The Hermiston herald., April 19, 1919, Image 3

EASTER
Iter, the gladness of Easter is
Bound me!
: _
Aster, the sweetness of Easter
Ei found me! .
. ,
Uy leaved boughs of the trees
ke low swinging.
Us have come back to their
tmes and are singing,
Esoms I missed have come
Ek to the meadow,
last cloud has gone, and gone
Eh it its shadow!
Eh grief that was crowding
bout me and shoving
[for my loves shall come back
$ my loving.
aster; the lilies of Easter are
waying!
I babies, their tresses all wind-
lown, are playing!
Er wee fingers fashion me gar-
Lids of clover—
ister— I grieved but my gnev-
ig is over!
[ones whom I loved, and who
ft me back yonder,
grown nearer with Easter,
town nearer and fonder;
hen the breeze touches the ,
fee-boughs low-swinging
st feel their loving, I almost |
ear their singing.
i all the gladness of Easter is 1
ound me,
dness, its love and its peace
ave all found me;
ones whom I grieved for my
rms are now nearer —
ere far and apart, now they’re
earer and dearer!
1 Easter that comes brings
near to the going—
id them and love them.
t
I
now they are knowing!
: up the Easters until I have
und them,
ly lips on their hair and my
s tight around them.
—Judd Mortimer Lewis.
AFTER DEATH
the Grain Fall in the
th and Die, It Cannot
Bring Forth Fruit.”
RHAPS because the power of
rising from death Is in man
so integral a part of his nature
he uses it familiarly without
e, never quite realizing its God-
. From his daily deaths of trou-
d struggle, from the death of
cannot reach, the deaths of
and love, of hopes that die |
ach sunset, he is reclaimed a I
id times. He cannot really die,
the seeming deaths that daily
him. They fall into the ground
!. He rises, raised by the power
in him, and new hopes, new
be brings forth.
let this life-power to eternal
Is hard for him, being within a
il world of his own creation.
lost the intensity of desire for
which kept that early group
—apart and fed it with pro-
anasdom the desire of eternal
1
» simple, uncompromising
• see the truth.
Li
—
-=5
■
--AVY"
“m now that he is impelled
the Risen Spirit, he goes to the
ladened churches, rejoicing In the
flower-beauty that surges Into bloom
for the feast and In the massed chorul
singing at anthems. Surely he is sin­
cere; thus loving, thus praising, thus
entering into the service which the
priests and people hold? With less
keenness of sight, however, for the
pure spiritual proving of the truth
than those few were blest with who
long ago, at the earliest Easter, after
long sorrow and waiting, saw the real
resurrection, yet perceived the greater
spiritual one through it.
But he knows it is in the churches
that he will find the mystery of the
new flower that is to rise, It is al­
ways there, to be realized at each
kneeling, to be sown anew in each
heart, to give fostering care, to brood
over and bless the soil of the heart
while waiting, to tell over and over
again at every time the questioning
heart Is lifted up to It that what the
mystery of life can do for the lesser
grain It is bound to do by an ever
truer measure of the same law for the
spiritual growth.
Teaches Great Truth.
One can turn better, after that real­
ization, to the full springtide and feel
even gladder than nature, knowing
the touch of the eternal flower within.
Wandering amid the old myths, filled
with their beauty and their deathless
attachment to life, one feels always
under the shadow of ended things,
upon the verge where all reality has
gone down In darkness. The lasting
and perfect poetry of these myths lin­
gers like gorgeous unsunken sunsets.
As the latest comer among them many
may class the great Christian story of
the resurrection. It is indeed a great
myth, a superlative myth in the real
meaning of the word as a narrative
founded on a remote event. But the
singular, lone truth it sympollzes like
a direct shaft of light separates it
from the darkness of the old myths
forever.
They taught the underworld, where
the shades moved in a half life dr pale
regret conscious of lost joy, without
hope. A mournful Idea of Immortality
that satisfied no heart and from which
the great thinkers of that age reached
out in vain for light.
That light appears In the great sim­
ple law. “Except the grain fall in the
earth and die it cannot bring forth
fruit.”
REQINO IIUL
III Y I WEEV
U.UINO
VILLI
For Many Centuries Palm Sunday
Has Been Day of Peculiar
Significance.
ALM SUNDAY is the name
usually given to the sixth and
last Sunday in Lent and the
beginning of holy week, after
the custom of blessing branches of
the palm tree or of other trees substi­
tuted In those countries in which the
palm cannot be procured, and of carry­
ing the blessed branches in proces­
sion, in commemoration of Christ's
triumphal entry Into Jerusalem.
Palms and branches of the palm
were used in this historic entry be­
cause the palm was then regarded as
an emblem of victory and the carrying
and waving of its branches was em-
blematic of success and in honor of
royalty.
The date of the first observance of
Palm Sunday is uncertain. In the
Greek church it was apparently ob­
served as early as the fourth century.
In the middle ages the palm, worn
as a decoration, denoted that the per­
son so adorned had made the pil­
grimage to the Holy Land.
In some countries people made use
of figures of Christ seated on an ass.
carved out of wood, which were car­
ried In religious processions and even
brought into the church. In other
countries it was the custom to strew
flowers and green boughs in church
yards.
The palms used in the procession of
the day are taken home by the faith­
ful and used as a sacramental. They
are preserved in prominent places in
the houses, barns or even in the fields.
and thrown Into the fire during storms.
From the blessed palms are procured
the ashes for use on Ash Wednesday.
Where palms cannot be secured
branches of olive, bol elder, spruce or
other trees are used. In Rome olive
branches are distributed to the peo­
ple, while the clergy carry palms fre­
quently dried and twisted Into various
shapes. In parts of Bavaria large
swamp willows, with their catkins,
and ornamented with flowers and rib-
TURKISH NO MORE
Whole World Rejoices That “the
Infidel” Has Been Driven
From Holy City.
Tik
Aorry
*
101
SABBATH OF LIGHT
THE SEPULCHRE
By Annie Johnson Flint
"Th» third day ht »hall ri»» »rain... S» than...
mada tha tapulchra tara, aaaliitg tha alana.
...Ha ia not barai far ha it ritan, at ha »aid. "
— Mathtut 201 1»/ 2ft Stl 221 6.
Holy Saturday a Great Day for
The Man had died on the cross.
the Pilgrims Gathered in
And they laid him in the tomb;
The Living Stone in the stone,
Jerusalem.
The Rock in the rock-hewn room;
URING holy week the Chris­
tian and Moslem pilgrims in
Jerusalem visit the sacred
river Jordan.
On Holy
Thursday the Greek patriarch washes
the feet of 12 pilgrims. This service
and ceremony is performed in the open
court in front of the cathedral, on a
temporary platform decorated with
olive boughs. The patriarchs of the
Catholic and Armenian communities
perform a similar service inside the
cathedral, to which the general public
is not admitted. On Good Friday all­
day services are in order, and special
services with ceremonies commemo­
rating the crucifixion take place from
six in the evening until midnight. On
Holy Saturday, also known as the
“Sabbath of Light,” all lights In the
cathedral are extinguished. The Greek
and Armenian sects relight their
lamps, candles and fires from a flame
which is believed by them to appear
on the holy sepulcher on that day.
This is the crowning event of Lent to
the Greek, Armenian, Syriac and Cop­
tic creeds. Millions of wax tapers and
candles are lighted at this flame, burn­
ed a few minutes, then carefully
i
The Wincing Jordan.
packed and treasured as sacred relics
which are carried and distributed over
the whole civilized world.
At midnight the service of the resur­
rection is performed, after which many
of the pilgrims start on their home­
ward journey.
Mere tourists are of course welcome,
because they contribute somewhat to
the resurrection of Christ and was the trade of the season, but they stay
one or several days at the longest, and
do not enter into nor understand the
They left him alone with Death,
And sealed the stone at the door;
They made the sepulchre sure,
And set their watch before.
“Lest his friends should steal him
away,
And say that he rose,” they said.
But Life escaped from Death,
And the God-man rose from the
dead.
The skeptical minds of men
Still think the sepulchre sure.
But Christ had said, “I will arise,”
And the counsels of God endure.
Still his disciples go
To carry the wondrous word:
“The Lord is risen indeed!
We know, we have seen and heard.”
And the tomb men think so sure.
With the seal of their scorn on the
door,—
The place where the Lord once lay,—
Is empty forevermore.
—Sunday School Times.
IS GREAT ESTABLISHED FACT
Skeptics Have at All Times Failed to
Disprove the Resurrection of
Eaeter Morning.
The lesson of Easier involves the
question of the divinity of Christ.
There are two great miracles upon
which Christianity rests. The miracu­
lous birth and the resurrection go to-
get her. If we believe one we can be­
Heve the other.
The former is not
subject to historical proof. The lat-
ter has been proved and is one of the
best-established facts In history.
Those who imagine themselves to
be too “modern” to accept the resur­
rection as a literal fact, are deluding
no one but themselves. There Is noth­
ing new in the effort to explain away
the great event. Men have been try-
Ing out explanations ever since the
guards who went to sleep on duty
around the tomb excused themselves
by saying the disciples stole his body
away while they slept.
Explainers
have risen and fallen as the ages have
come and gone and the deeper the
explainers have gone Into the matter,
the more apparent has become the
fact. The simple Gospel narratives
gave enough of the physical details
of the event to make it convincing;
the fact that the disciples themselves
did not expect the resurrection and
were slow to believe It until they
were forced to believe It by his pres­
ence among them ; by exhibition of his
sacred wounds and the fact that It
became the burden of their preaching
in the future all go to make up the
Indisputable collateral evidence of the
literal fact Every one of the disciples
la Mid to have died a martyr and his
Ilio ruing
A
RESURRECTION
FRAGMENT
JORNING —not the dawn of life’s Hide day.
so
quickly shrouded by night — but the
breaking of an eternal sunlight over the eternal
hills
HAT an overwhelming difference to the
ASTER will be celebrated in
Palestine as never before this X" heart which holds the risen Christ between
the passing day and the everlasting Morrow I
many centuries, and all the Today
heavy shadows falling of mystery and
Christian world will celebrate sorrow — tomorrow all gloom dispelled by the
with greater fervor and deeper rever­ light that shines from that once marred visage.
ence now that the hand of the “Infidel Today heaviness of disappointment or obscurity
of ignorance — tomorrow, nothing between, ne
Turk” is removed.
It is exactly 674 years since the cloud, no time intervening, but face to face wit
Turk drove out the Christians and took Jesus, Jesus who came. Jesus who lived. Jesus
suffered. Jesus who died Jesus who rose
possession of Jerusalem, after it had who
in glorious resurrection.
been taken by Frederick II, March 17,
1229, who crowned himself king of the MOW the hazed and indistinct view — then
vision of perfect sight I Now the tumuli
Latin kingdom, in imitation of that and the
the strife — then the rest and life eternal I
earlier king of Jerusalem, Godfrey of Now the weeping and the sighs — then the song
Bouillon (1099).
and the tearless eyes I Now our dear oner
dying- then no more parting I Now the waters
Land of Pilgrimage.
Palestine had been assigned to the dividing—then no more sea I Now the oper
grave’s farewell—then the' resurrection greeting
Emperor of the East In 305 A. D., and Now the night winds chilling and killing — ther
was nominally Christian at that time, the morning lifting and brightening I Morning
when pilgrimage to the Holy Land be­ on the mountains I Morning on the plains.
came almost a cult and the finding of Morning with an eternity in iti Morning —
relics became a regular pursuit in all morning I
the places Identified with the life of OH, the transforming touch of that hour I Only
Jesus.
intelligence irradiated by contact with the
This was the period that might al- skies could give us to recognize our heaviest
cross, when it comes to crown us there. Wi
most be termed the Christianizing of shall
find our failures ; they will greet us as
Palestine, for Christianity had devel­ triumphs We shall find our bereavements ; they
oped far more vigorously at Rome and will meet us as reunions We shall find out
in other parts of the Roman empire loss forgotten in eternal gain. We shall fine
than in the Holy Land itself, up to this our hidden struggles swallowed up in open vic­
time. Constantine had made it the tory. We shall find our hidden tears forming
state religion and Helena had found diadem gems We shall find the complete ful-
fillment of every promise and the exceeding grew
‘he “True Cross," so that there was a reward of all our faith
great stirring of interest throughout
what a time of finding of all that is dear,
the land. Many fine churches were AH.
“ and desired, and best I For it is the Resur­
built, end Justinian erected the Golden rection Dawn, the stone is rolled away, the gate:
Gate and part at a great church, now are flung back the boundary is crossed the veil
the El Aksa mosque (527-565).
is torn —
Christians Persecuted.
THE MORNING HAS BROKEN!
It was in 614 that Chosroes II, king
of Persia, made his great inroad, per­
secuting the Christians wherever he
found them, especially in what is now
Armenia, and capturing Jerusalem.
The Emperor Heraclius managed to
regain control (629), but he had to
yield before the might of the Caliph
Omar (637), who erected many great
structures, especially the mosquo
called after him, upon the great rock
which had been the site of the tempie
of Solomon.
For more than 400 years the Mo­
hammedans held sway, until as a re­
sult of the Crusades Godfrey of Bou­
illon took possession in 1099. The
Christian powers could not, however,
hold possession, for they were always
fighting among themselves, and so
Saladin, the mighty leader of the Mos­
lems, gained a permanent hold over
the land of Palestine and Jerusalem
in 1187.
It was during the next century that
the Christians under the leadership of
Frederick II gained possession of Pal­
&
estine for the last time, until our own
day. But with dissension among the
Christians of that time it was not dif­
ficult for the Turks to regain control
in 1244 and retain it ever since, in one
form or another.
Surrender of Jerusalem.
The surrender of Jerusalem to the WANTS NO ARTIFICIAL PROOF
British forces last December, and the
subsequent conquest of much of the Believing Christian Can Entertain No
rest of the land now establishes Chris­
Doubt Concerning the Resurrec-
tian control, at least for the present,
tion of the Savior.
and the doubt lias been raised whether
uny Christian power, even Germany,
To the normal mind there can be
will date to suggest that the holy no compromise, writes H. Lee Mills In
places again be turned over to the the Houston Post. If Christ did not
power of the Moslem, no matter what rise from the dead, the most gigantic
the terms of peace may be.
I fraud in the history of the world was
Precisely what local changes in priv­ | perpetrated and every minister of the
ileges of worship will come out of the ' Gospel Is either a conscious or a de-
change may not he foretold. For a j luded “faker." If there was no res-
long time a strange situation has pre­ urrection, the whole missionary propa-
vailed In Jerusalem. The holy sepul- 1 ganda Is foolish and a failure and
cher, for example, with Its relics of . evangelize and "Barnumize" become
Christian treasure, has been used by | synonomous terms. Does the history
Greeks, Armenians and Western Chris­ i of Christian missions, from the first
tians in alternation, the control re­ i to the twentieth century savor of
maining with the Turkish authorities. fraud, or even of delusion? The com-
Naturally many disputes have arisen I mand to evangelize all nations was giv-
| en after the resurrection.
out of so strange a situation.
| After all the arguments have been
This Easter Significant
When the city was captured by the marshaled before human reason for or
British there was great local anxiety against the return of Christ In the
as to whut might result. With the en­ glorified body, the question of does
try of General Allenby, with his staff Jesus live can be answered by the be­
and certain French and Italian officers, lieving Christian without artificial
these anxieties were quickly set at | proof. If like Paul, he knows whom
rest. The Jewish population soon he believes, doubts about the details
learned that all was to be well with of the event of the resurrection do
them and other sects represented in ' not concern him.
the citizenship of the historic place
The Hara and Bastar.
were equally reassured. A sense of
peace, liberty and security had its im­
The origin of the Easter rabbit is
mediate effect and influenced pro­ 1 unknown. There Is a German legend
foundly the preparations for the new, ! to the effect that the hare was origi-
unexampled Easter as well as for fu­ i nally a bird and was changed Into a
ture worship of every sort in the trou­ quadruped by the Goddess Ostare, and
bled Holy Land. In Jerusalem as in gratitude to Oatara. or Eastre, the
elsewhere began to appear a conviction hare exercises Its original bird func­
that, no matter how long world peace tion to lay eggs for the goddess on her
might be delayed, a new spirit was festal day. The children among the
Pennsylvania Germans are told on Eas
abroad throughout the earth.
ter morning that this "Oshter has"
nificance, in view of ail the centuries laid ths colored eggs that are given
Their Easter Offering
»•crated to Christianity by the activity