Gazing out his window at Andover Theological Seminary, a young divinity student suddenly reached for pencil and paper and began to write words to a tune that had been running through his head.
My country,'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing . . .
Samuel Francis Smith did not guess just how popular his America* would be or that it would become the nation's best-known patriotic hymn. "Such as it is " he wrote years later, "I am glad to have contributed this mite to the cause of American freedom."
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