Easter

“ She is not, like Spring, a vagrant, wand'ring, care-free, here and there. Easter has a field for sowing, Easter has her goal in sight, Lenten lilies all ablowing, glorify her day and night. 'Tis the heart that Easter's seeking. There she'll sow her precious seed. Hark! 'tis Easter sweetly speaking, "I have come for your great need." Heart that is bowed down with sorrow, tree that is now bare of leaf, wait with patience; for the morrow brings an end to winter's grief. Easter's such a gentle maiden, trees for her will bud again. Hearts with sorrow, heavy laden, are, by Easter, healed of pain. ”

“ Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly
⁠My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground,
Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily
⁠Soft-scented in the air for yards around;
Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf! ”

“ Probably the Easter celebration is like that at Christmas and Thanksgiving—a survival of some ancient pagan rite that men established out of overflowing hearts, rejoicing at the end of a good season and praying for favour at the beginning of a new one. ”

“ It was a glorious sparkling Easter Day, lovely blue sky above, herbage and flowers glistening below, snow dazzling in the hollows, peasants assembling in holiday garb, and all rejoicing. Even the lonely widow, in her heavy veil and black mufflings, took hope back to her heart, and smiled when at the church door a little child came timidly up to her with a madder-tinted Easter egg—a gift once again like the happy home customs of Ulm. ”

“ The veil from April's face.
Sweet, rosy April—laughing, sighing, waiting
Until the gateway swings,
And she and Lent can kiss between the grating
Of Easter's tissue wings.
Too brief the bliss—the parting comes with sorrow. ”

“ All, all the dead, the near, the far, take part in Easter day!
They share the life we hope to share, as once they shared in this;
They hold in fast possession our heritage of bliss.
Theirs is the sure, near Presence toward which we reach and strain;
On Easter day, on Easter day, we all are one again.
Oh, fairest of the fair, high thoughts that light the Easter dawn!
Oh, sweet and true companionship which cannot be withdrawn!
“The Lord is risen!” sealed lips repeat out of the shadows dim;
“The Lord is risen,” we answer back, “and all shall rise in him!” ”

“ Easter is the promise of the Lord that all the best and [364] noblest in man shall be renewed, even as growth and bloom and ripening shall not cease. The bars of winter are broken, and the iron bands of death are riven. The bird is on the wing and the flight of the soul shall know no weariness. The lilies lift their holy white grails brimmed with the sunshine of God’s love. For, has not the Lord manifested His love in flowers and in the upspringing of green things? ”

“ This Festival is the counterpart of Easter—telling of Death, as Easter does of Resurrection; and as God has given to the latter, the reviving blossom and the sweet Spring-time; so He has set the former in the Autumn, and strewed the sere leaves in our path to Church, as its becoming symbol. ”

“ Easter is the victory of light over darkness. In this season of renewal, we remember that hope leads us closer to truth, and that in the end, even death, itself, will be defeated. That is the promise of Easter morning. ”

“ Easter-tide, or the week following Easter, was a period of such exuberant merry-making that the people popularly imagined that their own mood was shared by the heavenly bodies, and believed that the sun actually danced with joy on the day of the Resurrection. ”

“ So those Easter chimings sound:
All the Earth is gay and bright,
Risen with the Lord to light;
Yes,—and yonder sun doth see
Many a Christian on his knee,
Singing, as he bends to pray,
Christ, our Lord, is risen to-day! ”

“ Workworn and old, who labours day by day,
Who has no rest, no joy to call her own,
My tasks, my heart, had much the lighter grown.
EASTER April 1, 1888
Lent gathers up her cloak of sombre shading
In her reluctant hands.
Her beauty heightens, fairest in its fading,
As pensively she stands
Awaiting Easter's benediction falling,
Like silver stars at night,
Before she can obey the summons calling
Her to her upward flight,
Awaiting Easter's wings that she must borrow
Ere she can hope to fly—
Those glorious wings that we shall see to-morrow
Against the far, blue sky. ”

“ But the joy of Easter differs from that of Christmas in this: that the latter brings to us the glad tidings of the coming of the true King, the strong and valiant leader of the mighty host of Israel, and our hearts leap with joy as we go forth, with buoyant step and strengthened arm, and fight the great battle of life. Easter joy is the joy of victory, for our gallant Leader, the strong Son of God, has gone before; he has overcome the enemy, and death is swallowed up in victory. ”

“ Is there a cold, resentful bank wherein the late snow lingers that shall not finally cast off its disdainful ice and flash into verdure in response to the patient shining of the sun? Is there a grave in all the land so new and desolate that Easter time cannot find a violet among its clods and paint a rainbow within the tears that rain above it? To nature's lovers, then, as to the truly [27] Christian heart, the significance of Easter is found in the reviving garden and in the awakening woods. ”

“ All the fine spring bonnets of Easter-Sunday do not prove the youth of every face under them, and I wonder whether this splendid celebration of Easter means that you are a more religious people than in the plainer Easter days that I remember. ”

“ To the Christian world Easter symbolises a Divine tragedy. The coming of Easter, as it is set forth in the Great Book, is a most powerful story; it is the story of one of the deepest passions that may move the human heart—the passion of father-love. ”

“ Both Christmas and Easter are Pagan festivals. We do not know, no one knows, when Jesus was born; but we know the time of the winter solstice when the sun begins to retrace his steps, turning his radiant face toward our earth once more. ”

“ If you have a friend who has wronged you, forgive him to-day, for Christ's sweet sake. If you have a boy who has gone astray, reach out your arm and win him back, while yet the Easter violets glow upon the chancel rail. If you have a daughter who has been undutiful, take her in your arms and ask God to forgive you both—you for your lack of sympathy, as well as her for her waywardness. So shall you understand the meaning of Easter, the resurrection time of love, the fulfillment of its promise from out the icy negation of the grave. ”

“ We had caught the gleam of the Sun of another universe.
What happens in the pilgrim's soul on Easter Night is something which you and I and all of us know; if not in our own minds and in the domain of letters and words, at least in the heart where music speaks. To those who have not themselves attained unto Jerusalem and the "highest of all earthly" it is a promise, and to those who have been it is a memory and a possession. The Greek monks say that at the sepulchre a fire bursts out of its own account each Easter Eve, and there is at least a truth of symbolism in their miracle. ”

“ Yet for your gift of lilies you will know. In your forgiveness of this stranger, alien to you and yet your ancient Friend, lies his release and your redemption with him. The time of Easter is a time of joy, and not of mourning. Look on your risen Friend, and celebrate his holiness along with me. For Easter is the time of your salvation, along with mine. ”

“ However, Lent once passed, with its sewing circles and small whist-parties, then comes the brilliant Easter, with its splendid dinners, its weddings, its christenings and caudle parties, its ladies' lunches, its Meadow Brook hunt, its asparagus parties, and the chickens of gayety which are hatched out of Easter eggs. It is a great day for the confectioner. ”

“ Our Easter joy, I fear, is woefully conventional, inspired perhaps by the genial breath of spring, or the consciousness that fasting and sackcloth have given way to feasting and the respectability of brand-new clothes, Easter rejoicings, my Brethren, should be more thoughtful, more rational. ”

“ When the afterglow has faded and the blur of night has come, give me the old, childlike faith and assurance that tomorrow's sun shall rise again, and that by-and-by, in the same sweet way, there shall break the first bright beams of Earth's Eternal Easter morning. ”

“ But the first Easter had risen upon the world, and though the joy of it filled all heaven, only a few women knew the blessed secret on earth, and were saying over and over, "The Lord is risen! the Lord is risen indeed!" ”

“ When the snows began to melt, the children and young people heralded the approach of Spring with song. Joining hands, they wandered singing in the twilight, a lovely, living chain of Youth in its Spring-time. They repeated these songs at Easter, that wonderful festival of Resurrection and the rebirth of Nature. On Holy Thursday the Gospels were read in the churches until midnight, and everyone carried a taper. My mother’s estates were situated in the mountains, and it was a picturesque sight when the peasants wended their way churchwards at Easter. ”

“ Through the wondrous Sabbath of faithful souls, the long day of rosemary and rue, the light brightens in the East; and we pass on towards it with quiet feet and opening eyes, bearing with us all of the redeemed earth that we have made our own, until we are fulfilled in the sunrise of the great Easter Day, and the peoples come from north and south and east and west to the City which lieth foursquare—the Beatific Vision of God. ”

“ If Easter is developed in a celebration of song or procession, of sermon and of decoration, with full use of its symbolic value, it is sure to bring the whole countryside together, in an experience of the New Year rising from the grave of winter and of the divine Lord risen from the dead. ”

“ Easter owes its origin not to human wisdom, or piety: it comes to us with higher sanctions.
Easter is the chief festival of Christendom, the first and oldest of all festivals, the basis on which the Church’s [38] year is built, the connecting link with the festivals of the Old Covenant, and the central point on which depends the date of the other movable feasts. ”

“ Easter, the anniversary of our Lord’s Resurrection from the dead, is one of the three great festivals of the Christian year—the other two being Christmas and Whitsuntide. From the earliest period of Christianity down to the present day, it has always been celebrated by believers with the greatest joy, and accounted the queen of festivals. ”

“ Easter Even.—The day between Good Friday and Easter Day is so called and commemorates the Descent of our Blessed Lord's soul into Hell (the place of departed spirits) , while His Body rested in the grave. "There has ever been something of festive gladness in the celebration of Easter Even which sets it apart from Lent, notwithstanding the Fast still continues. To the disciples it was a day of mourning after an absent Master, but the Church of {93} the Resurrection sees already the triumph of the Lord over Satan and Death." ”

“ When the question relative to the sacred festival of Easter arose, it was universally thought that it would be convenient that all should keep the feast on one day; for what could be more beautiful and more desirable, than to see this festival, through which we receive the hope of immortality, celebrated by all with one accord, and in the same manner? ”

“ Oh then, how blest each festal morn,
When Christ arose, when Christ was born,
And who but loves thee, Easter-day,
Queen of old feasts, so bright, so gay,
So dear to every Christian soul,
O’er all the Earth, from pole to pole!
LXXXVI.
For Heaven comes down to Earth, in thee,
That worship may be harmony.
And years on years away have roll’d,
But still the Easter chimes are toll’d. ”

“ All over the Christian world, wherever it is celebrated, Easter brings its wondrous tide of joy and gladness, but in Jerusalem it is observed with great rejoicings. That city is now, even as it was of old, the resort of thousands of pilgrims from every quarter of the globe, who come to spend Easter within its ancient walls. These visitors differ from one another in ideas, manners, language, and costume, and yet have a certain unity in the purpose for which they have assembled. ”

“ And you, faithful souls who have done your duty, who have found in this Feast a joy and comfort that passes understanding, know that the gladness of Easter is but an earnest of another day, the great day of eternity, which will open on the morning of resurrection, and which knows no evening; which has no need of the sun, for God is the light thereof; when God shall wipe away all tears; and death shall be no more; and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Sermon XV. ”

“ One day, when a glorious Easter-morning dawned, a day on which he had once been wont to see joyous throngs making pilgrimage to his castle, he felt so ashamed of his downfall that he had not even heart to go to church, and was perplexed how to pass the bright sunny feast-days. ”

“ For as beautiful as is the story of the risen Christ, we do not keep Easter sacred merely by the remembrance of that story. The risen Christ is as nothing to us unless in our own hearts the Christ spirit rises—the spirit of love and service, of unselfishness and goodness. When that spirit awakens within us, then comes our Easter day. ”

“ I am persuaded, so thoroughly did they all enjoy their own carolling, that the singing of noëls would have gone on until broad daylight had it not been for the intervention of the midnight mass. But the mass of Christmas Eve—or, rather, of Christmas morning—is a matter not only of pleasure but of obligation. Even those upon whom churchly requirements at other times rest [119] lightly rarely fail to attend it; and to the faithful it is the most touchingly beautiful—as Easter is the most joyous—church festival of the year. ”