August 24, 2014:

Ponderings of a Poet

August 24, 2014

Once to Every Man and Nation

Once to every man and nation

Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth with false-hood,

For the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God’s new messiah,

Offering each the bloom or blight,

And the choice goes by forever

“Twixt that darkness and that light.

By the light of burning martyrs,

Jesus’ bleeding feet I track

Toiling up new Calvaries ever

With the cross that turns not back;

New occasions teach new duties,

Time makes ancient good uncouth;

They must up-ward still and on-ward,

Who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper,

Yet ‘tis truth alone is strong,

Truth forever on the scaffold,

Wrong forever on the throne.

Yet that scaffold sways the future,

And, behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow

Keeping watch above his own.  Amen.

                              — James Russell Lowell, 1819-1891, alt.

      These words are as true now as when the poet wrote them nearly two hundred years ago.

Love, Pastor Dave