This hymn began as a royal anthem for the Kingdom of Saxony. Siegfried August Mahlmann wrote "Gott segne Sachsenland" in 1815, after the Napoleonic Wars, and it was first sung before the King of Saxony on November 13 of that year. His original praised Saxony, "where loyalty has stood firm in storm and night," and hailed the crancelin, the green band of trefoil leaves on the Saxon coat of arms. The same German hymn inspired Samuel Francis Smith to write "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." Charles Timothy Brooks translated two stanzas while a student at Harvard Divinity School, and his friend John Sullivan Dwight, later a noted music critic, reworked the second. Lowell Mason published it in Boston in 1841, and it was sung as an anthem at the city's Fourth of July celebration in 1842. The tune, first printed in London about 1744, is the melody of "God Save the King," which has also carried anthems in Prussia and Switzerland. The LSB companion ties the hymn to the Fourth Commandment and Romans 13: we pray for our country and thank God for the peace and order that good government provides.
Sung at Our Saviour
2026