El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-03-26
Custom Dates Back to the
Pagan Days, Long Before
the Time of the Cruel
fixion.
MANY ANCIENT
7 CUSTOMS STILL
Present Custom Of Hunting
For Easter Eggs Comes
From Ancient Association
of Easter With the Egg.

The term Easter is of German origin,
but the name by which the festival is
/ designated from the beginning is Pas
chal, name derived from the Hebrew.
1t commentaries the deliverance of the
Jews from Egyptian bondage, when the
destroying angel spared the first born
| of the Hebrews because their doors were
marked by the blood of the Paschal
lamb.
| The Easter festival is the greatest in
the Christian calendar; it is the climax
! of the events in the life of the Lord
| his birth, his labors, his miracles, his
| betrayal, the bitterness of his agony at
vary eliminated in the victory we COM
memOrate on this glorious day.
A Type of Deiverance.
| The church has always held that the
miraculous deliverance of the Hebrew
people from Egyptian bondage was the
| type and figure of the far greater de-
! hverance which would follow, when
Christ, our Pasch, as st. Paul says,
would save us from external death
The Christian Pasch was instituted on
that night when Jesus, surrounded by
! his disciples at the last supper which
he held with them, gave them under the
form OF bread and wine his body and
| has blood 10 drink.
The Day of Resurrection.
The church, therefore, celebrates this
day with more of Joy and gladness and
ceremony than any other In commem-
grafton of the institution of that Chris
tian Pasch, which means so much to
| humanity, for millions of her children.
Heather Nations Celebrate the Day.
In the Christian churches of all ma
Il - Al I,
which the Great Teacher. Jesus the
Christ. rose from the dead and thereby
consummated his divine plan of redeem
ing the human race. Since Easter is so
indissolubly associated with the life of
the founder of the Christian religion, one
would naturally assume that it is a
purely occidental festival, having its
origin in the west and being confined in
observance to Caucasian countries. Yet,
strangely, in several OF the countries of
the Orient, in India, in Japan, in China,
we find religious festivals bearing
wonderful semblance-festivals that
were observed by pious people thousands
of years before the beginning of the
Christian era laid the foundations OF
western civilization and power.
The festival of India analogous to the
Christian Easter is called the feast OF
Buddha"; in Japan it Is named the
Feast of the Higon," while in China
they term the great &spring time cele-
bration "The Ancestral Worship" All
these holidays have deep RELIGIOUS sig
nificance, for>alf have their origin IN the
spirit of thankfulness and rejoicing;
that wherever man lives he has ever
greeted the death of winter and the
dawn of spring. In this sense Easter,
the Higon., the Ancestral Worship, are
all more than mere church days-they
are mans spontaneous outpOurIng OF
gratitude to nature, alike beneficent
mother of both occident and orient.
The Chinese Counterpart.
A deep religious sentiment governs
the Christian observance OF Easter, and
in that particular the Chinese ancestral
worship is similar to it. The fifth COM
mandment of the Christian decalogue is
their first. Thou shalt honor thy father
and mother; and no sin in the eyes of
the pious Chinese is so helnous as that
of disobedience or disrespect to parents.
This filial piety is the fundamental
virtue of their social life, and the re-
! spect which a son shows his father does
| not end with life, but is still shown TO
his memory long after his death. Nor Is
the Difference merely an individual Gus
! TOM Time has hallOwed it into great
national festival.
IL 10 anu OS$0A .
| in the spring of the year. The Chinese
do not make much ado about the death
of a child or young person, but when
a father or mother dies, especially if
they have grown old, great ceremony at
tends the burial from which proceeds
| one of the great common proverbs, As
much trouble as a funeral"
Easter Festival of Great Age.
The festival of Easter is much older
than the resurrection of Jesus. Chris
tianity not only converted the magni-
ficent pagan temples, which it could not
pull down, into churches, but it also
| adopted and adapted as many of the
| rites and ceremonies OF heather anti
| guilty as were too deeply rooted In the
habits and affections of the people to be
eradicated. From the Greeks and the
| Romans the early Christians borrowed
their emblems of resurrection and I'M
mortality-the Peacock and the Phoenix.
| The Easter egg, too. as religious SYM
| Dol, IS as old as the pyramids OF Egypt,
and the primer of oriental philosophy,
which taught that the world was Matched
from an egg about the time OF the veTNal
equinox. We read also that the Romans
in early spring ran races IN an oval
an egg shaned arena-when the winner
was presented with eggs accompanied
with wishes that his noble family might
increase and multiply. Christianity
colored the egg red to remind the people
of the blood shed for their redemption.
Paganism Transformed.
That ceremonial Christianity is in a
large measure paganism transformed or
| rejuvenated is admitted by the best
scholars in the church as well as out Of
| it-by cardinal Nicholas Wiseman and
Baronius, as well as by Max Muller and
Renan. "The church has borrowed many
| customs from the religion of the Romans
and other pagans," says an ecclesiastical
authority. but it has ameliorated them"
Another writes that @the pagan festivals
laden with superstition were changed
into the praiseworthy festivals of the
martyrs" Still another defends the
practice by saying: ''It was permitted
| the church to transfer to Dious uses these
ceremonies which the pagans had wicked
| " applied in a superstitious worship"
'The Sun Is Risen"
Ostera or Eostre, derived from cost, !"
meaning east. was Saxon goddess who
presided over the luminous powers which
revived the earth and resuscitated life
out Of the shadow of darkness and the
mold of the grave. 1t was the divinity
whose face shown like the glory of tie