THE GOSPEL OF EASTER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 86, 11 April 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE GOSPEL OF EASTER.

(ily the Right Rev. Dr. Eidgeway, Lord Bishop of Kensington.)

The Gospel of Easter i 3 the Gospel of Liyhtbeartedness. Among all the practical lessons that it brings it pro c-kims the duty of being happy. Of course, there are some —are always seme—who frown down upon that lesson as far below the dignity and splendour of this Queen of Festivals. In view, they say, of the tremendous and solemn realities of life; in view of the sublime truths which Easter teaches, it is beneath vs —it is unworthy to waste time in enforcing in an Easter message the duty of being happy. "Tears aje divine; mirth is of the earth," so they love to say, some of them. That is the motto they choose to. write over the portals of religion; and the maxim suits to some extent the English character. Whether it be the fear of unreality, or the nervous dread of cxpreaing our feelinsgs, or whether it be a streak of Puritanism left across Qtiv English life and character, we have many of us the nption that religion has a good deal to say to tears and nothing at all to aay to laughter. It ie

A LIBEL ON RELIGION, It ie a dangerous libel; it warns off the young, the healthy, the happy, the strong, as it sems to tell them that religion liea apart from them. It ignores the great words, of Thomas Carlyle, that the "man who has once laughed heartily be irreclaimably bad." Above all, it sets itself against the promise of Ohwt: <r ?QUr hearts shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." Easter proclaims the Gospel of Lightheadedness. Easter affirms the duty of being b,appy, fpr the joy it tells of is a many-sided gladness.

It is the Joy of Triumph: He hath triumphed gloriously, and the triumph of tbe Leader is the triumph, of the led.

It is the Joy of the Intelligence, for Easter gladness is not based on emotional feeling, but on the firm and hisitorieal fact —"I know that my Redeemer iiveth."

It is the Joy of the Heart, for it tells iof countless "stones rolled away"-'— stones of difficulty, stones of sin, stones of separation, stones of doubt, stones that have been transformed into angels' pulpits whence the Gospel of Gladness is proclaimed to us as th crown is put upon THE WORLD'S REDEMPTION.

It is the Joy of Hope, for the Easter light streaming through the open sepulchre of Jesus flings a ray of light upon every resting place in churchyard or in cemetery, or in the far-off spot marked by its rude cross and ceasecrated by ttie presence of the dead and the tears that have fallen on it and the prayers that have gone up feom it. May God give us all this Easter joy —on every lifff and every home may the sunshine of this spring festival fall. Rejoice! The stone is rolled away. Rejoiqel Yv'o worship not a dead, but a living Christ. Rejoice! The Living and the Dead are one in Him. Our faith stands firm, our hope shines liright, our hearts are ready with their r.nswer: "Lift up your hearts. We lift them up unto the Lord."