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-erowd this risen world of 
Text: “Now is Christ Risen from the 
Dead.” i \Cor. 15:20. 
The effect of Christ’s resurrection 
upon the world was most positive and 
pronounced. 
To give up this hope today we 
could not help but acknowledge our- 
selves the poorer. By no sort of a 
calculus could we conclude that hu- 
man life minus this hope would be 
as rich as life plus this hope of the 
risen Christ. 
Destroy this hope today and you 
sublime 
progress back into the grave of des- 
pair where Jesus found it. Nothing 
but the ruin of man is involved in the 
destruction of the resurrection hope. 
Well did John Ruskin say: “When 
we lose this hope even the Orpheus 
song is forbidden us. The fates or- 
dain there shall be no singing after 
that.” 
It was the sublime event that raised 
a dead world to life and has made it 
what it is. Christian civilization lives 
for the future, paganism lives upon 
the past. The former has its face set 
- toward the day, the latter toward the 
night. Without this hope of trium- 
phant life man yields forever to des- 
pair. 
Blast this hope and with a thou- 
sand social blessings you blast the 
civic hopes and even the financial 
foundations and monetary values of 
the world. Death to this sublime 
Christian hope is death to human 
progress and happiness. 
There are some very vital questions 
in this story of the resurrection for 
each one to settle. Let us not mince 
matters, let us not be philosophically 
-mealy-mouthed about these questions. 
Has the Bible fixed its seal of ap- 
probation to a lie? 
Did the disciples bear false wit- 
ness? Then they are the most ex- 
traordinary liars on record. Then 
they are the most picturesque mounte- 
banks and fools in all history to suf- 
fer poverty, persecution and death all 
for the pleasure of lying. 
Jesus claimed things for himself 
that no mere man can claim for him- 
self without blasphemy. Was Jesus 
a blasphemer ? 
These are plain and terrible ques- 
tions to ask, but I ask these questions 
of the eminent and eloquent preachers 
who deny the facts of the resurrec- 
tion as set forth in the Gospel and the 
“its century circles of 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
REV. LOUIS H. RUGE 
Epistles of the New ‘Testament. 
I do not impugn a man’s intelli- 
‘gence nor deny his right to think 
what he pleases; but I do dispute 
any man’s right to misconstrue the 
plain indisputable facts of the resur- 
rection as set forth in the New Test- 
ament. 
The issue is too simple for dispute. 
Jesus was an impostor and blas- 
phemer and the disciples were liars 
or fools, or Jesus arose from the 
grave and the disciples stated a fact; 
one or the other. The issue must 
stand. We accept the New ‘Testa- 
ment or reject it on this issue. Why? 
Because the language is too ‘plain. 
There is no use talking about the 
high moral character and_ exalted 
spiritual power and influence of im- 
postors and liars. 
I can well imagine Jesus and his 
disciples saying to the illogical and 
inconsistent disputers of this mir- 
acle,— never mind about your fine 
words and compliments, are we liars 
or not? 
In 1 Cor. 15:15, the Apostle Paul 
puts his finger on the vital point at 
issue. 
If this is a deception everything 
else is subject to dispute. We can- 
not place confidence in anything else 
set forth. Then the New Testament 
writers cannot be trusted. Then I 
honor my own intelligence with more 
revelation and wisdom than to follow 
fools or deceivers. 
Let us look the logical conclusion 
in the face as Paul did and not fool 
ourselves with a religious bubble. 
If Christ did not arise from the 
dead, our faith is foolish for it rests 
on a thing that never happened. Then 
all the noble and sublime institutions 
of Christianity are the spawn of an 
imposition. 
Everything in Christianity hinges 
upon the divine person of the Son. 
of God with power to lay down his 
life and with power to take it up at 
will. If this can be proven false it is 
all up with Christianity, for what 
other dependable revelation and phil- 
osophy is there? Then England and 
America will simply duplicate Nine- 
vah and Babylon. Then human prog- 
ress does not move in a straight line 
today but is simply swinging round 
despair and 
death. 
On the marble slab of a beautiful 
13 
“AN EASTER MESSAGE—THE RISEN LIFE” 
fire place, a man engraved the one 
small Latin word, “Quo’’— whither. 
As the soul comes home in the falling 
shadows of life’s evening shall it still 
sit and try to warm the chill of night 
away at this altar? 
What, said my thought, contains 
the greatest element of human suffer- 
ing? And in an instant it replied, 
disappointment. Every human joy is 
regulated by hope. Give the soul 
hope and it lives; deprive it of hope 
and it dies. And the higher the hope, 
the greater the soul’s suffering when 
it fails. 
This hope of the new life of the 
risen Christ is the nation’s greatest 
incentive as note it in* comparison 
with peoplés that have it not. The 
whole living, aspiring world of hu- 
man progress has thrown its whole 
soul into this hope. If that hope 
fails what is left for humanity? 
Poetry without this hope is a wail, 
music a discordant jangle, and the 
light in earth and sea and sky is a 
blur. Heathen religions can symbol- 
ize for us the loss of this hope in 
their symbols of a broken pillar, a 
wreck on the strand, a harp with 
broken strings, a flower bruised. 
Do you suppose God created such 
a sublime personality as Jesus only 
to dash it to nothingness in death? 
Then God is playing with his creation 
just as a little boy plays with soap 
bubbles. Then the Christian cen- 
turies are blowing a soap bubble civil- 
ization and faith. 
Then our morals and laws are with- 
out divine revelation or authority. 
There is no answer to prayer. There 
is no sanctity to marriage as we know 
it. There is no regenerating power, 
no power over evil. 
Then there is nothing but a wild 
guess of duty and responsibility ; 
nothing but a wild guess of the future 
and we are no further than the in- 
terrogations of the ancients. All we 
can do is to make some random se- 
lections of philosophy as suits us 
from Socrates to the German sceptics 
of today. 
Then God, the Creator, simply cre- 
ated a man with a soul like Jesus to 
show his creatures what a_ perfect 
man he could create, but failed to do 
for the rest of us. 
Let us thank God today that Paul’s 
words and my _ discoursing is all 
merely hypothetical. “They are only 
