FOR THE SABBATH.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 552, 22 March 1913, Page 6

FOR THE SABBATH.

EASTER. "The Lord is risen indeed."—St. Luke xxiv,, 34. This is. indeed, a great and glorious day—the greatest of and most glorious in all the year. In olden times, when Christians met on Easter morning, they used to say to each other, "Christ is risen." And well might they tell their joy in these words. For, if the angel brought "good tidings of great joy," when he came to tell the shepherd that Christ was born, surely the tidings are no less good and joyful which tell us that ''Christ ia risen." Oh! for hearts to feel haw good and blessed a day this is! For the work of Redemption is done—Christ has lived; Christ has suffered; "it is finished"; aU is over; and mow death is conquered; and "the Lord is risen indeed!" "The Lord is risen indeed!" Do we care to hear this great news? Does it lift up our hearts to heaven in thankful joy? Does it speak a message of mercy and of hope to our souls? Does it aeem like a festival to us? Do our hearts feel an echo to the words that greet our ears on Easter morning, "Christ our Passover 13 sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast?" This will be sure to depend a great "deal on the way in which we have kept the solemn season just past. If during the forty days of Lent, and more especially during the holy PassionWeek,we have read and had Christ 5 great deal in our thoughts; if we have been dwelling much on His sufferings for us, and on our sins which caused those sufferings; if we have fasted, and prayed, and searched our hearts, and confessed, and mourned over our sins, more than usual; if we have been able to join more often in the public worship of God's house, and if we have joined in it more fervently; if on Good Friday we stood in spirit by the Cross on Calvary, and learnt more than we knew before of the "love of Christ which passeth knowledge"; theu Easter day is sure to be a bright and glorious day to us, full of thankfulness and praise. But, if we have thought little or not at all of Christ before; if His sad words pleaded with us in vain, "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and. see if thera be any sorrow like unto My sorrow"; if Good Friday was spent as a mere holiday, or with a formal outward observance, while the heart was cold and dead to all the great and good things of that day and felt and cared nothing about a dying Saviour's love; then, most surely, Easter day can bring no joy—it will be nothing to us to hear that 'the Lord is risen indeed' But oh! it is a fearful sign if we can take no interest in such things. And now there are two thoughts which Easter must always bring with it to Christian minds. "Christ is risen," and Christians must rise too; and this in two ways. First, they must rise again at the last day. "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory," "Christ is risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order; Christ the firstfruits; afterwards they that are Christ's at His coming." Thus Christ's resurrection is the pledge and assurance of our resurrection. If the first-fruits are gathered in, the harvest will follow after. If the Head has risen, the body will rise also. We know indeed that all the dead, good and bad alike, shall be raised again before the judgment of the great day but oh! what a difference there will be in that rising, when tbey "that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt!" Yes, such a difference that Holy Scripture often seems, to speak of the Resurrection as if it were only for the "dead in Christ": and truly that is the onlyßesurreetion which Christians can think of and hope for. Oh! if we bs among the dead at Christ's coming, may God give us a place in the glorious "Resurrection of the just!" Or, if we be "alive and remain," and it is our lot not to taste of death, may be we will be among those blessed ones "caught up to meet the Lord in the air," that so, either way, we may "ever be with the Lord!" But there is another Resurrection for Christ's people, a rising again here in this world, a rising to a new life. "If ye be risen with Christ," writes St. Paul in to-day's Epistle, "seek those things which are "above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." Yes, if we would rise with Christ at the last day, we must rise with Him now. This, as we are taught in the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, is the very meaning and purpose of Christian baptism. "Know ye not that so many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ wree baptised into His death? Therefore ?ie are buried with Him by baptism into death; that, like as Christ was raised "P from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." And again, a few verses farther on, "Likewise reckon' ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Let us, then, ask ourselves, Are we leading a new and risen life? Are our affections set on things above? Do we feel within us anything of that holy and heavenly life which is "hid with Christ in God?" And, if not, dare we hope for the Resurrection of the last day?'

0 blessed Saviour, who didst rise from the dead as on tais day, raise us now from the death of sin to newness of life in Thee, that we may rise again in glory at the last day, and live with Thee for evermore. Amen.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! "Very early in the morning,"

"when-it was yet dark,"..'. ."the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone."—From the Gospel.

An angel in a sepulchre is a very strange sight: what doth an angel there? Indeed no angel ever came there till this morning Not till Christ had been there; but now He hath left there the sweet smell of life and changed the grave into a place of rest. Why not the bodies in the grave to, be in heaven one day, as well as the angels of heaven to be in the grave this day.—Bishop Andrews.

'Twas at the Matin hour, early be fore the dawn. The prison doors flew open, the bolts of death were drawn. 'Twas at that Matin hour, when prayers of saints are strong, Where two short days ago He bore the spitting, wounds and wrong. The ange! came full early, but Christ had gone before. The Breath of life, the living soul, had breathed itself once more. Into the sacred body that slumbered in the tomb As still and lowly, as erewhile in the undefiled womb. —John Keble.