The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-04-15
r os ANGELES Cal, April s.-At this season of the resurrection of nature


 season of the resurrection of nature A1 the preacher takes us back on a sacred pilgrimage to the scenes of the first Easter day, the text chosen being Matthew xviii, (. Come, see the place where the Lord lay
 The worlds most sacred shrines are the vaults or cathedrals which cover the bodies of the honored dead. When the American tourist alights in the London depot 10 begin the exploration of the British metropolis one of the first places he visits is Westminster abbey. He does this not because Westminster is near to the parliament buildings, where assemble the legislative bodies of the British em- pire. He does this not because its stones form the most beautiful architectural coYonet of England. He does this because for yearsAaye for centuries-the greatest dead of the British realm have been buried there. Not only do we find Eng lands kings and queens sleeping within those stately walls but we find there the bodies of some of the greatest poets, dramatists and musicians, painters, war rlors and statesmen, whose closed eyes cannot be opened whose ears cannot be ] filled by the many thunderngs which the mlghtiest of capitals roars about those silent graves.
 When you cross the channel and go to 1 the most beautiful of all modern cities, | the French capital, what journey do you first make? Do you say Let us get a carriage and drive out upon the boule- wards and ride up the Champs Elysees ! and see rho Arc de TriompheY No, not if 1 you are like most American tourists. You want to see where the great dead sleep. | You wish to go to the Notre Dame, or l to the Madeleine, or to the Pantheon, or | to that greatest of all tombs where sleeps 1 the mighty Napoleon It is said that when i Charles V. of the Netherlands and Spain ! was about to be buried a courier Of his son and heir, King Philip, stepped for ward and lifted a rod and struck the i casket as he said "The king is dead l He shall remain dead. He Is dead and 1 there Is another risen up his place greater than he ever was" But though that may be true of Charles V. it is not true of 1 Napoleon l., the warrior. Napoleon the 1 soldier is dead, but another soldier greater than Napoleon has not arisen in his place and in all probability never will arise. No wonder most tourists seek the mausoleum of the little Corsican. What is true of the tombs of London and Paris | is also true of Berlin and St. Petersburg and Rome and Egypt. The graves of the great dead have, for the most of us. more | fascination than the palaces and the thrones of living men, greater than their ancestors though they may be.
 But though Caesar may travel hundreds l of miles to stand at the tomb of Alex 1 ander the Great. and Otto III. went far out of his way to open the vault which 1 contained the badly of Charlemagne and l Napoleon himself went forth to find the l tomb of Caesar and though great may be our fascination for the tomhs of great men, that fascination is as nothing com pared to the yearnings that draw us to l the family plots where sleep our own be- loved dead. The greatest compliment we can pay to a living friend is to ask him | to accompany us to the last resting place 1 of a mother. father. @ wife or a child. Because we have loved our silent dead so much we do not wish any one to go to our family plot unless our dear ones are sacred in his eyes.
 Mary at the Tomb.
 1 Now, Mary Magdalene loved the Lord I Jesus Christ with her whole heart He was to her the divine being who forgave her past sins. And as we see her going to the tomb of Christ on that Easter | morning we find her taking along one of her dearest frends-Mary, the mother of James, who also loved the Lord. These ! two women are vending their way to Christs sepulcher weighed down with a common sorrow. ks they come near to 1 the tomb an angel meets them and says l Fear not ye for l know that ye seek Jesus who was crucifled. He is not here, 1 for he is risen, he said" Then the angel spake the eight words to which wish to call your attention in our medi- l tation on the events of that Easter day | Come, see the place where the Lord lay 1 If a holy fascination drew Mary Mazda q lxa ,tIR aI,rss laa ..f a dead Christ, surely 1t is important for | us to visit the rihed tomb of risen Lord | Easter day should be the happiest day of | all the year to us. 1t Is the mighty day when the Lords humiliations and services came to their glorious eternal consumma- tion and Jesus became the first fruits of them that slept
 Let us find out, in the first place in what kind of "a grave Jesus was buried. | Let us see how his body was laid in that crypt The condition of his tomb and of | his clothes ought to teach us just as many helpful gospel lessons as his cradle | of Bethlehem and inc swaddling clothes in which he was wrapped as newborn | child l suppose the easiest way to find this grave is to have Mary Magdalene for our guide Without some help we shall | never find it at all. The cemeteries or | graveyards of the far east are just like | the graVeyards of the west. They all need a guide to take the tourists through. | "What?' you say. T never thought or that Does Jerusalem have its nearby | cemeteries, as Brooklyn has its Green | wood and Philadelphia it's Laurel Hill. l Boston its Mount Auburn, Chicago it's Rose Hill New York It's Wodlawn and | Paris its Pere-la- -Chaise?' Yes and the amazing fact about the Jerusalem ceme- | teries is that you can distinguish the diff 1 ferent graves there just as you can pick out the different graves in the Calvary cemetry of Long Island. As you go | through them you can say, Here is the | tomb of wealthy family Or Here's the family plot of people who lived in | moderate circumstances" or Heres q l potters field, where the poor are buried.' ,l You can tell all this by studying the tombstones and the elaborate mausoleums and the neglected graves. Now, as Mary | Magdalene is leading you and me among | the tombs and graves which surround | Jerusalem to the grave of Christ, much | to my surprise she does not go towards potters field or to the place where the | poor are buried. She directs her steps to- | wards a beautiful garden in the center of which a magnificent tomb has been chiseled out of the solid rock. This must be the tomb of very rich man. As she goes along l feel that she Is beside herself with grief, and l say: Stop Mary; stopl You are going the wrong way This is not the tomb of Christ who died paul per- this is the tomb of some one of the wealthy men of the east" Then Mary turns with a sweet smile and says:
 Buried as King.
 Nay, friend, l am not wrong. Christ
 may have lived and died a poor man