LYRICS

1. Do You want my hands Lord,  Do You want my hands Lord?
Do You want my hands Lord all through the day?
To help the needy and the sick and the poor?
To work from morn till the day is over.
I give You my hands, I give You my hands.
I give You my hands today.

2. Do You want my feet Lord, Do You want my feet Lord?
Do You want my feet Lord all through the day?
To go each day to those who need a friend,
To walk with the lonely till the journey’s end.
I give You my feet, I give You my feet.
I give You my feet today.

3. Do You want my voice Lord, Do You want my voice Lord?
Do You want my feet Lord all through the day?
To speak to all who need Your words of love,
To tell of our Father and our home above,
I give You my voice, I give You my voice.
I give You my voice today.

My Country, ‘Tis of Thee
(1831)

Hymn Background:

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord . . .
Psalm 33:12

This patriotic hymn was written by Samuel Francis Smith, a native Bostonian, born on October 21,1808.  After attending Boston Latin School, he enrolled in Harvard, then attended Andover Seminary in Massachusetts. While there, Samuel became fascinated by the work of Adoniram Judson, America’s first missionary, and he developed a lifelong passion for world evangelism.

It was also during Samuel’s first year at Andover that hymn publisher, Lowell Mason, sought his help. Mason had a stack of German songs and materials needing translation.  Learning that Samuel was proficient in German, he recruited the young student to translate them.

On a cold February afternoon close to sunset,  Samuel sat in his sparsely furnished room, pouring over the materials.  He was struck by the words of “Gott segne Sachsenland” (“God Bless our Saxon Land”), set to the tune we know as “America” (used in Britain for “God Save the Queen”).

“I instantly felt the impulse to write a patriotic hymn of my own adapted to this tune,” Samuel later said.  “Picking up a scrap of paper which lay near me, I wrote at once, probably within half an hour, the hymn, ‘America’ as it is now known.”

A friend, Williams Jenks, took a copy to the pastor of Boston’s Park Street Congregational Church. There “America” was first sung by the Juvenile Choir at a Sunday School Rally on July 4, 1831.

In the years that followed, Samuel Francis Smith grew into a powerful Baptist preacher, college professor, hymnist, linguist, writer, and missionary advocate.  He traveled the world in support of evangelism, and he rejoiced when his son became a missionary to Rangoon (now called Yangon in Myanmar/Burma). Samuel lived to ripe old age and remained active till the end.  He died suddenly in his late-eighties at the Boston train station en route to a preaching appointment.

But he has always been most revered for the patriotic hymn he wrote as a 23-year old student.  As his friend and Harvard classmate, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., put it at a class reunion:

And 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!”

My Country, ‘Tis of Thee
LYRICS:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

I Come with Joy