In Canada, about the time that Moody and Sankey returned to America, Tommy Dodd, "the greatest drunkard and wife-beater in Yorkville," was persuaded to leave the saloon for the church by hearing a carpenter and his apprentice sing "Hold the Fort." The song may have reached Canada only a short time before, with the first (1875) edition of Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs. On a brief trip to England in 1879, Sankey appropriately sang "Hold the Fort" at a London meeting at which the famous British evangelist Charles H. Spurgeon delivered a sermon on a pending army bill at the behest of "a Christian gentleman, a member of . . . parliament." When the congregation joined in the chorus "it was heard blocks away." At that time Sankey was en route to Switzerland where, "ascending the Rigi," he "sang 'Hold the Fort,' much to the interest of the Swiss peasants." Presumably he did not sing this song when he visited Turkey in 1898, for he reported that the Sultan had banned both "Hold the Fort" and "Dare to Be a Daniel," another of Bliss's songs.[71]
"Hold the Fort" thus became a part of the popular church music of the British Isles and was not unknown in other foreign places. Not surprisingly, it also came to serve the secular cause of the British trade-union movement, as it did the cause of labor in the United States. Meanwhile, the old song continued to make gospel history in its native land.
In the Athens of America
Bliss no doubt sang "Hold the Fort" countless times as he went up and down the land in his last years, although Sankey recalled that his friend "hoped that he would not be known to posterity only as the author of 'Hold the Fort,' for he believed that he had written many better songs."[72] As fate would have it, of course, when Bliss's commemorative monument was erected in 1877 in Rome, Pennsylvania—with contributions from thirty-six states and territories, and from England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, India, and the West Indies—there was inscribed on its front, facing the road, these words: "Erected by the Sunday Schools of the United States and Great Britain in response to the invitation of D. L. Moody as a memorial to Philip P. Bliss, author of Hold the Fort and other gospel songs." When Sankey sang "Hold the Fort" at the unveiling ceremony, the choir and congregation joined in the chorus.[73]
