from http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/s/m/i/smith_sf.htm to find out.

Samuel F. Smith

Smith attended Harvard University and Andover Theological Seminary. He entered the Baptist ministry in 1832, and the same year became editor of Baptist Missionary Magazine. He also contributed to the Encyclopedia Americana. From 1834 to 1842, he pastored at Waterville, Maine, and was Professor of Modern Languages at Waterville College. In 1842, he moved to Newton, Massachusetts, where he stayed until 1854, when he became editor of the publications of the Baptist Missionary Union.

The secular world best remembers Smith as the author of "My Country ’Tis of Thee." He and Oliver Wendell Holmes were classmates at Harvard, and for the 1829 class reunion, Holmes wrote:

There’s a nice youngster of excellent pith,
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith;
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,
Just read on his medal, “My country,” “of thee.”

On Smith’s 80th birthday, Holmes sent him the following:

Full many a poet’s labored lines
A century’s creeping waves shall hide—
The verse a people’s love enshrines
Stands like a rock that breasts the tide.

Time wrecks the proudest piles we raise,
The towers, the domes, the temples fall.
The fortress crumbles and decays—
One breath of song outlasts them all.

"My Country, 'Tis of Thee" - by Samual F. Smith:

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 by Thy might,
Great God, our King.

These words were born because Smith’s friend, Lowell Mason, could not read German. Mason had received several German hymnals, and sent them to Smith, who he knew understood German. In one of them, Smith ran across the tune now used for "My Country ’Tis of Thee." Noting that the German words were patriotic in nature:

"I instantly felt the impulse to write a patriotic hymn of my own, adapted to the tune. Picking up a scrap of waste paper which lay near me, I wrote at once, probably within half an hour, the hymn ‘America’ as it is now known everywhere. The whole hymn stands today as it stood on the bit of waste paper." - Samual F. Smith

Dr. Smith visited the Board of Trade in Chicago [Illinois] in May of 1887. While sitting in the gallery he was pointed out to some of the members. Soon he became the center of considerable notice. All at once the trading on the floor ceased, and from the wheatpit came the familiar words, “My Country ’Tis of Thee.” After two stanzas had been sung, Dr. Smith arose and bowed. A rousing cheer was given by the men on the floor, to which Dr. Smith was now escorted by the secretary of the Board. The members flocked around Dr. Smith and grasped his hand. Then they opened a passage through the crowd and led him to the wheatpit, where they took off their hats and sang the rest of the hymn.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Born: August 29, 1809, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Died: October 7, 1894, Boston, Massachusetts.

Buried: Mount Auburn Cemetery, Watertown, Massachusetts.

Son of Congregational minister Abiel Holmes, Oliver taught anatomy and physiology at Harvard Medical School, where he eventually became dean. However, he is perhaps best remembered as an author, and as father of American Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. In addition, with James Russell Lowell, he helped found The Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1857.

James R. Lowell

In the Boston Courier on December 11, 1845, James R. Lowell wrote these words as a poem protesting America’s war with Mexico.

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

www.BordersChess.org/MM_09-Feb2007_Delivery.htm   modified 2007.02.09