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Show I" Easter Sunday. The Jews celebrated the anniversary of their great deliverance when they escaped from Egypt, when their pursuers were overthrown. They called it their Passover. We believe the custom with them i originated after they returned -from their captivity in Babylon; that is, whatever they had celebrated before was made to cenform in date with the Chaldean festival of spring. Jit was natural that the day on which was celebrated their great deliverance should correspond with the day which was celebrated in honor of the earth's deliverance from the icy grasp of winter. So it was natural for Christians to borrow from the Hebrews the same day for a festival in honor f of the great day when a cold more terrible than I a Chaldean winter, the chill of the grave, was melted, when a deliverance was achieved which was as much greater than the disenthrallment of Bthe Israelites from Egyptian rule as the myriads of mankind are greater than the few thousands f who left Egypt for the Promised Land. L But the idea has been the same since before m the first page of profane history was written. jL The day first symbolized the deliverance of tha earth from the grasp of winter. Then it had added to it the joy which came of the subllnie I deliverance of a race from slavery and death. Then to that was added the new-found hop3 i which this world cannot compass, which awak- f ened here stretches beyond the stars. Its first IF offerings were to the goodness of spring; its sec- I ond were to the God who gave the tables to Moses It on Sinai; it culminated when the hope was born which came with the words of the angel at the Wt sepulchre: "He is not here, for he is risen." It is a festival of thankfulness and joy, a day when man is exalted, when the heavens seem bendlns t nearer to the earth; when the wireless telegraphy U which carries the messages between the shores Kj of time and the shores of eternity is loaded with messages of love. f When man grows wiser and truer his senses f will become sublimated and he will hear those mL greetings as they go and come. He is only a W little lower than the angels now; up tf" long fc.3ftrtW;gMyt-3-:i ; M,-I',-;., ' ...... . stairs he is slowly climbing; the lights are already al-ready in broken rays descending upon him; h9 has ceased to grope; he is climbing now and the full splendors of that upper day are very near. Despite wars and clashings the races of men are drawing nearer together; the Peace Congress will soon convene; before five more decades of years pass, that congress will formulate a decree which the nations will accept, and thenceforth wars between Christian nations will no longer be possible It must lie so. War has now become so expensive a butchery t'tiat men are beginning to recoil before the thought of it not to believe be-lieve that war's final guns will soon Are the salute to beautiful Peace is not to believe in progress. Then this Easter Sunday will have added to it the final celebration of the' emancipation of the human hu-man soul from hate. The bells should ring out joyously tomorrow. Organ and choir should sound the world's joy for the hope which the day renews, and all the greetings greet-ings among men should be joyous greetings, for the sepulchre in which the hop9 of souls was so long buried has opened the stone and the clouds alike have rolled away. |