Editor, Gazette-Journal:

While reading the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and other historic documents on the Fourth of July, we should also read and sing the fourth verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The fourth verse says:

Oh thus be it ever when freemen shall stand

Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation.

Blest with vict’ry and peace, may this heav’n rescued land

Praise the power that has made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,

And this be our motto “In God is our trust.”

And the star spangled banner forever shall wave,

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

This gives us a better understanding of what Francis Scott Key was thinking when he wrote the poem and where Congress stood when they chose it as our National Anthem. It states that God is the power that made, preserved and rescued our nation and that we will put our trust in Him.

Of course,...