Bisbee daily review., 1905-04-23
EASTER.
EASTER (Rev. Harvey M. Shields. Ph. D.

been fond of the Eastertide and has ever been faithful in the observance of those holy offices that emphasize the Resurrection Of her Lord.
 This is one of the many marks of her primitive origin at the instance of the Apostles in theBritish Isles The tradition of this feast is found through all her varied, but glorious history.
 During the first six hundred years of her existence and beneficent influ ence as free and independent Church in Briton. her bishops, priests, deacons and people chung to the fact of the Resurrection and annuaiIy ob- served the feast.
 So thorough was the establishment of the Church among the small king dom of the land. so careful was she of the Holy Faith of the Apostles. that one hundred and fifty-years be. fore the welding of those petty prin- cipalities into the state now and long famous she held a general ecclesi- astical council in the honor of her Lord. in the religious interest o7 the people. and in the intent of strength cning herself and of emDhasizine all those primitive and apostolic customs that conserve SO much of the mind of the Master and the treasures of His gospel.
 For an extended period the Bishops of this church. during that more than half millennium, insisted upon observ- sr~ E.c +1~ lo< "a kent by much of the rest of Chrisen- dom
 This was but single among numer- ous marks of that ancient independ- encv of the British Church, an inde- pendencv ranifestiug itself as early .as A. D. 314 where three of her Bishops. a rriest and a deacon de- cliped, conrteouslv no doubt but firm lv as well. to accept any hospitality during the Council of Aries. but were at their pwn charges: an independ- encv ringing ont still nine-hunderd years later in the opening woros of Maena Charta "The Church of Eng land shall be forever free"
 Though in her experiment in the di- rection of visible unity Of the Church lof Christ she had for six-hundred wears before A. D. 1900 been merging herself into the ItalianMission and had yielded up her own date for the celebration of Easter as well as many other union matters in the interest of that unity. still this church con- tended for an intensity of faith in a risen Lord and protested against all things that obscured His person or divinity. and meanwhile. though on a different day kept the feast lovingly ard lovally
 For the three-hundred years yet re-
 naining after Magma Charta-years that saw and heard men like Wyclif. the "Morning Star of the Reforma- ton" and a "voice in the Wilder ness." and felt their mighty influence and evangelical force until the vigor of the Anglo-Saxon blood and faith asserted itself in the renewal of an ancient oirth-riPht. freedom and re- forning of the rractices and prayers of the church. To approximate those primitive times-during the three hundred years she still kept the Feast with her risen Lord.
 And in the last four-hundred years. for the Church in England, and in the last three hundred years. for her daughter the FDisconaI Church in American, proudly and gratefully trac- ing her unbroken lineage back through years and centuries and yicis aitudes and hattles and blood and
 uartyrdom of the very Apostles of her Lord themselves and deriving her life and her religion her authority and her history. her hope and her oppor- unity. and her holy orders and ritual from them and Him-during this -70der-l nerfod. as well as Tor rf1is Church, Easter has been word and has had a meaning and has borne a messace. told in songs and sermons and lilies and sweeter lives. It is gratifying that those religious bodies that have sprung out of this, the parent Church of the Anglo-Saxon world since 1850 are returning to the observance of this feast and of the ecclesiastical seasons.
 This. with the present intimate friendship existing between the Epis- 1 copal Church and both the Greek and the Lutheran Churches augurs well for the unity of Christendom some day not far distant.
 1 How fitting that the church Tn Bis bee should observe Easter in unison with the rest of Christendom.
 Elaborate preparations have been