The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1885-04-08
oHRlsT's RESURRECTION.

Its Significance to the First Dlsclples-Tho
Marvellous Triumph Of the Christian
Faith.
Early in the last century, Lord George
Littleton, an eminent Englishman of
letters, and a confirmed deist, deter
mined to prove Christianity an absurdi-
ty and a fraud upon mankind. He
chose, for his special point of attack,
a fact which had been regarded as the
very citadel of the faith, the resurrcc-
ton of Jesus. He read, studied, gath
cred materials, and at last published
his work to the world. But it proved
totally different work from that he had
proposed. In the course of his re-
searches, instead of his overturning
Christianity, Christianity had over
turned him. He was frank enough to
own it. He faced squarely about, and
his book was a mastery defense of the
great fact he had meant to overthrow.
DR.. Samuel johnson declared that it
had never been answered. Nor has it
since been answered. from DR.. John
sons day to the present
No modern reader can easily appre-
ciate the significance of our Lord res
direction to His first disciples. 1t was
an age in which inward character went
for little, outward success for almost
everything. Outward success they had
hoped to see the Lord achieve, and
reign in splendOr as a victor over the
deJested Romans. But steadily His
fortunes seem sliding downward to
zero. He does mighty works, it is true,
and occasionally a tide Of popularity
seems flooding in around Him. But the
priests slander down His miracles
as due to Beelzebub, and His good
name as that of a mover of Sc
ditiOn. As His life draws on, the
shadows fell faster and heavier But
though plots and conspiracies thiclen,
the disciples can not be made, even by
Himself, to believe that they are TO
succeed. As in some great drama,
when a man of noble character is
caught in fierce winds of adversity, and
stOTmed at and be tten down by calam-
tiles, we look, with all assurance, for
the author to carry him through and
bring him out victorious, so confident
are these disciples that their Master will
battle His foes. But when no rescue
comes, when the priests advance with
steady step till the snare closes around
the Master, when, dying in agony, He
cries that even God has fOrsaken Him,
and finally his eXulting enemies seal
His body in the tomb, as if, having
driven Him out of the world, Co bar the
door after Him, then the night of
utter despair gathers over the disciples
There is something tearfully pathetic in
the words of the two on the way to
Emmaus: 'We hoped that it had been
he which should have redeemed lsra-
el." We hoped, but the hope is going
out in utter gloom.
Doubtless cruel suspicious stole into
their minds that, in all their faith in
Him, they had been deluded, that he
was not, after ALL what He had claimed
to be, and that they should never see
His face again.
What rhetoric of understatement, -
then, in the simple words of John, after
the resurrectiOni "Then were the dis
ciples glad when they saw the Lordr'
What ecstasy, what delirium of iOy, as
they saw Him standing actually alive
before them, face to face!
" The day when, from the dead
| Our Lord arose, then everywhere
Out Of their darkness and despair,
] Triumphant over fears and foes,
The souls Of the disciples rose"
And yet, though the resurrection ot
/ Jesus is an eternal fact, and the value
/ of it as an evidence of His MessiashiL
| is unalterable forever, He has Himself
I by the marvellous career of His trutt
/ and His church, in the ages since
1 almost ihrownit into the shade. "I
| you want proof of Christianity, look al
! Christendom. The stream of truth
and blessing has not only flowed from
| century to century, from land to land
/ with ever deepening broadening flood
but 1t has flowed Up hiki. Every selfsL
/ passion of the human soul has opposed
it, Every social political, intellectual
| religious power on earth endeavoreC
from the first to dam its progress. Th,
attempts of Gibbon to account, oil
mere natural grounds for it's success
was miserable failure. If God wa
not in it. the problem is unsolyed anC
unsOlyable to-day.
So we may hail the Easter morning
as reminding us not only that Christ ha
arisen, but that, with Him, His churcl
universal is rising, year by year. TO
grander triumph over the worlds sil
and woe. The shadows of old pagan
night still linger, it is true But th
night is far spent The day is at hand
The morning is spread upon the noun
tains The natural sun ascends n
more resistlessly at dawn than the Sui
Of Righteousness speeds on the universe
day OF light and love. Chicago Ad
UQHCe.
a PLEAsINe lNclnEMr.