Once to every man and nation, a great hymn

 I usually have a hymn in my morning devotions, and today it was "Once to every man and nation." I looked through my various hymn resources and couldn't find it, although I was almost marching and humming from the kitchen to the library. I knew it; why couldn't I find it?

That's not the title.  Actually, it's from a poem called "The Present Crisis," written by a very famous 19th century poet, James Russell Lowell, in protest of the Mexican War and slavery, published in 1845. Lowell was an ardent abolitionist.

For me, this hymn from "The Present Crisis" is the current crisis of life vs. death--abortion. Yes, the word slave appears a few times in the poem, but it could be slave to materialism, an ideology or "reproductive freedom."   Death is in every platform and policy of the Democrats, and although Republicans don't write it into their mission statement, many do support abortion. Imagine, a country hoping to succeed in economics, education, technology, safety and health, and virtue by destroying the weak and helpless? It should be our anthem, as it was for abolitionists in the 19th century, and for Martin Luther King, Jr. for civil rights in the 20th century. It speaks of man and nation, truth and falsehood, darkness and light. The hymn begins with the 5th stanza of the poem, so there is much more. East to west, hut and palace, right and wrong, conscious and unconscious, gain or loss, "Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne," and "on the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands." Listen closely.

 https://youtu.be/cSMqesZz3tU?si=alcdkTshtIDxjFal

Also wrote about this in 2020 Collecting My Thoughts: Once to every man and nation when I had a Methodist hymnal on hand.

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