In 1893 an English professor...
Illustration
In 1893 an English professor at Wellesley College, Katherine Lee Bates, made a trip to Colorado. She climbed Pike's Peak and viewed the vast panorama before her. She was so inspired by the beauty of the vista that she wrote a hymn that has ever since been associated with America as a promised land. The hymn was "America, the Beautiful."
Bates was deeply stirred by the "purple mountain majesties" and she went on to write of America's national destiny beginning with "the pilgrim's feet" and extending to all those people who followed across the western frontier of the land. Nor was she unaware of the weaknesses and limitations of this promised land. Hence, she wrote also of the need for "liberty" and "liberty with law." There is still much work to be done to make it truly a promised land.
Many of America's earliest leaders and interpreters have drawn upon the life of Moses, the pilgrim people of Israel and the promised land of Canaan to help explain the dynamic spiritual impulse behind our unique experiment in democracy.
- Clarke
Bates was deeply stirred by the "purple mountain majesties" and she went on to write of America's national destiny beginning with "the pilgrim's feet" and extending to all those people who followed across the western frontier of the land. Nor was she unaware of the weaknesses and limitations of this promised land. Hence, she wrote also of the need for "liberty" and "liberty with law." There is still much work to be done to make it truly a promised land.
Many of America's earliest leaders and interpreters have drawn upon the life of Moses, the pilgrim people of Israel and the promised land of Canaan to help explain the dynamic spiritual impulse behind our unique experiment in democracy.
- Clarke
