The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-03-29
EASTER.

This is a great day for the churches. One
and all-Episeopal, Catholic, Methodist,
Presb yterian, Congregational, Unitarian
aud Bapjist-win put on all their bravery,
and chosen choirs will discourse sweet music
under canopies Of flowers. There will be
but one exception to the rule, the Greco
Russian Church on Powell street, which
will celebrate the festival fortnight or
three weeks hence, to show that the Rus
Sims are a law unto themselves.
Easter is one Of the two great religions
festivals of Chrtstendom. coeQual with
Christmas; the latter commentaries the
birth, as the former the resurrection of the
Savior But the day WAS kept long before
18th d any such significance. 1t was at first
a Christian adaptation of the Jewish feast
Of the Passover, with which a Roman holt
day, in honor Of the heather gods, had
been united for purposes of convenience.
il was not TIL the second century that the
day was specially devoted to commemora-
ton Of the final act in the earthly career of
Christ Indeed the day and the ma nner of
its observance were not finally settled until
the council Of Nice. 1t was then ordained
that in the spring of the gear, when the law
Of hygiene prescribes abstemious feeding,
there should be a fast of forty days, which
was to commemorate the forty days in the
wilderness; that this fast should end with
q day set apart to mark the crucifxion on
the last Friday and another day to celebrate
the resurrection on the Sunday following
To The fast the name of Lent was given, the
Friday was to be known as Good Friday
and the Sunday-which was to be kept as
day of rejoicing, not only because it kept
alive the memory that our Lord had risen,
but likewise because good Christians were
on that day free to eat their fill. was to be
known as Easter.
The sagaciuus theologians who thus dis
t1ibut-d the holy-days of the spring months
were at first embarrassed with their chron-
oogy. There is no historical evidence to
show on what day nor in what month Christ
was crucifed. 1t became necessary to evolve
a date as nearly correct as possible. This
was done after five centuries of consideIa-
ton and the most elaborate calculations of
astronomers. 1t was settled that Easter
should be the first Sunday after the four
teenth day of the calendar moon which hap
pens on or next after March 21st; that Good
Friday should be the Friday preceding that
Sunday, and that Ash Wednesday should be
kept on the fortieth day preceding Easter
The calendar moon, aud the date of March
Dist, which are given as fixed quantities, are
in fact ecclesiastical, and not astronomical;
the Dist Of March was chosen as the vernal
equinox, though the sun really enters Aries
on the 18Th or Goth, and the paschal moon is
sometimes not at the full on the fourteenth
day But these trihes mattered less than
the establishment of a given day, according
to the rule Of movable feasts, for Christians
of all nations to commemorate the most glor-
ious incident in the history of their religion.
At the present time. Easter is chiefly OBJ
served in the northern temperate zone as
the first day of spring when all nature re-
joices. The old custom Of paschal eggs still
fingers. but it is shorn of its old-time mean
ing; no man nor maid cOnfdes secrets to an
egg in our DAY. They are too brittle. But
if music be the language Of hign religious
feeling. then are we surely more devout than
our forefathers, and we keep Easter more
reverently. II must have required robust
piety to sit through service in which the
sermon and the litanies were interspersed
with long hymns in plain chant; but now
the rankest of all agnOstics is glad to 60 to
churches where he can hear mass by Mo
zart, few gems from Handel, and some of
the best music ever written by Arthur Sulli-
van. Those who attend church to-day at
Trinity, or at st. Bridget's, or at the Spanish
Church of Nuestra Sonora de Guadaloupe,
will spend pleasant morning, whatever
their religious faith.