The Mathews journal. (Mathews C.H. [Court House]) 1903-1937, 1909-04-08
NgEsr NIakS 0sau, q GoIdeo Gea2
&NaA&NE~eM0 0szqdt/zISRlN

Text; For we knov not what we shall
BE- But we know that when He shall an
gear when death comes), we shall be like
All the critical hours OF life are
full of pathos and mystery. No
strong man can look upon the youth
starting out to make his fortune, upon
the girl going toward her bridal al
tar, upon an old man holding a little
babe upon his knees, like spring sit
ting in the lap of winter, without
tears and catch i'm the throat. But
full also of pathos and mystery and
hope is that hour when an old man
forecasts the end and prepares for
the great adventure.
OF what are you thinking?" \
iiiend asked Edmund Burke iust he
fore the statesman died.
L was thinking OF the first five
minutes after death"
All eloquence through grafton. or
psalm or song, means a full heart.
means emotion surging through the
soul with all the majesty of sum-
mer's storm. In his hour of vision
ana OF hope. therefore, Tennyson's
spirit rose to unwonted heights. Then
ne wrote his poem of immortality
and expressed the deepest thing with
In him when he said: Il hone to meet
my pilot face to face when I have
crossed the bar"
Mans Greatest Hope.
1t is the glory of Christ that He
wrought mans most joyful Sun
day -Easter-out OF earths black
est event-dying and death. Jesus
found death altogether terrible. For
HIS generation the grave was horror
blackness and the uttermost of an
! guish. Death flung a black shadow
over the sun itself. Death sent an
eclipse over every joy. But If He
found death black cloud He lctt If
a golden gateway, behind which rose
the battlements of eternal sunshine
In the City of God. He found death
standing for dirge-He left IL a
paean of hope and victory. He found
deaths one color, black; He left the
grave covered with Easter lilies that
were white and gold. He found men
dying toward the worm and the rot
Iing leaf; He left the soul in death
sailing away midst a perfumed sum-
mer sea, calling back. Il still live,"
TO those who stood on the earthly
shores and signalled midst their tears
that soon they would follow after.
What men had hoped, Jesus turned
to light and certainty. He taught
men that Gods latest and best Gift
was the gift of death and diving
therefore, these disciples braved the
stones, the scourge, the stocks. the
martyrs chariot of fire, because iy-
Ing meant home-going, and death
ushered men into the Fathers house
The old Roman views of the senuI-
chre dripping with horrors and en-
DIems named the skull and the cross
bones, differ from the beauty of
Chrtst's hope-the many mansions
the eternal youth and beauty and the
Fathers house-as frozen clods diff
Ter from the purple clusters of sum-
mer, as white snowfakes are unlike
red roses in June, as the arctics are
separated from the warmth and fer
ulity OF the tropics. The immortal
nope OF Christ alone justifies a thou
sand times the triumphant progress
or Christianity during the last nine
teen centuries.
The Meaning of Easter to the Nation.
No poet, no orator and no philoso-
pher can ever fully set forth the i'm
portance of Easter for the people Of
the Republic. Human life is a sell
emn and pathetic march. But that
golden gateway named birth and the
cradle is not less wonderful than this
gateway of death. whose rich drap-