4 The joy of Easter is the holy joy of quiet triumph, of hymns of victory and exulting faith. The Lord is risen ! What more can the glad Church of the redeemed say ? She can only repeat it again and again with multiplied Alleluias. Words seem out of place, for the joy of the Church is too deep to express itself in the ordinary language of the world — and yet it is to the world that she brings the glad tidings of the victory of her Lord. No wonder then that the earth is glad and beautiful in this foregleam of the coming day, when He shall fulfil His promise, " Behold, I make all things new." Even in the order of nature there is nothing but joy and the coming of new life in the spring-time of the world. The very air is full of the songs of the birds, and fragrant with the first fresh scents of the forests and meadows, as they clothe themselves again with foliage and verdure after the long days of wintry gloom, decay and death.
See the world's beauty budding forth anew, Shows with the Lord His gifts returning too ! The earth with flowers is deck'd, the sky serene ; The heavenly portals glow with brighter sheen. The greenwood-leaves, the flowering meadows tell Of Christ, triumphant over gloomy hell. Hail ! Festal Day ! for evermore ador'd, Wherein God conquer'd hell, and upward soar'd,
^ Be sure there is a unity of Law in the universe, and if in that which we call the natural world there is one consistent thought producing one consistent fact, the same thought holds
' A. P. Stankj, Life of TJumas Anwld, D.D., i. 219.
PSALM cxviii. 24 407
good in the world of Man ; and the life which we possess when we die — the life which is in thought, feeling, will, and the rest — will frame for itself, as quickly, as individually, as eagerly, a new form as the seed in spring has done when we see its twofold arrow cleave the ground. This will be the resurrection, and of the great law of which this is the outcome, the result of which we see in Nature, in all things — the result of which we do not see in Man — for its result in us is wrought after death — the resurrection of Christ is the only known result in humanity. The life in Christ took new form when His earthly body died, and the fact that it had done so was revealed to His disciples. They knew He was alive again, and had a new and living form — that on the death of His mortal body, an immortal form became His own. He was not unclothed, but clothed upon. Properly speaking, that is no miracle, if miracle be defined as the violation or transcending of law. It is, in my mind, that which always takes place in the other world when we die ; shown to us in this world for once, that we might know it. It is not a reversion, it is a revelation, of law ; it is not apart from our knowledge, it is the declarations that the same idea that rules the growth of life in the world of Nature rules its growth in the world of Man. The resurrection of the body is the renewing of form.^
The yearly miracle of spring.
Of budding tree and blooming flower,
Which Nature's feathered laureates sing In my cold ear from hour to hour,
Spreads all its wonders round my feet;
And every wakeful sense is fed On thoughts that o'er and o'er repeat,
" The Kesurrection of the Dead ! "
If these half vital things have force
To break the spell which winter weaves,
To wake, and clothe the wrinkled corse In the full life of shining leaves;
Shall I sit down in vague despair,
And marvel if the nobler soul We laid in earth shall ever dare
To wake to life, and backward roll
^ Stopford A. Brooke.
4o8 THE DAY WHICH THE LORD MADE
The sealing stone, and striding out,
Claim its eternity, and head Creation once again, and shout,
"The Eesuriection of the Dead"?*
IIL
A Day of Eemembrance.
1. Christ's resurrection has not become less important by the passage of years ; its virtue is not diminished, its grace and power are not worn out. If Christ had indeed risen this very morning, His resurrection would not be in reality of more concern to us than it is now. Christ is risen — risen never to die again, to be for ever that which He was the first moment when He conquered death. He is there above, the Saviour who could not be kept in captivity by the grave ; the very same who spoke to Mary Magdalene, and reproved the doubting Thomas, and talked on the way to Emmaus, and broke bread on the sea-shore. And what was true of Him then is true now ; what could be said of Him then can be said now ; what He did then for those who loved Him and believed Him, He can do now ; what they felt towards Him — the rejoicing and the glorying trust, and the conquering comfort and strength — it is ours to choose whether we shall not feel it too. The Light which broke on men on that third day, shines as brightly on all believing hearts now as it did on St. Peter and St. John, not a mere remembrance of past glory and gladness, but an unfailing and uninterrupted spring of present hope and strength. And it will shine long after we are gone, to cheer the hearts and raise the joy of our children, and of all the unborn generations to the end of the world.