Among the many achievements of this versatile bishop was the founding of Saint Mary’s Hall, a school for young women, at Burlington, N. J. Doane lies buried in the neighboring churchyard, and it is said that the students on every Wednesday evening at chapel services sing “Softly now the light of day” as a memorial tribute to the founder of the institution.
Both of these hymns were quickly recognized as possessing unusual merit, and almost immediately found their way into Christian hymn-books. Today there is scarcely a hymnal published in the English language that does not contain them.
But Bishop Doane’s fame does not rest on these two hymns alone. He was destined to write a third one, equally great but of a very different character from the other two. It is the stirring missionary hymn:
Fling out the banner! let it float
Skyward and seaward, high and wide;
The sun that lights its shining folds,
The cross, on which the Saviour died.
It was written in 1848 in response to a request from the young women of St. Mary’s Hall for a hymn to be used at a flag-raising. The third stanza is one of rare beauty:
Fling out the banner! heathen lands
Shall see from far the glorious sight,