New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-03-25

no tangible, enduring sign OF HIS presence III
Judea. The children born in Bethlehem are
mn fairer or wiser than others because OF the
Star which once shone there the grass Is no
preener where His footsteps trOd; there is no
rift of brightness to show where the heavens
opened to receive Him. Every petty prince or
brutal soldier in history tried to leave mon
ument or temple to remind the world Oh hlin
when he was dead, but there Is not seone
nor mark existing in his native country as
remembrance that Jesus lived. Yet the
work of this Man and the proofs OF Him
have filed the world since the beginning.
Wherever, in any nation or In any ume' liz
Pompeii as in New York, man Is tempted u
give I'D to his selfshness or his appetites OF
TO more brutal mortal vices, and struggles
to resist them, he proves the need OF peing
who is at once a man like himself to UNDER
derstand his desperate strait ana Uou
with mower to help him. Wherever since
ibe beginning of the world, there has been
main or trouble or death, the cry OF the soul
has gone I'D for helper, redeemer' SOME
one who could solve this riddle OF LIE winch
is too hard for all of us who could open Inc
door after death into some larger world thaC
vould atone for the cruelties, the wasted good
and forces. the injustice of this. The highest
souls have caught glimpse Of such a saviour
In the first ages of the world Job, forsaken by
God his BODY fostering sore, houseless. friend
less. his children dead, cries out IN rapture,
81 knOw that my RedeemeI lveth. ana thsC
He shall stand in the latter day upon the earth +;
and though worms destroy this body, yet In
nv flesh shall see God! !" In every nation
there was the expectation OF His coming.
1t is in the history of every human soul that
vve read the necessity of the birth of Jesus, OF
His crurifixion, and, above all, of His resnIree-
ton. There is not a noble aspiration or any
man which His teaching does not lead 10 hlgher
heights; there Is not a temptation OF the de'hs
which beset us every day which twill not con-
quer. The meaning of that death on Calvary Is
shown in the slow but sure elevation by 1t OF the
world of the days of Caesar into the world OF to-
day. If we have exchanged the human sacrlfces
of the arena for hospitals, the burning of masses
of innocent babies before Moloch for orphan
asylums. the licentious orgies of Greek and
Roman women worshipping Ceres for the
hower-crowned, rejoicing churches OF to-day !;
If the brutal lust and wholesale murders
which made up not only the recreation, but
the religious rites Of the most enlightened
nation of the age in which Jesus lived, are
known now only in the wilds of Africa-if the
whole world is manfuly struggling on toward
centleness, honesty, charity and brothery
love-it is to that one idea, the death on
Calvary. we owe it. If there be any hope or
courage in the world, too, it is TO this resur-
rection that we owe it. Who would work !;
who would sacrifice his life to help meaner
men who could bear the intolerable disap-
pointments, the poverty, the miseries OF tins
life, If death ended all ? Let us eat, drink
and he merry, if tomorrow we die.
Mankind, since the first naked dwellers IN
caves, have gone cropping through their seventy
wears trying TO penetrate the darkness waning
them bevc nd There has come only one
glimpse of light from it-that through the
rcnding tomb OF Jesus. This Man, divine
"A the effect of His teaching has proved, came
back from death to answer this universal cry
of humanity to give the word the courage OF
immortality. CAS- l live, ye shall live also.
| The E,quimau diving to-day in his hut OF
snow, or the Arab in the desert, the poor
mother in New York with her dead baby IN
her arms. have no hope but this. The hope Is
n certainty and it is for that certainty that
we thank God to-day and feebiy try to sym
bolize the Immortality of the soul by glad
music and by the spring flowers which Nature
sen Is to tell OF her awakening from death
! longer than any we shall know.