EASTER DAY.*

And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen. St. Luke xxiv. 5, 6.

[Almighty God, who through thine only begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life; we humbly beseech thee, that as, by thy special grace preventing us, thou dost put into our minds good desires; so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.]

OH day of days! shall hearts set freet
No "minstrel rapture" find for Thee?
Thou art the Sun of other days,
They shine by giving back thy rays:

Enthroned in thy sovereign sphere
Thou shedd'st thy light on all the year:
Sundays by Thee more glorious break,
An Easter Day in every week:‡

And week-days, following in their train,
The fulness of thy blessing gain,

[Easter, derived from a Saxon word meaning to rise, is the name given to the festival which commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It is always held on the Sunday after the full moon which immediately succeeds the 21st day of March, the vernal equinox. The occurrence of Easter Sunday regulates all the moveable feasts of the year. It cannot be earlier than the 22d of March, nor later than the 25th of April.]

[Easter was anciently called the Great Day, the Feast of feasts, and the Queen of feasts.]

[The first day of the week, Sunday, being hallowed from the apostles' times, as commemorative of the resurrection, is, as it were, a weekly Easter.]

*

Till all, both resting and employ,
Be one Lord's day of holy joy.*

Then wake, my soul, to high desires,†
And earlier light thine altar fires:
The World some hours is on her way,
Nor thinks on thee, thou blessed day.‡

Or, if she think, it is in scorn:
The vernal light of Easter morn
To her dark gaze no brighter seems
Than Reason's or the Law's pale beams.

"Where is your Lord?" she scornful asks:
"Where is his hire? we know his tasks;

"["Can there be any day but this,

Though many suns to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred; but we miss:
There is but one; and that one, ever."

"Easter," by George Herbert.]

["Rise, heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delays

Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him may est rise."

"Easter," by George Herbert.]

["It is Easter, beautiful Easter. The time in all the year when nature's types most clearly shadow forth the realities of the Christian dispensation. For the first butterfly has burst from its grave-clothes, and is gone up towards heaven in the light of this season; and look! a thousand blossoms hang on branches that were to all appearance dead last week-nay! that but a fortnight ago were bending beneath a heavy load of snow; and see how the chestnut buds, wrapped up as they were by God's own hand with inimitable art, fold within fold, have heard the voice of God in the garden, and burst their cerements, and sprung forth in beauty, exulting in the life He has renewed to them. And the primroses too are up, round the foot of the old cross, and the daisies and the cuckoo-flowers are awake, and, rising out of their graves under every hedge, tell their tale of hope and the resurrection." Scenes in our Parish, by a Country Parson's Daughter.]

Sons of a king ye boast to be;
Let us your crowns and treasures see."
We in the words of Truth reply,
(An angel brought them from the sky)
"Our crown, our treasure is not here,
'Tis stor❜d above the highest sphere:

Methinks your wisdom guides amiss,
To seek on earth a Christian's bliss;
We watch not now the lifeless stone;
Our only Lord is risen and gone."

Yet even the lifeless stone is dear
For thoughts of him who late lay here;
And the base world, now Christ hath died,
Ennobled is and glorified.

No more a charnel-house, to fence
The relics of lost innocence,
A vault of ruin and decay;

'Th' imprisoning stone is roll'd away.

"Tis now a cell, where angels use To come and go with heavenly news, And in the ears of mourners say, "Come, see the place where Jesus lay:"

"Tis now a fane, where Love can find Christ every where embalm'd and shrin'd; Aye gathering up memorials sweet, Where'er she sets her duteous feet.

Oh! joy to Mary first allowed,

When rous'd from weeping o'er his shroud, By his own calm, soul-soothing tone, Breathing her name, as still his own!

Joy to the faithful Three renew'd
As their glad errand they pursued!
Happy, who so Christ's word convey,
That he may meet them on their way!

So is it still: to holy tears,

In lonely hours, Christ risen appears:
In social hours, who Christ would see,
Must turn all tasks to Charity.

MONDAY IN EASTER WEEK.

ST. PETER AND CORNELIUS.

Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. Acts x. 34, 35. [Scripture appointed as the Epistle for the Day.]

[Almighty God, who through thine only begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life; we humbly beseech thee, that as, by thy special grace preventing us, thou dost put into our minds good desires; so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect, through Jesus Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.]

up

GO and watch the new-born rill
Just trickling from its mossy bed,
Streaking the heath-clad hill

With a bright emerald thread.

Canst thou her bold career foretell,
What rocks she shall o'erleap or rend,
How far in Ocean's swell

Her freshening billows send?

*

Perchance that little brook shall flow
The bulwark of some mighty realm,
Bear navies to and fro

With monarchs at their helm.

Or canst thou guess, how far away
Some sister nymph, beside her urn
Reclining night and day,

'Mid reeds and mountain fern,

Nurses her store, with thine to blend
When many a moor and glen are past,
Then in the wide sea end

Their spotless lives at last?

Even so, the course of prayer who knows?
It springs in silence where it will,
Springs out of sight, and flows
At first a lonely rill:

But streams shall meet it by and by
From thousand sympathetic hearts,
Together swelling high

Their chant of many parts.

Unheard by all but angel ears
The good Cornelius knelt alone,
Nor dream'd his prayers and tears
Would help a world undone.

The while upon his terrac'd roof
The lov'd Apostle to his Lord
In silent thought aloof

For heavenly vision soar'd.

Far o'er the glowing western main*
His wistful brow was upward rais'd,

[Peter was at Joppa, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean.]