OBJ (Application/Pdf)

THE EASTER SONG. HOW THE EASTER LILIES CAME. equinox, when the sun, after a period of apparent decline and death, “rose in Hearken to the bluebird’s voice! They grew beside the carven tomb— glory” On the budding bough he sings; Great, gorgeous flowers of tropic gloom. and crossed the equator—a festival of Springtide rapture in his note, The sunset blaze seemed mirrored there spring was annually celebrated. It was Heaven’s own azure in his wings, Within their petal’s dainty flare— called “The Feast of Ishtar, ” or the feast These the words I hear him say: Rare Sangs de bceufs in floral bloom. “Christ the Lord has risen to-day.” of lifegiving. That morning—when pale Mary came— It was the symbol of a divine perception Hearken to the springtide breeze! The first sweet Easter Day-in shame latent in human consciousness. What sweet message may it tell? And sorrow for her Master’s scorn ; In creation’s lofty strain Her tears—like pearls—how sadly born, Five thousand years later, out of Assy- Let its gentle murmurs swell. Washed white those regal flowers of flame. rio-Chaldea, came a man who had revolted Hark! the soft breeze seems to say: “Our dear Lord has risen to-day!” And so the Easter lilies earne¬ against the debased and debasing worship st wait Read. of Ishtar and the numerous so-called gods Hearken to the triumph song of the period. Sung by all the waking earth! This man was Let all living creatures join THE EASTER BIRTH. “righteous and great and In its tenderness and mirth. skilful in the celestial science” of astron¬ Again the flower-shoot cleaves the clod; Earth and all her voices say: omy. He also “had notions Again the grass-spear greens the sod; higher of "Christ the Lord has risen to-day,” virtue than other men had,” and was the Selected. Again buds dot the willow-rod. first to announce the doctrine that there The sap released within the tree was Is like a prisoned bird set free, only one God, the creator of the uni¬ EASTER LILIES. And mounteth upward buoyantly. verse. When the people heard this new, Oh, Easter Lilies, thy petals speak Once more at purple evening-dream strange, and to them abhorrent, doctrine, Of those pearly gates we love, The tender-voiced, enamored stream they “rose with a great tumult” and drove That enter a in from world of sin Unto the rush renewslts theme. the man out of the country, though he To a city of gold, above. The tender green of thy stately stalk, How packed with meaning this new birth was of the royal family, of the priest class, Of all the Of that “green hill far away” growing things of earth— and their own kinsman. South he went, Where our Savior died, but, glorified, Life springing after death and dearth! execrated and reviled, but followed by a Lives and pleads for us to-day. Thou, soul, that still doth darkly grope, vast multitude who accepted his new doc¬ Hath not Oh, Sacred Lilies, thy message holds this, in its vernal scope, trine concerning one all-powerful God. In All of life and death to me, Some radiant resurrection hope? Clinton Scollard. the land of Canaan, at the time of the For our blessed Lord will keep his word: “Where I am, shall my servant be,” vernal equinox, he went to the top of The cross is ever the way of life, Mount Moriah, then a rocky threshing But e’en while its shadows fall. THE ORIGIN OF EASTER. floor near the small village of Jebus, a The gates unfold from that city of gold, Nine thousand Where the risen Lord crowns all. years ago, in so-called spot held sacred to Shalaim, the god of Gena Hudgin Osborne, Pagan Assyria—at the date of the vernal peace, since the memory of man, and there 2 SPELMAN MESSENGER. Go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead Ye are witnesses of these things The he made ready to sacrifice his son as proof is the cry and the reply which ushers in obligation of literature is to report of his faith. A little kid, entangled by the Easter morning now on the golden life: to picture its contours, to express its his wool among the thorns, was found slopes of Olivet and Moriah.—M. W. E. experiences, to register its heart throbs, there by him, and was made a “burnt of¬ and to reveal its spiritual activities. This fering’’ in place of the boy. This was the the genius of the written word does in “HE ROSE AGAIN.” beginning by Abraham of the sacrifice of many forms. Of these various forms not the Paschal lamb, and the symbol then “I was standing”, says Mr. Mills in the one is more attractive and convincing and there received a new meaning, the Record, “before the window of an art than is the novel. Richard Burton says, vicarious atonement of the kid entering store, where a picture of the crucifixion “It is a sign of culture to read good fic¬ human thought as a divine revelation. of our Lord was on exhibition; as I gazed I tion and to realize the value and impor¬ One thousand four hundred and ninety- was conscious of the presence of another, tance of the novel in modern education.” one years before the birth of Christ a and turning, beheld a little lad gazing in¬ In its pages we learn not only of individ¬ descendant of this Assyrio-Chaldean in¬ tently at the picture also. Noticing that uals and their perplexing problems, but stituted in Egypt, at the time of the ver¬ this mite of humanity was a sort of street we also acquire knowledge regarding the nal equinox, the feast called “Passover,” Arab, I thought I would speak to him; so history and character of races. to commemorate the passing of the Angel I asked him, pointing to the picture, ‘Do In the novel the Jew, as well as others, of Death from the houses of the Hebrews you know who it is?’ ‘Yes,’ came the comes in for a share of literary represen¬ on whose doorposts had been sprinkled quick response, ‘That’s our Savior,’ tation and misrepresentation. Turning to the blood of the Paschal lamb. From this with a mingled look of pity and surprise Sir Walter Scott, that great man of honor, date the symbol acquired additional signify that I should not know. With an evident we find in the familiar pages of “Ivan- icance, ever pointing to some great fulfill¬ desire to enlighten me further, he contin¬ hoe” his heroine, Rebecca, the beautiful ment. ued, after a pause, Them’s the soldiers, Jewess, one of the noblest characters in Forty years later, in the same season, the Roman soldiers,’ and with a long literatnre. As the story progresses, we the wandering Hebrews, led by Joshua, drawn sigh, ‘That woman crying there is see her true to her religion, which taught passed over Jordan, which was out of its his mother. ’ He waited, apparently for her to be kind to the wounded knight, to banks with spring freshet, and entered me to question him further, thrust his love her neighbor, and even to die for her Canaan, the promised land. At Gilgal, hands into his pockets, and with a rever¬ race if by so doing she could release it in the plain of Jericho, was then estab¬ ent and subdued voice added, ‘They killed from bondage. Her father, Isaac of lished as a permanent festival “forever” him, Mister. Yes, sir, they killed him.’ York, a cringing sycophant, is plainly for all the descendants of Abraham, the I looked at the little ragged fellow and shown to be the result of Christian per¬ “Feast of Passover” on the “14th day of asked, ‘Where did you learn this?’ He secution which Scott bitterly condemns; the moon of March. ” replied, ‘At the mission Sunday-school. ’ but even this shrinking old man, when The symbol now stood for escape from Full of thought regarding the benefits of parental love is assailed, rises to majestic darkness, servitude, and death, a crossing mission Sunday-schools, 1 turned away manhood. On the other hand, Charles of the celestial equator into a place of and resumed my walk, leaving the little Dickens in depicting the Jew is entirely safety, and through the vicarious atone¬ lad looking at the picture. I had not unfair. In describing Pagan, in his en¬ ment of the Paschal lamb a “rising in glo¬ walked a block when I heard his childish tertaining novel “Oliver Twist, ” he did a ry” to the throne of power. treble calling, ‘Mister! Say, Mister!’ I great wrong to the race but in the light One thousand four hundred and eighty- turned. He was running toward me, but of later knowledge sought to apologize. four years later a little band of disciples paused; then up went his little hand, and Among the accusations for which the who had eaten the Passover feast with with a triumphant sound in his voice he Jew has suffered are usury, the cruelty their Master in an upper chamber on the said, ‘I wanted to tell you he rose again! of exacting bonds, and the principle of ‘ Temple Hill at Jerusalem (on the site of Yes, Mister, he roseagain.’ ”—Bapt. World. ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a ancient Jebus), went with him to spend tooth.” Some members of this race are the remaining night hours in a quiet olive THE JEW AS PORTRAYED BY guilty of these faults; but in the study of grove above the Kedron, on the Mount of the world’s history the question may rea¬ GEORGE ELIOT.

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