Nothing New - But.......

  There are always crises arising in this world plagued with evil , weakness, greed, oh, just name off the seven deadly sins to make it easy. Today we face national and global crises, that seem to tear asunder our natural hopes and aspirations.  Our country alone is threatened as never before, not only from dangers without, but from within our own government. Freedom itself is in peril.  James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) exhorts us to action and resolve.  Our history is proud. In what light will future history judge us? The Civil War was the crisis that could have dissolved this Union. The sentiments in the following poem are apropos of our "present crisis." Italics inserted in the poem are my emphases.

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                                               Excerpts from: THE PRESENT CRISIS

When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast,
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west,
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time.

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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 part thou shalt stand,
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?

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Though 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 shield her from all wrong.

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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;
When 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 virtues of the faith they had denied.

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'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves
Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves,
Worshipers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;-
Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time?
Turn those tracks toward Past or Future that make the Plymouth Rock sublime?

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New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.

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                                                                         Do I hear an Amen?