REVISITING A GRAND OLD HYMN

A hymn I have always loved is Once to Every Man and Nation. 

This hymn was adapted from a poem entitled The Present Crisis written in 1845 by the abolitionist poet James Russell Lowell (1818-1891), before the beginning of the Civil War in 1862. 

https://poets.org/poem/present-crisis

The Present Crisis is a lengthy poem, with five-line stanzas rhymed AABBB in a rhythmic pattern that I cannot identify. (If you know please let me know!)

But the following verses, extracted from this poem and recast in conventional 4/4 meter, are often sung today to the tune Ebenezer.  You can hear this at: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nk3_cWncuY   

1 Once to ev'ry man and nation 
Comes the moment to decide, 
In the strife of truth and falsehood, 
For the good or evil side; 
Some great cause, some great decision, 
Off'ring each the bloom or blight, 
And the choice goes by forever 
'Twixt that darkness and that light. 

2 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. 

3 By the light of burning martyrs, 
Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track, 
Toiling up new Calv'ries ever 
With the cross that turns not back; 
New occasions teach new duties, 
Ancient values test our youth; 
They must upward still and onward, 
Who would keep abreast of truth. 

4 Tho' the cause of evil prosper, 
Yet the truth alone is strong; 
Tho' 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.

Today, as I watch with much anxiety the returns of this year's Presidential Election, I find myself humming this tune.  

I do not equate today's crisis with that faced on the eve of the Civil War, but now, nearly a century and a half later, I believe we are nevertheless facing a situation that could have huge consequences for the United States for many years to come.   And so these verses keep resounding in my mind.

--------------

Note -- The Hymn, Once to Every Man and Nation, appears with many minor textual changes in various sources and occasionally to different tunes.  Here is one frequently seen version in a Baptist Hymnal.  

And here is a pastor giving a sermon just the other day based on this hymn!    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Hr4L0WoeY

Please do not be confused by textual changes when encountering various versions of this hymn -- there have been many!  But the ideas remain the same and are well worth considering in these turbulent days!

###