The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1896-04-02
"I AM THE RESURRECTION AND
THE LIFE.r

II is n wrong to the Christian religion
to claim that the celebration OF Easter
originated with the resurrection OF Jesus
Christ. The idea of n resurrection from
the dead, as typifed by nature, when
the warm and genial sun of spring
breaks the icy letters of death and the
children of nature spring into joyous
life adjoining the bosom of old Mother
Earth with violets and roses, lilies OF
the valley and hyacinths, with bud and
leaf and blades Of grass, goes way back
to the twilight of fable, when the burn
ing words Of prophecy first broke from
the full heart of immortal man. So
deeply was immortal life impressed upon
the minds of the ancients as they traced
the analogy of resurrection in the bud
ding flowers of the spring that in every
nation fable attached the story of the
resurrection to their heather gods.
In Judea, Krisnu was believed to have
lived and died and rose from the dead
for the ameioration of his kind. Wish
nu, Buddha, Osiris and Horus in Egypt,
Atys in Phrygia, even Adonis, the
Tammuz of the Old Testament,
Bacchus and Hercules in Greece and
Rome and other heather gods were each
in their respective countries believed to
have risen from the dead.
Without concert of action, every an
cient kingdom that had any religion
engrafted upon il and worshipped an
ideal heather god. celebrated Mt this
spring season of the year his resurrec-
ton from the dead. The idea of res
direction from the dead and the cele-
bration of Easter is as old as the first
sylables of recorded time.
So vivid was the impression on the
mind of the heather of each particular
nation of the resurrection of their spe-
cific god that one of the strangest phe-
nomena is that each nation, without col
fusion, worshipped its own god and eel
ebrated Easter in the fashion peculiar
to each of their traditions. This fact
is so well established that Unitarians,
who do not believe in the divinity of
Jesus Christ and his oneness with God,
when asked why they celebrated Easter
Sunday, will tell you they celebrate it
as an idea of Immortality and as rea-
son for their unbelief in the resurrection
of Christ from the dead, they will tell
you that every nation of the world has
had its resurrected Sayiors and that the
fact proves it is all fable, even that
of Christ.
There is q more reasonable and broad
err understanding of the cause that i'm
PEELED the heather TO conceive of inn
mortality, the resurrection from the
dead and n Savior in the heather gods
we have mentioned and that is that the
mind of man has always been, is now
and always will be religious and refused
ages and ages before the revelation of
the Christian religion to he content with
death and humiliation. The ancicnts
did not believe in a total and complete
humiliation. There was something
within, spark of divinity that gave
them glimpses of another life. They
saw ut each recurrence of spring the
mighty throes of the earth in giving birth
TO new life. They knew that the seed
died in the ground as blighted by the
frosts of winter, but from the very
heart of death they saw spring much
more glorious and beautiful life and this
gave voice TO their own ycarnings
for Immortality and the prophetic
tongue was loosened and inspiration em-
bodied their faith in heather gods MS an
ante-type of the Christ who died and rose
from the dead, Precipitation for the sins
of whosoever came unto Him-a Christ,
the shadow of Whose cross spanned every
ocean. annihilatcd space and penetrated
the darkest continents of earth.
The worship of Chrisnu, Hercules. and
all the gods of mythology was an inspired
prophecy of the true Christ, who came
not only to die for all men, but Who re-
vealed religion that no mere man could
conceive, that was destined to take hold
of the hearts of all men. None of these
heather left as legacy any greater de-