Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Through each choice God speaking to us
Offers each the bloom or blight,
Then the man or nation chooses
For the darkness or that light.

Then to side with truth is Christian,
Sharing in the heat and dust,
Ere the cause bring fame and profit,
And it's 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,
God still stands within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.

James Russell Lowell
Tune: Ebenezer
With One Voice No. 499

Recorded at Kingsland Methodist Church