Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1897 — BEST OF THE YEAR. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BEST OF THE YEAR.

The Enster Holiday Feaaon and Its Delightful Associations.

ASTER is more Uei lightful in its associations than any other holiday season of the year. It folI lows a period of conventional mourning. It is a revival from traditional depression and gloom. It opens the morning of hope and expectation. It reveals the unfolding buds of the year and of human faith and promise. In these respects it

differs in significance from the autumnal thanksgiving anil Inter Christinas holidays. Autumnal holidays mark the end of the harvest, when all its fruits have been gathered nnd when gratitude is expressed for every gift of Providence to mankind. The year is closed, Reflection is the sole occupation of the mind. Truths may be gathered from experience as fruit is gathered from the soil. Hut in the autumn every human sentiment is inspired by n knowledge that the best products of the year have been gathered, that its enjoyments are closed, that its fugitive hours, opportunities, events nnd lessons, tliatlall which it contained for good or evil, have become an clement of the unrcturninglpasf. Easter is the ijeriod of resurrection. It is an emblem of)the revival which nature experiences with each return of the sun in its orbit and/of the rains and dews at their appointed time. It brings vernal sunshine, airs nod odors. It is celebrated by offerings of flowers, by gayety in attire, by festive display, by all the gaudy outward semblance, in which the dayspring of the lmirt aud of the season is clothed. The C’hristiaijized Easter which the world celebrates is a higher inspiration of pagan philosophy, renewed, refined and etherealized by the influences which proceeded front thejtragic events on Calvary and front their sublime conclusion. From the earliest era i'hen man began to study the world around him and deify its manifestations the Spring was sanctified ns the period of thejyear when the vigor of nature's creative'jforces first was displayed. Every form of ancient mythology recognized the veinal equinox as the point of rejuvenation for tlie world of vegetable and animal life. Every wind of spring that blew and every wave that murmured were regarded us the source of new vital energies in production nnd growth. From these beautiful pagan beliefs to the beautiful now Christian belief the change was uot Violent nor phenomenal. It Was a graceful evolution from heathen to Christian tin sight. It was transition of that which was false but was almost as beautiful as/truth to the beauty and holiness of trut*. Coleridge described the abandoned fictions of classical beliefs; The intelligible! forms of ancient poets. The fair humanities of old religion, The power, thelbeauty and the majesty That haditheir haunts in dale or piney mountain, Or forest, by Mow brook or pebbly spring Or chasm, ot I watery depth—all these are vanished ;j They live no linger in the faith of reason. In places of!these fantastic heathen images the new .'religion brought realities of grace and truth. The old fictions of the earth and air dissolved and disappeared. They were succeeded by the gospel of peace and good will to all mankind—of universal practical charity, of faith manifested in good works, of all the gospel lessons which Easter day and its associations convey. Pagan philosophers and poets readied only the fancies and dreams of men. Christian philosophy reaches the profoundest depths Of the intellect and the heart. This is the lesson add instruction of the day! It relates both; to the past and the future. It is a reminiscence and a promise. It combines the (garnered wisdom of ages with the hope pf all the years to come!