About the author
Frank Moore was a journalist and Revolutionary historian. He published a number of books on the American Revolution during his career in the mid-19th century, including Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution, Diary of the American Revolution and The Patriot Preachers of the American Revolution.
The origin of this specimen of the “Yankee Psalms and Prayers ” is unknown. There are numerous versions of it, but this is the only one that is above mediocrity, and suitable for this collection.
Common Prayer for the Times
SINCE we are taught in Scripture word
To pray for friends and foes;
Then let us pray for George the Third,
Who must be one of those.
Heaven bless America, and Britain,
May folly past suffice,
Wherein they have each other smitten,
Who ought to harmonize.
Allied by blood, and interest too,
Soon let them re-unite,
May Heaven tyrannic minds subdue,
Haste, haste the pleasing sight.
May ev’ry morn and ev’ning prayer
Repeat this just petition,
What thinking Christian can forbear,
Appris’d of our condition.
Britannia’s sins are our worst foes,
Let this be Britain’s creed,
For those who God and man oppose,
Must rebels be indeed.
This rebel-host how num’rous grown !
This growth kind Heaven forbid !
‘Tis fear’d some are too near the throne,
And seem securely bid.
Just Heaven, to light all rebels bring,
Who hate or love the steeple.
Rebels to God, and to the king,
And rebels to the people.
