te to the
cause of American freedom."

In a magazine article, written several years ago, Mr. Herbert Heywood
gave an interesting account of an interview with Dr. Smith, who told
him the story of the writing of the hymn himself.

"'I wrote "America,"' he said, 'when I was a theological student at
Andover, during my last year there. In February, 1832, I was poring
over a German book of patriotic songs which Lowell Mason, of Boston,
had sent me to translate, when I came upon one with a tune of great
majesty. I hummed it over, and was struck with the ease with which the
accompanying German words fell into the music. I saw it was a patriotic
song, and while I was thinking of translating it, I felt an impulse to
write an American patriotic hymn. I reached my hand for a bit of waste
paper, and, taking my quill pen, wrote the four verses in half an hour.
I sent it with some translations of the German songs to Lowell Mason,
and the next thing I knew of it I was told it had been sung by the
Sunday-school children at Park Street Church, Boston, at the following
Fourth of July celebration. The house where I was living at the time
was on the Andover turnpike, a little north of the seminary building. I
have been in the house since I left it in September, 1832, but never
went into my old room.'" This room is now visited by patriotic
Americans from every part of the country.

Two years after "America" was written, Dr. Smith became pastor of the
First Baptist Church in Waterville, Maine, and also professor of modern
languages in Waterville College, which is now known as Colby
University. His great industry and zeal, both as a clergyman and
student and teacher of languages, enabled him to perform the duties of
both positions successfully. He was a noted linguist, and could read
books in fifteen different languages. He could converse in most of the
modern European tongues, and at eighty-six was engaged in studying
Russian.

In 1842 Dr. Smith was made pastor of the First Baptist Church, Newton
Center, Massachusetts, where he made his home for the rest of his life.

"When he died, in November, 1895," says Mr. Heywood, "he was living in
the old brown frame-house at Newton Center, Massachusetts, which had
been his home for over fifty years. It stood back from the street, on
the brow of a hill sloping gently to a valley on the north. Pine trees
were in the front and rear, and the sun, from his rising to his
setting, smiled upon that abod