- 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.
- 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;
- While the coward stands aside,
- Till the multitude make virtue,
- Of the faith they had denied.
- By the light of burning martyrs,
- Christ, thy bleeding feet we track,
- Toiling new calvaries ever
- With the cross that turns not back,
- New occasions teach new duties;
- Time makes ancient goods uncouth
- They must upward still and onward
- Who would keep abreast of truth.
- Though the cause of evil prosper,
- Yet ’tis trush alone is strong;
- Though her portion be 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.