ONCE TO EVERY MAN (WOMAN) AND NATION

 James Russel Lowell wrote these words as a poem protesting America’s war with Mexico. This was published in the Boston Courier, December 11, 1845.

This is one of my favorite hymns and a devotion for today.

Once to every man and nation,
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision,
Offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever,
’Twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble,
When we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit,
And ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses
While the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue
Of the faith they had denied.

Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above His own.

This is the Fountainview Academy singing and playing the hymn at the Colosseum in Rome, Italy.