River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1891-03-26
The EASIER SEASON.
The Resurrection of Spring-A Time of
JOY and Gladness.

The Resurrection of Spring-A Time of
JOY and Gladness.
The two great festivals of the year.
Christmas and Easter, are natural, as
well as ecclesiastical; and while, in
each case, the minds of young and old
are engrossed with the great events
which all Chri stendom celebrates, it is
not improper to think also of the
change in the season which each
festival marks.
At Christmas time our great and
good friend, the sun, after growing
cold toward us for six months, as if de-
parting from our system, just as he
seems about to turn his back upon us
forever, pauses. relents, and looks
smilingly toward us once more. As far
back as history goes men have taken
this season for rest and good cheer,
using the fruits of the completed
harvest to welcome the promise of the
next.
Christmas is no movable feast" II
grows out of the nature of things. The
changeless sun suggests, invites and
sanctions it.
Easter is still more obviously natural,
for then the sun has recovered a large
part of his power to benefit us, and the
fields are tinged with the hues of spring.
Winter is death; spring is resurrection.
The word Easter speaks to us of the
time when the ancient Germans styled
their fancied goddess of the spring
OstaIa, or Eostra, to whom the month
of tbra was dedicated. From her the
month was called. as near as our let
tiers will form the word, Easter-month.
Her festival conceded very nearly with
the Christian Easter, and was finally
merged into it.
This lovely feast needs no effort OF
the imagination to justify it. The grata.
full warmth, the brilliant sunshine. the
singing of birds, the hum of insects, the
emerald-green of the grass, the swell
ing buds, the opening flowers, the Ia
bors of the farm and garden resumed,
all that We see and all that we hear at.
tune the heart to joy. The time has
never been when this glorious and uni
versal resurrection of natural life has
not brought rapture to the long-suffer'
ing sons and daughters of men. All the
records of our race attest it: all the or
ganized religions have sanctioned it.
Gentle spring has journey to per.
form every year that requires rIory
than the three months allotted to her in
the calendar. She has to move on from
the equator to the pole. and clint
every mountain in her pathway. Al
the present moment, when we are al
the opening of our spring, the beautiful
season is over in Florida. Straw berries
and roses have passed, and the men in
the sugar fields do not doubt that sum.
mer has come.
The spring is sweeping on north.
ward, but Arctic navigators, wintering
where Gen. Greedy and his meD
spent two wears, are recording zero
temperatures all this month. They
found April very c ID Yet the snow.
birds and the owls returned to them,
sure signs OF advancing spring, and
though during the whole month of May
the mercury only once rose above the
freezing point and the ice about them
was fifty-four inches thick, yet on the
I'd of June the first flower bloomed,
and two DAYS later came fiocks of ducks
and geese.
Even at the equator, though spring
comes in such guise that strangers DE-
not know her, still the native heart is
gladdened by her approach. The rains
diminish: the sky is clearer; the all-suf.
fusing moisture is less oppressive. I'VE
roast six months" said Macauley in Cal
cutta. land then we stew six months.
After stewing for half year the PEG.
pie of India find relief ard delight In a
heat that is dry and in a sky hat is
brilliant though burning
Thus. wherever mortais i've and
strive spring is the season OF gladness-
-YOuth's COMPANION.