Connecticut western news., 1902-04-03
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discourse by pr. Talmage from the text Cor. xv, 54, Death is swallowed up in victory"
 About 1870 Easter mornings have wakened the earth. In France for three centuries the almanacs made the year begin at Easter until Charles TX. made the year begin at Jan. l. In the Tower of London there is a royal pay roll of Edward I. on which there is an entry of IS pence for 400 colored and pictured eggs, with which the people sported. In Russia slaves were fed and aims were distributed on Easter. Ecclesiastical councils met in Pontus, in Gaul, in Rome, in Achaia to decide the particular day and after a contro- yersy more animated than gracious de cided it, and now through all Christen- dom in some way the first Sunday aft CT the full moon which happens upon or next after March 21 is filled with Easter rejoicing.
 The royal court of the Sabbaths Is made up of ffty-two. Fifty-one are princes in the royal household, but Easter is queen. She wears richer diadem, she sways a more jeweled scepter, and in her smile nations are irradiated. How welcome she is when, after harsh winter and late spring, she seems to step out of the snowbank rather than the conservatory, to come out of the north instead of the south, put of the arctic rather than the trop- les, dismounting from the icy equinox, but welcome this queenly day, holding high in her right hand the wrenched off bolt of Christ's sepulcher and hold ing high in her left hand the key to all the cemeteries in Christendom.
 My text is an ejaculation. It is spun put of halleluiahs. Paul wrote right on In his argument about the resurrection and observed all the laws of logic, but when he came to write the words of the text his fingers and his pen and the parchment on which he wrote took fire, and he cried out, Death is swallowed up in victoryr' It is an exciting thing to see an army routed and flying. They run each other down. They scatter ev- erything valuable in the track Un- wheeled artillery; hoof of horse on breast of wounded and dying man. Nou have read of the French falling back from Sedan, of Napoleon's track of 9O,000 corpses in the snowbanks Of Russia, of the retreat of our armies from Manassas or of the five kings tumbling over the rocks of Beth horan with their armies while the hailstorms of heaven and the swords of Joshua's host struck them with their fury.
 The Charge of the Black Giant.
 In my text is a worse discontinue. It seems that a black giant proposed to conquer the earth. He gathered for his host all the aches and pains and ma larias and cancers and distempers and epidemics of the ages. He marched them down, drilling them in the north west wind and amid the slush of tenn pests. He threw up barricades of grave mound He pitched tent of charnal house. Some of the troops marched with slow tread commanded by con sumptions, some in double quick com handed by pneumonias. Some he took by long besiegement of evil habit and some by one stroke of the battleax of casualty. With bony hand he pounded at the door of hospitals and sickrooms and won all the victories in all the great battlefields of all the five conti- nents. Forward, march! ordered the eouqueror of conquerors, and all the generals and commanders in chief and all presidents and kings and sultans and czars dropped under the feet of his war charger But one Christmas night his antagonist was born.
 As most of the plaques and sickness es and despotisms come out of the east, 1t was appropriate that the new con oueror should come out of the same quarter Power is given him to awak- en all the fallen of all the centuries and of all lands and marshal them against the black giant. Fields have already been won, but the last day of the worlds existence will see the de- cisive battle. When Christ shall lead forth his two brigades, the brigade of the risen dead and the brigade of the celestial host, the black giant will fall back, and the brigade from the riven Oepulchers will take him from beneath, and the brigade of descending immor- tals will take him from above, and death shall be swallowed up in vic tory.
 The old braggart that threatened the conquest and demolition of the planet has lost his throne, has lost his scep- ter, has lost his palace, has lost his prestige, and the one word written over all the gates of mausoleum and cata- comb and metropolis, on cenotaph and sarcophagus, on the lonely khan of the arctic explorer and on the catafalque of great cathedral, written in capitals of azalia and calla lily, written in mu- Bical cadence, written in doxology of great assemblages, written on the sculptured door of the family vault, is 'Victory." Coronal word, embannered word, apocalyptic word, chief word of 1riumphal arch under which conquer ors return.
 Rout of the King of Terrors.
 ! Victory! Word shouted at Culloden and Balaklava and Blenheim, at Me giddo and Solferino, at Marathon, where the Athenians drove back the Medes; at Poitiers, where Charles Martel broke the ranks of the Sara cens; at Salamis, where Themistocles in the great sea fight confounded the Persians, and at the door of the east ern cavern of chiseled rock. where Christ came out through a recess ana throttled the king of terrors and put him back in the niche from which the celestial Conqueror had Just emerged. Aha! When the jaws of the eastern mausoleum took down the black giant, death was swallowed up in victory" I proclaim the abolition of death
 The old antagonist is driven back into mythology with all the lore about Stygian ferry and Charon with oar and boat. Melrose abbey and Kenil- worth castle are no more In ruins than is the sepulcher. We shall have no more to do with death than we have with the cloakroom at a governors or a presidents levee. We stop at such cloakroom and leave in charge of a servant our overcoat, our overshoes, our outward apparel, that we may not be impeded in the brilliant round