Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-04-15
Sunday Morning Talk.
Easter and Humanity's Protest
AGainst Death.

If there were no joyous and crowded as
semblages In multtudes of Christian
churches throughout the land today and
no glad carols Of praise rising from mil
lions OF threats, humanity would, neverthe-
less, long ago have found some other way
to voice IN a public and conspicuous fash
ion its protest against tn ething we call
death It IS so plainly an alien element in
a universe that throbs with life in every
part, it is so manifestly an intruder, rob-
Der, a foe that any one with spark of an
hood in him, with bit of yearning for the
abiding would cry out against the reign OF
such a force, With Longfeilow, We affirm:
There is DEATH what is transition.
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb OF the life Elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.
But this is poetry you say how can you
assert such thing in the face of the count
less graveyards all over the world. In the
face of what we see every day about US,
the sudden stiffening of the form that was
so alert; the closing forever Of the eyes
that looked their love to US day by day; the
silence and the loneliness the vacant chair;
the failure to return; the lack Of any word
from that boundess, mysterious realm to
which they have gone; but still. again we
protest against such an ordering of the uni
verse which permits this invisible hand to
arrest in tWnkling of an eye all the cur
rents of life and still we fall back upon
that proud reply of the distinguished
scholar, who, when tainted with the re-
mark of the skeptic. that Man dies just as
the brute dies" replied Yes, but the diff
ference is a man knows that he dies"
And it is just here that the inalienabie
conviction that has resided in the hearts
and to some extent, In the reasons of men
through the centuries, meets with a certain
which talIias with tha hlI-
man intuition and gives to 1t the measure
of sacredness and validity that it would not
otherwise have. We believe that $40 years
age man of supernal worth and beauty
of character died other men have died,
was buried as other men are buried, but
was restored to life after a fashion and
in form which cannot fully explain,
but the reality and certainty of which do
not depend upon precise scientific defini-
ton We believe that this person showed
Himself alive after death to many with
whom He had companied on the earth, that
He gave sufficient proof that He was be,
the same, though different. and we believe,
too, that after thus making Himself known
He went into another realm of being,
where He lives today. and out from which
He sends constantly the influences Of lis
great, rich personality.
Don't believe it. Don't believe 1t. Don't
believe it," So they said on the streets or
Jerusalem that first Easter Sunday over
and over again. Indeed, there is relatively
less doubt in New York and London today
of the resurrection Of Jesus than there was
In Palestine at the time the event occurred.
Study of the character of Christ and the
course of Christian history have made it
seem rational and necessary that such
being as He should have triumphed over the
grave and emerged into a finer ampler
existence. If any kind of life deserves -
be unending. 1t is the kind Of life which we
associate with the name of Jesus. and 1t is
that kind of a life reproduced in his follow
ers which has right to immortality.
So then, our Easter assemblages today
are not indignation meetings at which an
outraged humanity expresses it's sense of
wrong and injustice because Death seems
to stalk abroad through the earth. unmo-
Tested. They are, rather, the gatherings
of glad and grateful souls to acclaim the
one who has shown himself conqueror, to
thank God for such a gift from heaven and
to summon men everywhere to enter into
t--e comfort and joy of the Easter message.
THE PARSON,