The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-04-12
Easter Sunday.


To-day tile Church lays aside her mourn
ing and rejoices. Humiliation has changed
into triumph. Throughout the wide world
a holy joy pervades her offices, a holiday
gladness rests upon her children. Every
bell peals loud and fearless, every organ
swells with notes of triumph, every eye
brightens with hope and exultation. And
why9 Because death has been overcome,
and life has asserted it's Immortality. The
silent tyrant has met his Master and been
vanquished. Therefore do the children OF
men rejoice,-because the grave has rem
dered up its first fruits. >tWe know that
we shall live forever"
1t is the triumph, too, not only of hope,
but of justice. The great drama of history
has been played, o drama whose terrible
reality was of more enhancing interest
than the widest fiction. The whole world
was it's arena, the universal human heart
was the spectator. On one side of the con-
test was all that we love and cherish-truth,
innocence, justice, hope; on the other were
arrayed all the powers before which we
| tremble-might and craft and cruelty and
despair. The human heart was array
| against itself, and furnished the very ele-
ments of the conflict. All that it had of
mildness, of gentleness, of unresisting ten
derness, was forced at length into battle
array against the rude warriors of pas
sion, armed with the weapons of physical
might, cunning with the guile of hypocrisy,
and sustained by the powers of the world.
1t was the lamb against an army of wolves.
All! who could doubt the issue Truth
was silenced, innocence condemned, justice
defeated. Where the better spirit of the
human heart looked up and saw the Cross,
then she hid her face in mortal terror, hope
fed, and despair reigned triumphant.
But the drama was not quite over vet.
The curtain was to rise once more. HUI
man justice, banished from earth, had fled
to heaven, but soon returned hand in hand
with its divine brother, that eternal justice
which knows no defeat. The stone is rolled
from the door of an entombed innocence,
and the curtain rises upon the last scene--a
scene of triumph. Innocence and truth
come forth in the person of the risen Sa=
viour, respondent with a glory from on
high, strong with the blessing of Omnipo-
teuce. 1ney come IOfJn 10 conquer u world
which thougsItto have crushed them forever.
Oh, the power and majesty of right!
There is invincible strength in it's very
weakness, its simplicity is true wisdom.-It
may be humble and poor, but the haughtiest
hand of power that touches it shall wither,
and the mightiest empire which spurns it
| shall crumble into dust.
/" The stone was rolled from the door,
Humanity looked into the vacant prison,
and saw, in the swathing bands on the
floor, the chains of a captivity broken, of a
tyranny overthrown, of a victory turned to
ashes. Its eyes were unsealed, and it I'M
derstood, from thenceforth forever, that
20 the battle is not to the strong" Right
need no longer tremble in its feebleness
beneath the frown of giant power; truth
can look fearlessly on the raging storm of
error. There is One who hath not forgotten,
One eye which sleepeth not. Therefore. do
we ring the glad bells, therefore does the
pealing organ resound, therefore does hope
illumine again the eye of faith.-because we
know that innocence is Might, and that
Justice shall prevail.