The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1902-03-28
Easter Festival
Of Great Age.

Of Great Age.
! The festival of Easter is much older
than the Resurrection of Jesus. Chris
tianity not only converted the magnih.
cent pagan temples, which it could not
pull down, into churches, but it also
adopted and adapted as many of the
rites and ceremonies of heather an
tiquity as were too deeply rooted in
the habits and affections Of the people
to be e~radicated. From the Greeks and
the Romans the early Christians Dor
rowed their emblems of resurrection
and immortality-the Peacock and the
Phoenix. The Easter egg, too. as a
religious symbol is as old as the pyra-
mids of Egypt and the primer OF ORR
entail philosophy, which taught that
the world was Matched from an egg
about the time of the vernal equinox.
VIZ read also that the Romans in early
spring ran races in ar oval-an egg
shaped arena, when the winner was
presented with eggs accompanied with
wishes that his noble family may in
crease and multiply. Christianity col
bred the egg red to remind the people
of the blood shed for their redemp-
ton.
That ceremonial Christianity is in a
large measure paganism transformed
or ~rejuvenated is admitted by the best
scholars in the church as we'll as out
of it-by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman
and Baronius, as we'll as by Max-Mul-
Ter and Renan. THE church has Dor
rowed many customs from the religion
of the Romans and other pagans,"
says an ecclesiastical authority, but
it has meliorated them" Another
writes that "the pagan festivals laden
with superstition were changed into
the praiseworthy festivals of the mar
tyrs.' Still another defends the prac-
tice by saying: 1T was permitted the
church to transfer to plous uses those
ceremonies which the pagans had
wickedly applied in a superstitjous
worship"
Ostera or Eostre, derived from
cost" meaning East, was a Saxon
Goddess who presided over the lumi-
nous powers which revived the earth
and resuscitated life out of the shadow
of darkness and the mold of the grave.
She was the divinity whose face shons
like the glory of the sunrise and the
brightness of the dawn; her andre
sial breath made hill and dale fra
grant, and her smile shed beauty over
every breaking bud and blossom. The
people congregated in the fields to
cheer her arrival in the skies, because
she came to destroy the genii of win
ter-darkness, sterility, storm, and
death, and to shake from her golden
urn blessings upon man and beast
alike. 1.-The Sun is risen!" they shout
ed, as they greeted one another and
kissed and danced on the new grass.
Our Teutonic ancestors devoted eight
days Of April, which they called the
Ostermonat, to the worship of this
beautiful goddess of life and love
perennial, whose arrows, tipped with
flame, had shot fresh hopes into their
hearts. When Christianity converted
the pagan Saxons, instead of attempt
ing to abolish this joyous festiv val, it
christened it into ar institution OF
the church, preserving all its poetry
and music-the flowers and the eggs,
and only substituting Jesus, the "Sun
of Righteousness for Ostera, the God
dess of the East.
Easter, then, is q day in which Chris
tian and heather memories mingIe.
and we regard that as its most pleas
ing feature, because it lifts it from
being merely a sectarian symbol into
q festival Of humanity. 1t demon
strates that all festivals have 4 COM
mon ancient source-the needs Of the
human heart, and that all religious.
instead of being miraculously given
to any chosen people, spring out of
the eternal soil of humanity.
Let us rejoice to-day not that the
Sun" has risen or that one man has
been raised from the dead. but that all
mankind has been steadily rising du-
ring these many ages-rising from the
deep, dark grave of ignorance and
slavery to freedom and power. Let us
change the Easter salutation. and in
stead of greeting one another with
Christ is risen" and HE is risen, In.
Decd" let us say, Humanity is risen"
and let the refrain be, Hail, risen
Humanity"