MARCH 23 



bondage, furnish the earliest traceable link 

 in our chain. The Christ, whose visits to 

 the central city of his race at the time of 

 the great spring feast are the dividing points 

 of his life, met his death at the hands of his 

 foes the day before the feast. Two morn- 

 ings later the joy of the woman who mis- 

 took him for the gardener, and whose hap- 

 piness has since spread over so much of the 

 world, moved the festival one day later in 

 the calendar. The earnest Bishop Ulfilas 

 and his coadjutors who brought their good 

 message to our Teuton ancestors of the 

 European forests found there too a festival 

 of the returning year; and while the good 

 Bishop could cut down the sacred oaks, in 

 his desire to show them the helplessness of 

 their gods, he could not so easily root out 

 of their hearts the old pagan faith. So the 

 new, as it always must be, was tinged with 

 the old, and our spring feast has taken the 

 pagan name of Easter, — for Easter was 

 the name of the goddess of the dawn, — 

 and in' our home and amongst our children 

 we celebrate the feast with the eggs of the 



