One Flag Under God

The words on American money were in verse long before they were on a coin. The fourth stanza of Francis Scott Key's 1814 poem, later the national anthem, says it almost exactly: "And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'"

During the Civil War a Pennsylvania minister, Mark Watkinson, asked the Treasury to recognize God on the coinage. Secretary Salmon P. Chase agreed, and in 1864 the new two-cent piece became the first American coin to carry IN GOD WE TRUST. Congress made it the national motto on July 30, 1956, and it reached paper money the next year. On Flag Day 1954, two years before the motto law, President Eisenhower had signed the bill adding "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.

The picture joins flag and faith literally, by building the flag as a church window.

The flag waves in three deep folds against amber and honey-gold panes that glow as if the sun were behind them. The red stripes are cut into short segments, the white ones have a warm parchment tone, and the blue canton holds fifteen white stars, the number the official flag carried from 1795 to 1818. The window is warm rather than bright, like old glass late in the day, and suits a study or a family room.