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.
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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!
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!
