The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-14
EASTER SUNDAY.

The festival which the Christian world
celebrates to-day is far older than the re-
ligion from which it draws its sacred sig
nificance. 1t is one of the festivals (which
have come down to us, as 1t were, from the
very beginning of time. Human history
knows not the date of its origin; neither
can it assign the place where it began OF
the race that first celebrated it.
1t was kept by our Saxon ancestors in the
forests of Germany from immemorial time,
and from them we derive the name OF
Easter. Romans and Greeks and Jews OBJ
served it. Even in the Far East the Per-
slams honored it with celebrations oil
special significance, and from them has
come to us the still honored custom OF
marking the day by gifts of eggs.
While there is no historic record to ac-
count for the origin of the festival, it is not
difficult to comprehend why it should have
been established in the youth of the world,
and celebrated by almost every race. 1t is
the season when winter gives way to spring
when nature reawakens, the warmth
of the sun returns and the kindly earth
begins to yield once more her fruits and
flowers TO men. Even to our generation,
fortified against winter by all the appli-
ances of civilization, the return of spring is
delightful; but TO the early race of men,
living in caves and i'll supplied with cloth
ing and food, the annual return of the
season of sunshine must have been a
source of profound Joy. Is it to be Won
dered, then, that all races marked the
season as the most joyous of the year and
celebrated it with true rapture2
In the philosophy of the Persian Magi,
the primeval form of all created things was
an egg. The return of spring was TO them
but rebirth of nature from the cosmiC
egg, and for that reason the egg was
made the chief symbol of the mys-
tic significance of the day. Christianity,
finding in this festival a coincidence
with the resurrection of Jesus, blended it
with her religion and gave to the primeval
Nature worship divine significance. The
egg of the Persian was dyed in emblem OF
the blood that redeemed the world, and
the spirit of the new religion was inter-
fused through all the symbols, rites and
observances of the great festival.
In this way the day has come down to US
at once a holiday and a holy day. The
JOY of sensuous delight is in the fair
flowers with which the festival is adorned
to-day as it was in the bygone times when
celebrated in the woods and forests,
while the diviner meaning is revealed
through the solemn ceremonies of the
church which declare that not only is
nature reborn, but that man is redeemed.
Amid the splendor of white lilies,
and with the lofty exaltations of
sacred music, our people will this morning
consecrate themselves anew to the Joy of
right living and the hope of immortality.
Winter is broken, the earth revives, Christ
is risen and man redeemed, The full tide
of human happiness and aspiration flows
onward and upward and finds in the sancti-
fication of this old pagan festival new
evidence that in the fullness of time there
shall be such blending of the human and
the divine on earth as shall make this old
world of ours a newborn Eden for the
sons of men.