Do You Know the Other Verses of the National Anthem?

This was sent to me by a friend, and I am now more convinced than ever that Francis Scott Key was speaking for the founding fathers and the majority of Americans when he penned the final verse of the Star Spangled Banner.

Mr. Key presented his view of the 1812 war, and the impending prayer for America's victory to be in the hands of a supernatural power (God) to whom we, as a nation, needed to Praise for the continual preservation of the nation and its freedom.

There are many who argue until they are blue-in-the-face that America is not a Christian nation, yet thirty-six years after we sent the British packing for England. It seems that My Key still believed our "cause was just" and the nation was "heaven rescued!"

The reasons I believe this nation were founded on Christian principles is supported in the words of verse four, and the fact that in 1916, Woodrow Wilson made this song our National Anthem.

A side note is that Mr. Key served as the Vice President of the American Bible Society from 1817 until his death in 1843. He was without a doubt a practicing believer, and his song presented the Holiness, he equated to this nation.

Enjoy the other three verses, in case you did not realize there were other verses, and allow those two sentences in verse serve to strengthen your conviction that this nation was founded under the Grace of God descending upon all men and women who won our freedom in 1776, and retained its glory and honor in 1812.

Shalom,

Pastor Paul :type:

:thumbs: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 thru 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 through 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 through the mists 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 in 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!

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 footsteps' 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!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n 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!:thumbsup: