The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1877-04-01

Easter-The Resurrection or Nature.
There are SO many condolences in the
season of Easter that, aside from the general
rule that it is good to enjoy festival, come
whence or why it may, none need hesitate
for any want of faith in the fact that is pre-
sumed by any one sect or another to be
memorized by the occasion. Christendom
esteems it holy time, as the anniversary
of the most memorable event of its chron-
icle: and though the Church has been sew
eral times threatened with schism because
of differences as to the proper date OF cele-
bration, yet all sects and varieties and
divisions of Christians agree on the COM
mon idea. 1t is also a holy season with the
Jews, who are of great account in this
country as in all commercial lands under
the sun, and though they do not celebrate
the same facts that give significance to the
time for the Christians, they celebrate
an event to them equally sacred in
the story of the escape Of the people
of their race from bondage and oppression.
Christians celebrate a season for fact that
occurred in festival time Of the Jews, and
the .theosophic Egyptians" of the COM
munty who parade themselves in paste
board and gold lace may, if they will, cele-
brate the same time for festival OF the be-
levers in Isis and Orus for the event the
Jews celebrate also occurred in festiva!
time of the older religion. .s
Finally the number that disregard eccle-
siastical dates may celebrate the time with
reference to that primitive religion OF hui
mainly which has no relation to creeds and
finds its festival of festivals in the resurrec-
ton of the year--in the return OF brighter
skies and warmer days, in the revival OF
every aspect and impulse of nature-a reli-
gion whose spirit is in those words of the Song
of Songs which is Solomon's :"Rise up,
my love, my tair one, and come away. For,
To- the winter is past, the rain is over
and gone the flowers appear on the earth
the time of the singing Of birds is
come, and the voice of the turtle is heard
in our land; the fig tree putteth forth her
green figs, and the vines with the tender
grape give good smell. Arise, my love,
my fair one, and come away" In this
exquisite little poem is found all the material
from which industrious literary creatures
have constructed millions of volumes of
''original poetry" in different languages
all so many evidences Of the prevalence in
all ages and nations of those primary I'M
pulses of heathendom which, adapted to
the forms and conceptions of worship in one
or another creed, give grace, sincerity and
fcrvor to all.
But the attempt to symbolic nature in
religion, and to reduce the facts upon which
faith is based to mere mythical shadows and
types Of the course Of nature, is to feed the
people with husks. All the great seasons of
the year were ever festival occasions, each
with its peculiar features, but they were
never worshipped abstractly by any people;
and if man will be a heather in these days,
and endeavor to separate himself from the
creeds of the churches Of tho time he
will only fall into the creeds of the
churches Of some other time-for worship
he will and must in some creed
or another. In the French Revolution they
only denied the affairs Of the Christian
religion to put up in their stead theatrical
counterfeits Of the affairs of Greece and
Rome and if in the celebration of Easter it
is sought to get into more primitive range
of ideas than the doctrines of the Church
afford, what is the profit to relinquish the
simple, tragic and sublime story of Jesus of
Nazareth, and take to such deities as that
goddess of springtime known to the N.Y.
thology of our German cousins, and from
whose name it is thought our word easter"
is derived?