The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1924-04-19
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BY S. J. Duncan CLARK

| BtN4&SN ton story mas come again.
| H9AAE Throughout the Christian
DSV1GH world the minds and hearts
NlN of men are turned tc dwell
upon a fact which no nat
uralistic critic of the Gospels has ever
succeeded in explaining away.
Faith may differ over whether the
reported resurrection experiences of
the followers of Jesus were objective
or subjective. but history records be-
yond effective contradiction the com.
Polling and Transforming result upon
life and character of those experiences.
Whatever doubt may be held as to
whether the men and women who testi-
fed to seeing the risen Christ, looked
with the eyes Of the body upon an ac-
tual physical manifestation Of their
Master, there can be NJ doubt as &c
the certainty of their conviction that
He whom they had seen taken from
the cross, whose body had been laid
In Joseph's tomb, survived as a real
and living presence In their midst.
This faith brought together the fright
ened and detected group of disciples
in the spirit of confident rejoicing; 1t
carried them through arduCus labor
and bitter persecution 1t won to them
increasing adherents; 1t triumphed
over every difficulty, over all opposi-
ton. 1t became the power of the life
eternal, giving new significance to all
life, new meaning to all the lessons
they learned from the Masters lips.
We may build this faith upon the
empty tomb, but. in fact, it had deeper
foundation than that. 1t went back
behind the tomb and the cross to the
living Christ as they had known Him.
Everything that they had seen of Him
and heard Of Him made it reasonable.
made 1t logical, made it, in a sense, In
evitable. He had lived in the power of
the life eternal. 1t was ineonceivable
that the beauty, the goodness and the
truth which found embodiment in Him
could perish. that the personality which
they expressed could be less than for
ever enduring. The existence of these
values-inseparable from personality
was essential tc the understanding
of life as anything more than a pur-
poseless tragedy, a futile breath In a
chaotic and meaningless world.
To have known Jesus was to have
known that there is a spiritual reality
which transcends the material and the
temporal. This consciousness had been
Quickened in the souls of His follow
ers. The jealous hatred CT His foes,
the brutal cross of Roman power, the
sealed tomb-these were the eva
nescent, the ~illusory means whereby 1t
was stupidity sought to destroy the
eternal reality of His love, His wis
dom, His soaring faith in God. And
the effort had failed. How could it be
otherwise? How can it ever be ether
wise?
And the meaning of His life was
Just thisZthat the reality in ZEE life
of all men is the possibility of becom-
ing like Him, of expressing beauty and
goodness and truth, of living now and
always in the power of the life eternal.
To him who has seen this possibility,
faith in the continuity of life, in the
persistence of personality, Genes nat
0Aahs bAA ~ hOh P0AhAh
dlction; to him death is merely an
incident-not even an int%erruption-it
is a step in the process, an escape from
the shadows of illusion into the full
light of reality. 1t is robbed of fears
and robed in the glory CT hope.
The effect of such a faith and such
a hope is seen in the story of the
oorlr church n story Daorlyod hv cTId-
denly Intensified interest in h su-
prene Importance of human values by
the flaming of a splendid spiritual
idealism against the background of a
world given ever to the flesh, by the
immediate broadening of sympathies in
a race of narrow prejudices to over
whelm and submerge the %ingrained
p%rejudlces of tradition and former re-
Egious training, by the emphasis upon
justice and brotherhood in human rela-
tions, upon character and unselish
services. Men and women began to
live the life eternal, personality was
appraised in terms of the enduring,
and the things of time and change fell
back into. their proper subordinate
places.
1t is "a revival of that resurrection
faith which the world needs today, a
faith in the reality of the continuing
life and the things which belong to
it. Nothing else can save us from the
perverted sense of values which curses
humanity, from the circlipg pursuit
Of Illusion, frcm the vain struggle
for that which cannot satisfy.
The vital message of this Easter
season is the call to every man to live
in the light and power of the life
eternal, and the assurance that to ey-
cry man such a life is possible. Jesus
lived it supremely. Those who dare
to follow where He leads may know
its joy, and, when the world accepts
His leadership it will find both right
eousness and peace-these treasures it
can never find while it gropes amid
the shadows of its passing pride and
pomp.
MMAgfso