The Newtown bee., 1895-04-26

| plainly revealed.
 My friends, you cannot bury cities, and you cannot bury men. Our thoughts were born to live. Our deeds were born to live. We were born never to die. There may seem to be death, just as in the weeks past there has seemed to be death in the limbs of the trees along the | central roadway of our village. just as there has seemed to be death in the withered stalks of our rose-bushes and in our clambering honeysuckle vines, just as there has seemed to be death in the clods of earth we have pressed be- heath our feet; but for all these glori- ous resurrection-day has come. A per- iod of sleep is necessary for labor, a period of lounging in the shade for active work in the sun, loss of consciousness in the night for returning exertion with the opening day and that little while of forgetfulness which we call death is necessary for the putting-on of nobler powers, for the development of richer experiences, for the passing into the real, true life of Heaven. Were there no biting blasts of winter to sweep away poisonous vapors and mias- matic damps, there could be no spring time freshness, no summer flowers; and, were there no sharp winds of sorrow
 nd gloomy days and sickness and death to cut down our foolish pride and sweep away our heated ambition, there could be no spring time of glorious resurrection for the soul. So, take this thought for Easter time: your pain, your grief, your disappoint- ment may for time bury and over whelm your noble life and the pure re- solves of your soul; but, if you believe in Jesus, if you pray to Him for strength l and trust in Him for pardon who is the resurrection and the life-these griefs l and disappointments can never eternally bury your true life nor forever destroy you. Christ, I believe, would reach down His finger to-day and touch us all to say: "Child of Mine, on this glad Easter morn I pray you get hold the | true idea of life. Life is chain that knows no breaking, life is sun that knows no setting, life is great, master full hope whose brightness ought never
 be lost in deaths dark stream. Life is 8
 bundle of arrows of which each day shoots one dart. Life is garment of
 which each day weaves one thread, 8 painting of which each day draws one line. Yesterday is not lost with to-day, and to-day links hands with tomorrow,
 and eternity is the harvest of the years.
 You were not born to die, you were born
 to live on and forever as My brother, as co-heir with Me in the regions of light. AS THE UPGRowING STALK
 lifts itself above the clod, as the burst
 ing bud emerges from the hard easing of wood, so you were made to come out of sin and sorrow and pain and death into untrammeled life. On this Easter day, above all things else, get hold the true idea of life."
 l. This thought naturally leads me to
 say our lives as Christians should fur
 nish proof for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. How do we know of the
 unearthed city of Pompeii, now so lonely,
 desolate and deserted. that it had many inhabitants or was ever inhabited at all
 Is it because history tells us of the pop
 ulous city that was there? Is it be-
 cause of the concurring testimony of
 contemporaneous men? There is tes- timony far more conclusive than that: it
 comes from the deep ruts in the pave
 ment of the streets, from the marking
 of Roman letters on the walls, from the
 vestibules and peristyles worn by the prints of many passing feet. How do we know that the resurrection of Jesus was fact? Is it from the concurring testimony of the four evangelists, every statement of whom with reference to this matter is candid and straightfor-
 ward, and every sentence rings with
 the poSitiveness of those who knew
 whereof they spake? Is it from the ad- ded testimony of Paul, to whom the
 risen Christ appeared from the opened 1 skies? Is it from the testimony of the 1 five hundred who on a mountain in Cali
 lee touched and saw their risen Master aud held sweet converse with Him? As good as all this is, and as accumulative as the evidence becomes, there is testi-
 mony far more conclusive than that. It I comes from the tracings of the fact of 1 Chiist's resurrection on character and and it's markings on human lives. What Christianity has done. for the world in
 uplifting it and blessing it and enriching it is the best proof of the truth of the claims that Christianity makes. Truth uprears, error destroys truth brings
 more light, error turns the little light there is into darkness; truth is child growing as the years go on into sturdy manhood, error is an old man tottering on the brink of the grave.
 If Christ rose from the dead 1900 years ago, the world is better to-day | than it was then. If the world is not better, let us give up our Christianity and let us cease our claims; for let me say it, though it may startle you to hear it,
 IF THE WORLD HAS ADVANCED
 not whit since Christ's day in it's strug- gle toward that which is upright and godly and pure, then it makes not a whit of difference whether Christ rose or not. What are the facts? In the Ro. man Empire at the time of Christ wo- men were compelled by a decree of the Roman senate to offer their bodies for prostitution now they do so through no compulsion and to their own bitter shame. h the Roman Empire in Christ's day only here and there was man like