The age-herald., 1901-04-08
AN EASTER SERMON BY REV. l. D. STEELE At the First Cumberland Pres
 bylerian Church HE IS NOT HERE, BUT RISEN Hope of immortality Has Always Ex- sted-christ Brought Immortal
 ity to Life So it Was Clear
 Iy Seen and Believed.
HE IS NOT HERE, BUT RISEN

At the First Cumberland Presbyterian Church yesterday Rev. I. D. Steele preached an able sermon from the text, Thy dead men shall live. together with my dead body shall they arise" Isiah XXVI. 19. Also a text from Luke XXlV. G. ,''He Is not here but is rsen.'
 Easter Sunday, said Dr. Steele, should be the brightest and happiest of all Sabbaths. for it brings to memory the joy of a risen Lord. Such joy should fill our hearts today. It is a blessed thing to be able to preach a Christ crucified But it is more blessed to preach Lord risen and mighty to save, Many believed in immortality before Christ came. They saw 1t dimly. The Greeks had hopes of immortality. Homer in his Odyssey gives a strange and remarkable picture in words, where the spirits of the dead In ghostly forms passed before his eyes. But Jesus Christ brought life and immortali- ty to light so 1t was clearly preached and believed.
 "Of the resurrection of the dead the prophets made very strong allusions- such expressions as: Thy dead men shall live again. Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, somn to shame and everlasting contempt. and some to everlasting life
 Christ the Hope of Life.
 The risen Christ is the luminous hope of the resurrection. The stars may shine brightly at night, their sparkling beauty Is cheering to a darkened world. But 1t is the golden rays of sunshine falling on mountain peaks and then on hills and plains that kiss a cold world to smiles and joy of spring life. In the life of the risen Saviour we have the glorious noon- day of the truth of the resurrection which gives so much hope, joy and pleas are to humanity.
 Tt Is wonderful what joy, faith and hope spring from the open tomb of the risen Lord. Let us suppose as Paul said If Christ be not risen Did 1t ever strike you what a wonderful change it would put on everything connected with the Christian faith? We are almost indig- nant at some doubtful suggestions con corning things which have the value of time only As one has said. Suppose it turn out that all your gold is gilded brass, and your silver but polished lead your deeds to property are all fictitious claimss your friends are your real enc mics in disguise and all your comforts are actual torments all medicine and remedies against disease are only poisons to men? What a. sad reflection. How much worse could we be mocked? But what if Christ is not risen, how far-reach- ing the blight, All Christian power and faith are shams. Then death has do- minion over all nature and there is no hope of a resurrection. Then all the promises of Gods word and the language of the Savior are but fancies of a dis torted imagination. If this be true there is a painful stiffness at every hint of raising the dead or healing the sick.
 'If this be true, there is no blood Or life for the remession of sins, no gospel to lost world, no Savior for sinners. This is the bitter consolation of those who say there Is no risen Lord.
 We Believe Christ is Risen.
 "No writer in the new testament de- scribes the resurrection of the Lord, for no one saw it. But by many infallible signs and proofs for forty days, He showed Himself to men. He was seen by more than five hundred at one time.
 'I am not to discard the resurrection because I do not understand it. There are a thousand things which are true that we do not understand. We are so linn ited in the range of an understanding. We do not have to understand it. We accept the record of the facts.
 With what body do they come?'