THE CRISIS by Whittier

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 19, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 12.

THE CRISIS.

By Whittier

The Crisis presses on us; face to face with us it stands, With solemn lips of question, like the Sphinx in Egypt’s sands! This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we spin; This day for all hereafter choose we holiness or sin; Even now from starry Gerizim, or Ebal’s cloudy crown, We call the dews of blessing or the bolts of cursing down!

By all for which the martyrs bore their agony and shame; By all the warning words of truth with which the prophet came; By the Future which awaits us; by all the hopes which cast Their faint and trembling beams across the blackness of the past; And by the blessed thought of Him who for earth’s freedom died, O my people! O my brothers! let us choose the righteous side. —Whittier.