The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1906-04-20


those timorous, doubling disciples
were Fastening in breathless anxiety
to the empty sepulchre of their risen
Lord
And amid all the confusion, COM
plexity and perlexity of history, there
is just one thing that stands out clear,
unmistakable and definite, just one
thing that has stood the test of con-
troversy, that has come out of the
seven times heated furnaces of ridicule
and abuse with scarcely the smell of
smoke upon it; that has withstood the
shock of battle, tho wearing garments
rolled in blood; one thing that has
not persisted by the edge of the sword,
and that, tho stretched upon the cross
and thrown to the wild beasts in the
arena, has proven itself stronger than
martyrdom, stronger than prejudice
stronger than the ingenius devices
with which men have sought to des-
troy it, stronger than the wiles of the
devil with which he has brought his
railing accusations against it, one thing
alone in all the experiences of the race
imperishable, impetrable, eternal
and therefore stronger than death it.
self, and that is that Faith builded up
on the prophets and apostles, and of
which Jesus Christ Himself is the
chief corner stone and for a founda-
| hn Or ]v g
And furthermore, through all the dis
fractions, revolutions, rebellions and
eruptions of mans spiritual and moral
experience, and all along the dark way
of human sorrow, human suffering and
death, there has been one song and
but one with a note of promise in it,
clear enough to inspire despairing,
weary men to take heart and hope
again, to lift up the hands that hang
down and to strengthen the feeble
knees, and that is the song the angel
sang to those bereaved griefstricken
women who having fingered to the
| last at the cross, had now come to en-
balm the body of their Lord. But it
was-though all unknown to them
our first Easter, and when the angel
who had rolled the stone away, met
them his "countenance was as lightn-
ing and his raiment as white as snow
and he said to the women: fear We
not for / know that We seek Jesus that
was crucifled, but he is risen, he is
not here, seek him not among the
dead; he is living, do not fear, but
come and see the place where the
Lord lay"
All, my friends, how the fact, the
glorious fact of which this day speaks
SO eloquently, helps to bind up the
| broken in heart, how freely 1T offers
medicine to heal their sickness, and
how powerfully it indicates it's claims
by the very fact of it's existence, af-
ter the sweep of nearly two thousand
years
l have heard somewhere of a Ger
man prince who denied and defed the
existence and power of the living God.
And when at the age of thirty he died,
he save orders that his grave should
be covered with solid slab of gran
tie, that around it should be placed
square blocks of stone and that the
corners should be fastened to each
other and to the granite slab by heavy
iron clamps 1t was all done according
to his order and on the stone was cut:
this burial place, purchased to all
eternity, must never opened Thus
in his grave he dened his Cod But
a small seed CHANGED to sprout under
the granite slab, soon its tiny shoots
were between the stones and grew
there, slowly and steadily and surely
forcing themselves until the iron
clamps were torn asunder and the i'm
mense granite slab was lifted by the
growing roots Now a great oak tree
stands over the grave and the stones
all lie against it.
Why should it be thought a thing
incredible with you, that He who has
given such potential power to the tiny
kernal of an acorn as to defy the in
genuity and mechanical devices Of
man, and rise glorifed from an iron
riveted sepulchre, should raise from
the dead soul of man made in the
image Of his Maker?
The very wisest, profoundest, learn
ed and best men of ancient, as well
as those of modern times, have felt
such a resurrection to be true. Soc
rates believed it, Plato taught it and
Cicero preached it, though all i'm
perfectly, but it was Christ only who
made a practical demonstration of the
doctrine of the immortality of the
soul, when he himself became the first
fruits Of them that sleep in his own
resurrection from the dead.
Como ono hoe iI1t,cfvofc,5 f1r, SIC