Show easter splendid festival in the early centuries Cent unea raster easter sunday what a picture the words sug suggest gestl 1 A beautiful tunny sunny day churchgoing church going and the display of the new spring suit on the boulevard in the afternoon A day much like any other sunday for in these prosaic time easter is not the brilliant joyous festival S al 1 it ea once ee ans suppose u 0 s we we were re to turn back the pages of 0 history to the middle age what a festival easter was in those days dayal I 1 the th old pagan anglo saxon festival of easter was not merely a remembrance mem meni brance and its strange mummery not forgotten everything was lighthearted and color colorful hil and vibrant even those who had to wear the long faces during the rest of the year ear forgot their seriousness to play and dance und and perform strange tricks upon one another in the streets the priests along with the laymen imbibed the spirit of faster easter and laughed and played with the carefree care free tree spirit of schoolboys instead of preaching serious sermons or exhorting the people to consider the wickedness of their ways they told humorous stories of how bow the devil tried to keep the spirit of christ from froin ascending out of hell bell into heaven their stories were very tery droll and made the people laugh exceedingly imagine a minister these theae days getting up before his congregation and talling tunny funny stories easter morn mom the hie people were very happy and greeted one another chear cheerfully fully upon the streets at reeta christ Is risen they would say bay yea tea christ Is truly risen would come the answer then the mummery and the leaping and capering and trick playing upon the streets 1 the tha modern modem frerich french festival of the lent lenten n season with it its s joyous abandon more accurately resembles the easter festivals of the middle ages the th pascal candle the great is sight of the day was the pascal candle burned in the principal church or cathedral in the city low how the people rushed and thronged thron ged through the streets to set see it I 1 oftentimes the candles were huge affairs r riding ising as high as 75 feet to in tile air and weighing as much as 75 pounds what was left of the canille candle ut at W whitsunday hit sunday was made into candres candles for the poor the interiors of the churches were truly marvelous thousands of candles burned in ill every niche flooding the place with a marvelous brilliance doz daz ling cling colors colora were everywhere christ Is risen let us be joyous was the thought that was in the minds of everyone then after the impressive chanting of the easter baster hymns would come the giving of the easter kiss even the beggar and the outcast was not forgotten in alita tal ber at the beginning was a pagan for the coming of spring wb when on ur the Chrit lats came they took or most of the old observances changing the to corres correspond ponti with ath tha trw new so mhd old PM fes chal lamb of th the e hebrews became the lamb of christ the casting of an effigy of winter into a fire that represented spring was changed chanced into a symbolism of judas and the fire area of hell th the lighting of the easter area on the sacred mountains was said to correspond to the pillar of fire that led the hebrews hebrew out of the wilderness into the promised land played ball in St sots many of tire customs or observances one time had bad had religious meaning but by the middle ages this symbolism had been partly forgot forgotten beL they merely represented the spirit and joviality of the day so go there was waa the tee c custom of playing ball in the streets the ball represented the sun aun which was popularly supposed to give three hops hope when rising easter morning this sport was engaged in by everyone even by the priests bishops honki and mayors and corporations of cities another popular custom that grow grew out of the egg symbol for easter was wa egg chipping and egg rolling both of these games were to test the thickness of the shells we still have a survival of this custom in the egg rolling contest held annually tot for children on the white house grounds the word easter itself means april and Is in the name of the anglo saxon goddess of spring at first it was if p HOPE SUPREME I 1 think of the th garden after the ralo rain and hope to my heart cue comes singing In fing at morri morn tho th cherry blooms bloom will be b white anil and the th easter bells bell he be ring ing edna dean proctor celebrated with all the licentious mummery imaginable to a heathen religion but as the centuries passed and the christians came it became a purely religious festival the meaning of the rites were lost but the people observed them just the same surely none of us feel that we are performing a heathen rite when we give easter eggs to our friends in the early days of the christian religion no festivals were observed not even easter the whole of time Is a festival unto christians because of the excellency of the good things which have been given explained st chrysostom so storn gradually however easter became the biggest festival in the calendar of the church everyone who professed the religion of christ was supposed to take communion on that lay day if lie he refused his hl name was to be excommunicated and nt at death his body to be denied christian burial how date was fixed the dispute over the true time to hold bold easter was one of the quarrels that shook the early christian world those who had bad been jewish wanted to celebrate it on the of the old jewish mouth month of the tha beginning of the jewish festival of the pat leover vr those who had been MW U tw dw easter should be observed on the tha fol lowing sunday for years this dispute waxed warm ly until it was waa finally settled ettlel by th great church council held at nicea in IB 25 it was decreed that easter should come on a sunday and that the date dat should be the first sunday following the full moon after the vernal equinox march 21 the city of alexandria then famed for its skill in astronomical affairs was riven given the duty of figins the date it was a pagan custom to fprd regard the th egg and the rabbit as symbols symbol of nt this to Is about the only easter observance that has hag survived to modern modem times our custom of filling our homes with lilies and early flowers seems to be a custom of recent origin dozens downs of easter observances no ILO less les picturesque have been forgotten or er overwhelmed in the seriousness serious nesa of these the latter days so on easter nonday monday husbands truck struck their wives but on tuesday the wives struck back in IB germany the men and mald maid servants observed the same custom but used switches in doing so it was also the custom for parents and children to try and surprise each other in bed early easter morning the ite tardy one would receive a rough switching to remind him or her of remissness much liberty permitted in every way easter day was a day of special privilege in russia kusela everyone who wished was allowed to go into the churches and ring the belts bells as long as he desired thousands of people availed themselves of this opportunity in england the men ran joyfully about the streets lifting the women from the ground three times the one no BO favored had to give the male either a silver sixpence or a good heity kiss this custom was observed in some parts of the country almost down to the present day in puy in france franc from time immemorial the canons briod to catch one on a of f their number sleeping easter morn lag ing after matins were sung bung in the chapel they rushed in a body to the room of the sleeping one and sprinkled him with water if the canon was waa found asleep he was wai obliged to furnish h his is fellows w with t b b breakfast reak fast eater easter day varied in ancient times easter day tell fell on oc different dates in different climates so cycles of years with dates fixed had to be drawn up there was a dispute over the correctness of the cycles and there was great confusion finally however easter date was based on the Ger gergorian gorlan correction ot of the calendar but that throw threw the eastern church out cut of line consequently easter hag bas only once been celebrated universally by all this nis was in 1865 when all the reckonings fell on the same day one of the pious observances of the middle ages that marked the closing of ad lent and the alie opening of easter time was the blessing of the foods which had been denied so long many w wen M the tales of the eager ones who we wen truck struck down for eating of them before they had been blessed the easter season has br bom accepted as the time for W tb young into the church MUM a ps fi two tor 14 I 1 |