Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1902-03-27
Heather Nations
Celebrate the Day

In the Christian churches OF all ma
lions Easter is celebrated as the day
on which the Great Teacher, the Jesus
Christ, rose from the dead and thereby
contaminated his divine plan Of re-
deeming the human race. Since Eas-
ter is SO indissolubly associated with,
the life of the Founder of the Christian
religion, one would naturally assume
that it is purely Occidental festival.
having its origin in the west and be-
ing confined in observance to eau
casian countries. Yet, strangely
enough, in several of the countries of
the Orient, in India. in Japan, in Chi
ma, we find religious festivals bearing
a wonderful emblance-festivals
that were observed by pious people
thousands of years before the begin
ming of the Christian era laid the
power.
The festival Of India analogous to
the Christian Easter is called the
Feast of Buddha"; in Japan it is
named the Feast of the Higon." while
in China they term the great spring
time celebration 1.-THE Ancestral Wor-
ship" All these holidays have deep
religious significance, for all have
their origin in the spirit of thankful
ness and rejoicing; that wherever man
lives he has ever greeted the death of
winter and the dawn of spring. In
this sense Easter, the Higon, the An
cestral Worship, are all more than
mere church days-they are mans
spontaneous outpouring of gratitude
to nature, alike beneficent mother of
both OccideEt and Orient.
The Chinese ancestral worship, like
Easter, is a movable festival. 1t is
always held some time during the
months of March or April, but the day
varies, there being often as much as
a months difference between the ex-
act date of successive annual celebra-
lions.
The people of the east have many
more holidays and festivals than the
people of the west. This, in part at
least, is probably due to the radical
difference in temperament. The bus
ting business man of Europe or Amer
his workmanship pursuits merely
to pay tribute to the memory of some
hero of antiquity, dead perhaps for
fifty centuries.
In China they live more in the past.
They are proud of their glorious his
tory, their splendid antiquity, their
great traditions. They do not consid-
4hA{r Ins% IL,
memories; they are to them potent
living actualities, exercising an impor-
tant influence over every act of their
lives. Consequently they venerate
their great; they celebrate their church
festivals, the birthdays of their saints
and heroes, the anniversaries of ia
nous events in their history, and
above all they pay tribute to the mem
Dry of our departed ancestors.
A deep religious sentiment governs
the Christian observance of Easter,
and in that particular the Chinese an
cestral worship is similar to it. The
| fifth commandment of the Christian
decalogue is their first, Thou shalt
honor thy father and mother and no
sin in the eyes OF the pious Chinese
| is so heinous as that of disobedience
or disrespect to parents.
This filial piety is the fundamental
virtue of their social life, and the re-
spect which a son shows his father
does not end with life, but is still
shown to his memory long after his
death. Nor is the Difference merely an
individual custom. Time has hallowed
it into a great national festival.
1t is called Using Ming, and occurs
in the spring of the year. The Chi
nese do not make much ado about the
death of a child or a young person,
but when father or a mother dies.
especially if they have grown old,
great ceremony attends the burial,
from which proceeds one of their great
common proverbs. CAS- much trouble
as funeral
There is nothing in the lore of east
ern religions to conflict with the hope
of life hereafter. Almost every faith
of the Orient has for its foundation
the theory of risen Redeemer. And
yet who can make answer TO these
momentous questions?