And nations, crowding to be born,
Baptize their spirits in its light.
The hymn, as may be surmised, is based on the passage from the Psaltery: “Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth.”
Bishop Doane was a zealous advocate of missions. It was during his childhood that the modern missionary movement had its inception and swept like a tidal wave over the Christian world. “Fling out the banner” is a reflection of the remarkable enthusiasm that filled his own soul and that revealed itself in his aggressive missionary leadership. Indeed, he became known in his own Church as “the missionary bishop of America.”
A son, William C. Doane, also became one of the most distinguished bishops of the Episcopal Church. Writing of his father’s rare gifts as a hymnist, he declares that his heart was “full of song. It oozed out in his conversation, in his sermons, in everything that he did. Sometimes in a steamboat, often when the back of a letter was his only paper, the sweetest things came.”
The Quaker Poet’s Prayer
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our feverish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,