Once to every man and nation

James Russell Lowell was a 19th century American poet, critic, essayist, editor, and diplomat, not a hymn writer, but I know this poem is found in Christian hymnals. I’m not sure of Church of the Brethren—that seems to be where I remember singing it.  The only hymnal I have at our summer cottage is the 1964 Methodist, and it’s on p. 242 set to music by Thomas J. Williams (tune Ebenezer).  The theme is “Courage in Conflict.”  There are other versions, some with more explicit Christian theology, so perhaps it was modified to be a hymn. 

This version contains eternal truths now under attack in our cities by Marxist/anarchist forces:  good and evil; cause and decision; bloom and blight, darkness and light. Choices to be made—truth, justice, faith, bravery, the threat of death, and over all, God is keeping watch.

Once to every 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,
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.

James Russell Lowell, Public Domain