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Once to Every Man and Nation

Representative Text

1 Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood,
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.

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 Calvaries ever
With the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties,
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still and onward,
Who would keep abreast of truth.

4 Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet 'tis 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.

Source: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal #432

Author: James Russell Lowell

Lowell, James Russell, LL.D., was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 22, 1819; graduated at Harvard College, 1838, and was called to the Bar in 1840. Professor of Modern Languages and Literature (succeeding the Poet Longfellow) in Harvard, 1855; American Minister to Spain, also to England in 1881. He was editor of the Atlantic Monthly, from 1857 to 1862; and of the North American Review from 1863 to 1872. Professor Lowell is the most intellectual of American poets, and first of her art critics and humorists. He has written much admirable moral and sacred poetry, but no hymns. One piece, “Men, whose boast it is that ye" (Against Slavery), is part of an Anti-Slavery poem, and in its present form is found in Hymns of the Spirit, 18… Go to person page >

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Baptist Hymnal 1991 #470
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The Cyber Hymnal #5200
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Instances

Instances (1 - 23 of 23)
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African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal #432

Ambassador Hymnal #465

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Baptist Hymnal 1991 #470

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Baptist Hymnal 2008 #538

TextAudioPage Scan

Chalice Hymnal #634

Common Praise (1998) #587

TextPage Scan

CPWI Hymnal #435

TextPage Scan

Hymns for a Pilgrim People #455

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Hymns from the Four Winds #82

Rejoice Hymns #672

Tune InfoText

Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal #606

Sing Glory #605

TextPage Scan

Sing Joyfully #607

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Singing the Living Tradition #119

Songs of Faith and Praise #696

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The Celebration Hymnal #733

The Christian Life Hymnal #598

TextScoreAudio

The Cyber Hymnal #5200

Text

The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration #475

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Training hymnal for IWH215 #6

TextAudio

Voices United #694

Worship His Majesty #677

Text

Worship in Song #273

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