The Dominion. SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 1933. THE EASTER FELLOWSHIP

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 171, 15 April 1933, Page 10

The Dominion. SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 1933. THE EASTER FELLOWSHIP

In the festival of Easter there is commemorated the Supicme Sacrifice in the history of Christianity. The season this yeat comes upon a people beginning through experience to comprehend something of what, sacrifice really means. Hardship has brought many fresh adherent to the Easter fellowship throughout the world. Easter theology, it has been remarked, is apt to bewilder the average man: it is Easter religion that he needs. Philosophers and higher critics have devoted much attention in recent years to an examination of Christ’s teaching, and have made attempts to reconstruct the circumstances under which He preached His Gospel. 1 h investigations have made it more easily possible for lay minds to picture the setting in which Christ lived, and to study His minis y from the human standpoint. - , “Yet,” observes The Times of London m comment, on Good Friday we may return to the indubitable truth that it was the Crucihe and Risen Saviour, not the sagacious Teacher and Preacher, who won the homage and adoration of the world.” , •.. . The meaning of Calvary (added ‘‘The Tinies’’) brought vividly before them the matchless patience and majesty of the Sufferer. . Good Friday implied a fellowship, a readiness to . bear a cross . . . Each, like the rest of us, was aware of a higher and a lower self. To discipline by self-denial the baser element in order that its repression might allow the nobler possibilities to grow, was, as St. Paul put it, to be ‘‘crucified with Christ, and thence rise again to worthier living. Hence the Crucifixion was a magnificent inspiration to mankind. . It immortalised, in the ethical code of Christianity the principle of living that sacrifice is essential to human happiness and progress.. Through the exercise of such a spirit people in times of adversity are drawn together in a Divine fellowship of human understanding and mutual sympathy. ' .... ‘' People not infrequently accept the discipline of self-sacrifice to attain a material end. A man may deny ’himself tobacco and other/ luxuries in order that he may be able to afford a holiday, or a motorcar. These sacrificial exercises are no doubt good for character and self-discipline. ... 'I , It is in the higher acts of self-abnegation, however, that sacrifice assumes a spirituality at once impressive and uplifting. Men have laid down their lives for their friends. They have parted with fortunes and material comforts in vindication of their opinions, or in the pursuit of some lofty ideal. In times of national crisis they have waived ambition, and surrendered conviction in order that greater ends for the common good may be served. t In language appropriate to the season, they, have taken up the Cross and walked. Wordsworth’s fine sentiment in point is- worth quoting: , High sacrifice, and labour without pause f Even to the death', else wherefore should the eye Of man converse with immortality ?

"We may be sure,” says The Times in the article above-quoted, / “that among those who practised self-denial with alacrity under the stress of public need many were startled to find what new happiness and new vision it brought them, how many sentences of the Gospel passed from bewildering paradox into verified truth, how_ completely the means surrendered were out-valued by the meaning gained.” Such experiences suffice in refutation of the materialist view that the Christian religion is something apart from the business of life, and international-and civic affairs. It is in times like fliese we are passing through that the conviction is strengthened that the solution of our problems must be based upon the Gospel ethic.