The Culminating Easier 55 



The Culminating Easter 



IT was a wise, and in no respect accidental 

 adaptation, that took into the young Chris 

 tianity the ancient Teutonic festival of Spring, 

 and named from the imagined goddess thereof 

 the time wherein the rising of the Saviour from the 

 tomb took place. It is so much easier for the 

 human consciousness to apprehend the immortal 

 life in the presence of those lovely analogies 

 which the new springing life of earth multiply 

 before the eyes of dwellers in those northern 

 climes where Eostre s rites were celebrated, as 

 those of Rhea and Persephone were in the Nature- 

 worship of the Greeks. Nothing is more natural 

 than to believe in perpetual life for the soul that 

 can perceive this wonderful resemblance to itself. 

 It is so plain that the forms alone die, but the 

 life, depending not upon forms, but on essential 

 principles, cannot die. And even that imperfec 

 tion which gives to many a seed no fertility, that 

 misfortune which blasts the new buds in their 



