OCR Text |
Show It is not enough to explain it as an old tradition, handed down from generation gen-eration to generation. If the experience experi-ence of the apostles and the three Marys and the five hundred brethren to whom he made himself known were the only reason for keeping Easter, it is not probable that Easter would still be kept. Faith that is only handed on does not survive as this faith has survived. There must be another reason. rea-son. The other reason Is that there never has been an age since the first Christian Chris-tian age until now when there were not among the people of the earth those to whom Christ had become a living liv-ing person. The healing of the seamless seam-less dress has been by beds of pain. In the midst of the storm and the stress of life, despairing men and women have reached out to touch him, and they have touched him and been made whole again. Martyrs, stretched on the agonizing rack, have heard him. Other martyrs, bound among the burning burn-ing fagots, have seen him in the fire. Tempted men have sought him in the hour of their temptation, and his arm has sustained them. Such as they do not need to be told that long agd, on a Sunday morning in the spring, the grave released him. They know that he is released, for he has become the living power of their lives. When the eleven, after the tragic death of Judas, chose a twelfth apostle, they did so that he might become a witness with them of the resurrection. Since then, from all nations and tribes, a great company whom God alone can number has been added to the chain of witnesses. Daily their number is increased. . Easter is Easter, not because be-cause Jesus rose long ago, iut because be-cause Jesus still lives, and because there are among us those who know that he lives. Youth's Companion. t EASTER IN HEARTS OF MEN Chain of Witnesses to the Resurrection Resurrec-tion Has Been Added to Throughout Through-out the Centuries. CHRIST is risen." The choirs sing about it. The preachers proclaim it. The multitudes believe it. Does it seem strange that because a small group of sad-eyed, discouraged men and women, almost two thousand years ago, suddenly came to believe that a man they had loved had returned re-turned to life after being executed on the cross, people should still believe it today? Nineteen centuries is a long time, and Palestine is far away. How is it that the belief of the first Christians Chris-tians has laid hold upon us? |