AN EASTER EGG

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 625, 30 March 1929, Page 6

AN EASTER EGG

THE QUIET CORNER

(Written for THE SUN by the Rev. Charles Chandler, Assistant City Missioner.) JA' the Old Land Easter falls in spring—hence the egg. Nevertheless, there is much that is analogous to the season of Easter in this common fruit of the hen. Easter represents the hatching of an egg, which egg in turn represents the cumulative teaching of the Old Testament prophets. The religious fervour of the old synagogue worship was the incubator out of ivhich should come a new dispensation. Once the chicken has burst from its shell the old habitude is discarded, and a new life issues forth invested, at least potentially, with greater powers. , Not until Jesus had fulfilled His earthly ministry, was the time ripe for the culminative tragedy of His brief existence as a man among men. Gethsemene represented the supreme trial of His faith, Calvary the supreme trial of His love, and the rending of the tomb His supreme victory over death. Whittier reminds us that: — “Faith must have its Olivet, And love its Calvary." Every life, well lived, must point, like that of Browning’s Grammarian, to some ”lofty conclusion.” To the actor, his exit is as important as his entrance. The quality of a man’s life is largely wrapped up in the manner of his death. Could a better illustration of this be found, than in the dying icords of Marshall Foch?; “Now lam ready.” ’’Lofty designs must close in like effect.” Besides depicting for us the conclusion of the loftiest of all lives, Easter also gives us some tangible evidence upon which to pin, if but feebly, our undying faith, which almost amounts to an instinct, in the truth of immortality. . . . Surely not in vain, My substance from the common earth was ta’en ; That He who subtly wrought me into shape, Should stamp me back to common earth again. So wrote the Persian philosopher , and Tennyson says the same thing in n different way: — That nothing walks with aimless feet ; That not one life shall be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God has made the pile complete. Behold we know not anything; We can but trust that good shall fall At last—far off —at last, to all, And every winter change to spring. YEXT WEEK: STAND UP!!