Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1907-03-24


 = with flowers that might make nature enyious; of airy, fairy hats. trimmed in stolen bits of rainbow; of irresistible sug Ear eggs, chocolate rab- bits and yellow-down chickabiddies. In the fields, an opening of leaf and blossom and meadow lark's song. In the churches, an opening of tomb and an angel of life in place of the dead. The opening of human hearts in love toward God. man, and the lit tie sparrow; the opening of hands outstretched to the unfortunate and the shining. It is Eastertide.
 While the resurrection from the dead is the pivotal belief upon which the whole Christian faith turns, the word Easter is of pagan origin, Eastre being the Saxon name of an old leu tonic goddess who was the personi- dcation of morning and spring. Like wise, in many of our Easter observ- ances Christianity has laid it's i'm press upon old pagan myths and cus- toms-the joy in the new spring life that leaped so high flame in the bonfires upon the hillsides now stead fly gleaming in altar taper, and spring flowers once faily gathered for out door festival song and dance now reverently crowding the churches.
 Our own earliest recollections of Easter are flashing memories of those first Easter eggs-red, yellow and glorious royal purple-that rolled out of fairyland into everyday life to mystify our wondering eyes with their strange beauty. And by a happy coin cidence, the egg is the oldest of the symbols connected with Easter. In fact, if it were an asprant for mem- bership in some glass-case society of antique superstitions it could trace its geneaology back to ancient Persia and Egypt. The Persians, looking upon their new year-which comes on the 18th of March-as the renewal of all things, celebrated the festival by exchanging colored eggs. The Egyptians considered an egg a sacred emblem of the renovation of mankind after the Deluge. From them. the
 
 bol, it now becoming the triumphant type of their departure from Egypt and intimately associated with the feast of the Passover, eggs always being on the table with the paschal lamb. The Christians. loving the dear old family traditions, naturally gave the egg place of honor in the cele- bration of the paschal lamb, the Easter egg being most fit emblem of the Resurrection, "the rising up out the grave, in the same manner as the chick, entombed, as it were, in the egg, is in due time brought to life"
 The pretty custom of hunting for Easter eggs originated in Germany, where the eggs were hidden in the tall grass by mothers and pet aunties and eagerly searched for by all the excited youngsters of the family. In the Bristol museum, there is Ger man print representing three hens up holding a basket with three eggs bearing the emblems Faith. Hope and Charity, with this legend in German "All good things are three.
 Therefore l present you three Easter
 eggs,
 Faith and Hope, together with Char
 ity.
 Never lose from the heart.
 Faith to the church; Hope in God And love Him to thy death"
 h Russia, Easter eggs are ex chlAeed even by the dear dignif1e< UoW4.ups.. Easter morning, ma1 lgoes to his friends house and greet him with: Jesus Christ is risen. ,1he Nispd answers: "Yes. He l