San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1888-01-05
THE PRESENT CRISIS.

Through the walls Of hut and palace shoots
the instantaneous throo,
When tho travail Of the Ages wrings earth's
systems to and fro;
Al the birth Of each new Era, with rocog-
niZing start,
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with
mute lips apart
And glad Truths yet mightier mnnchild
leaps beneath the Futures heart
SO tho Evils triumph sendeth, with terror
and n chill,
Under continent to continent, the sense Of
coming i'll,
And the slave, whero'or he covers, feels his
syInpathies with God
! In hot tear drops ebbing oarthwnrd, to be
drunk up by tho sod,
| Till corpse ciawls round unburied, delving
in the nobler clod.
For mankind nre one in spirit, and an in
stinct bears along,
Round the earth's electric circle tho swift
flash of right or wrong;
/ Whether conscious or unconscious, yet HUI
mnnity's vast frame
! Through its ocean-sUndered fbres feels the
gllsh of Joy or shame t.
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest
have equal claim.
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, Gods new Messiah, Of
fering each tho 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, 0 my people, on whose
party thou shalt stand,
! Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes
tho dust against our land?
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 7 is
Truth alone is strong.
And, albeit she wander outcast now, l see
around her throng
: Troops of beautiful, tall angels to enshield
her from all wrong.
Backward look across the agos and the bea.
! con moments see,
That like peaks of some sunk continent,
jut through Obllvion's sea;
Not an ear in court or market for the low
foreEodng cry.
| OF those Crises Gods stern winnowers
from whose feet earth's chaif must fly
| Never shows the choice nIomentous till the
! Judgment hath passed by.
Careless seems the great Avonger; history's
pages but record
One death grnpple in the darkness twixt
old systems and the Word
Truth forever on tho scafold, Wrong for
over on the THRONE.
Yet that BcafFold aways the future, and, be-
hind the dim unknowh,
StNndeth God within the shadow, keeping
watch above his own.
We see dimIy in the Present what is small
nud what is great,
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn
the iron helm of fate,
But tho soul is still oracuar; amid the mar.
kets din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the
Doluhic cave Within
They onslave their children's children
who make compromise with sin"
Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of
the gant brood,
Sons Of british Force and Darkness, who
have drenchad the enrth with blood.
Furnished in his self-made desert, blinded
by orr purcr dnv.
Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his
miserable Prev
Shall VIC guide his CORY fingers whore our
helpless children play?
Thon to side with Truth is noble when we
share her wretchcd cI ISt
Ere her cause bring fnme and profit, and
t is prosperous to be inst
Thon it is the brave man chooses, while the
coward stNnds aside,
Doubling IN his ubject spirit, till his Lord
is cruci6ed,
And the multitude make virtue Of the faith
they had denied.
Count me DER earths chosen heroes, they
were souls that stood alone,
While the men they agonized for hurled the
coptVmeious stone,
Stood serene, mud down the future saw the
COLDER ba0m incline
To the side Of perfect justice, mastered by
their faith divine
BY one mans plnin Truth to manhood and
to Gods supreme design
BY the light of burning heretics Christs
bleeding feet I track,
Toilirg up new Calvnries ever with the cross
That turns not hnck
Ana these mounts or nnGulSC NUMBER now
each generation learned
One new word Of that Grand C3a80 which
in pronhct hearts hath burned
Since the first man stood God-cnnquered
with lis face to heaven upturnod.
For Humanity sweeps onward: where to.
day the martyr stands.
On the morrow crouches Judas with the sll
yer in his hands;
Far in front the cross stands ready and the
cracking flgots burn,
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent
awe rotmn
To CLEAN mp the scattered ashes into His
toIys golden urn,
t is rs ensy to be heroes as to sit the idle
slaves
OF a legendary virtue carved upon our
fathers graves.
Worshigpers OF light ancestral make the
present LIGHT q crirne;-
Wus tLa Nayfowcr launched by towards,
stored 10y men behind their time?
I I'm those tracks toward Past or Future.
that make Plymouth rock sublime:
They were men of present valor, stalwari
old iconoclasts,
Uncoayinr,d by axe or gibbet that al virtue
was the Gast's;
But we make their truth our falsehoOi.
thinking .L.: hath made Ia free,
HCr~i;-- 70 IN ,NCul3v parchments. while
WE arc enas'ed 20 rrese
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