CHOOSE by James Russell Lowell

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Apr 2, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 14.

CHOOSE.

By James Russell Lowell

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, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, E'er the doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land? Tho the cause of evil prosper, yet 'tis truth alone is strong, And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong.

Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record One death grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the word; 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.

We see dimly in the present what is small and what is great. Slow of faith, how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate, But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din, List the ominous, stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,— "They enslave their children's children, who make compromise with sin."

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, Doubting, in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

For humanity sweeps onward; where to-day the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; Far in front the cross stands ready, and the crackling fagots burn, While the hooting mob of yesterday, in silent awe return, To glean up the scattered ashes into history's golden urn. —James Russell Lowell.