Norwich bulletin., 1918-03-30
4 r'sEs @ H 7 Sunday Morning Talk
DEATH DEFEATED.

/ In book by AH English writer
 "TEhe Kitten in the Crater occurs the following beautiful passage s There were scores of aeroplanes overhead, and two anti craft guns by the road, but the skies were bite, and the clouds of rplirest white, larks had not ceased to sing. The barbed wire was a mass of green and scarlet, for | the grass had grown unchanged all summer, and innumerable peoples l lifted high their heads as though. to cover with their beauty the ugly and threatening spikes. In the nearby cemetery itself peoples were fluttering
 their crimson wings over every
 grave" 'sA # there is one thing that nature
 is ever trying to teach us it is that
 death is not a finality. The lesson is
 as constant as each recurring spring 1 time when life begins to ptlsate anew. underneath all the hard and icy ribs | of winter. Fields that once were brown and bare grow green with yer: dure; sap runs again in leafiess, branches of the trees. So life is al, ways asserting it's suprema cys in the face of the worst that death can do. Life is the ultimate victor The para bie is made so plain that he who runs Imay read Md Hsae
 1 Out of Belgium came some years ago, a striking expression of the truth In Maeterlfncks 'The Blue bird' is scene that everybody should Tread as one of the loveliest Easter
 sermons ever written. In the grave .iyard the two children Mytyl and Tyltyl look for the dead among the i fearsome, messyva slabs. The clock :, strikes and the children tremble, for
 they have been told that at midnight the dead appear.
 ] Instead, there arises, gradually, a blossoming of beautiful white flowers T filling the old cemetery and trans
 forming 1t into a fairy garden. Dew
 sparkles flowers bloom, wind mur
 murs in the foliage, bees hum. birds appear and i'll the place with songs lof life and sunshine and joy. Where
 are the dead? asks aMytyL searching
 among the flowers for some traces of ivoice, cries sout with all the earnest
 ness born of a new discovery. There
 are no deadi'. pr The children in their inrionence had discovered the big truth for which
 Easter stands, the message that must ever give cheer to millions of aching ; hearts the world around. Personality , is. beyond the reach of disease or bull : lets or, shipwreck There are no peo- , pie in the cemetery except the care { / takers and the relatives who come tc : mourn. Every day thousands of nler , and women must surrender their plly- sical: existences, but this is not tt , surrender their immortal personalities , Why should we think of people al dead who have only exchanged al
 earthly existence for an heavenly one , Physical dissolution is not an end o . life, but only. it's great beginning.
 . For life is ever lord if death
 And love can never lose it's own" !, 1 With what deep and peculiar sig,
 nificance the Easter message connei
 itoday to countless hearts in uaany 4 lands! Never before in human histor. 4 have death and destruction staiket
 abroad on such colossal scale a, l in these latter years And our heart! f almost stand still when we think O ! the price that seems yet necessar. to be exacted before peace can return to the earth. r Thousands and millions of men ii : the flush of youthful strength can hay, S no certainty->at all that they will stil fl be dwelle. on this pleasant eartl l . ious and burdened hearts of father $ and mothers, z wives and children < brothers, sisters and sweethearts seel o assurance of the future welfare Q V those they love: For whole grea F tsections of hunlarifty the question 0 II what death is ahd of what comes afte r lit becomes fra1ght with deepest con 7. teern s.. il However much philosophy may di
 rect or science encourage our faitf
 the most competent < testimony .1i t found within the, Christian gospe . Easter comnemorates the resurrectio e 1 from the dead of Him who said Be h cause I live, ye shall live also..",. i If is a day. therefore, that speaks c Is life, and hope. and the open gate ,tI of. paradise. Let it be keptsWitn grate n ful hosannas in gratitude to One Swh 4 brought life and immortality t .o light" and who. ais a pledge and as o slrance to all the sons of men, ha q fswaliowed up death in victory. .s.
 ,tt THE PARSON.