The Crisis Presses On Us by Whittier

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal., Kansas City, and New York · Nov 29, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, Nos. 48, 49.

The Crisis Presses On Us

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 prophets 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.