Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 69, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1917 — "The Tealities of Two Worlds" [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

"The Tealities of Two Worlds"

Here is an interpretation of the meaning average men and women by' Paul Jenkins : : Has this' ancient festival ever had any real spiritual sign ifcance for you/

TEXT—Jesus saith unto them, come and break yqur fast. And none of - the disciples durst inquire of him. who art thou? knowing that it was the Eord.— Joint 21:12. i? .... . UNLESS yon remember the circumstances involved in the situation described in tlie text, its words will seem to you unimportant and meaningless, perhaps utterly ah surd as the text of an Easter" sermon. But if you remember the circumstances involved, those simple words will deScribe to you a situation than which you can find none more significant, more startling,, more dramatic, more thrilling, more glorious, between the first chapter of Matthew and the last chapter of Revelation. To bring the true situation before you, let_me, describe a picture of the scene, •from tly marvelous brush of the French master frainter of the Christ, so much of whose- lifetime has been given to the production of those wonderful paintings of the life of Christ that have beenrhe marvel ot thear’tistie and the delight of the Christian world for more than a decade. And of all the hundreds of canvases that J. James Tissot has delighted to fill with charming, passionate, dramatic -and spiritual depictions of movements In the earthly life of the Savior, that which shows the moment described in our text is one of his masterpieces indeed. ’ The picture makes the hour of the* seene to be. as we know that it was. the most charming hour of the loveliest season of the year, just at sunrise of a c loudless day in spring. Beneath the azure sky anti clear in the sunrise glow of that hour, the lake of Galilee shines translucent from turquoise to pearl. Resting at the water's edge are the two boats, the large and the small, of which we read, simple and clumsy specimens of the boat builder’s craft of that day. Oars, poles, and nets in them tell their use. Upon the pebbles lies a hastily discarded net. still damp and dark; from the water. and close by lies the heapTOf splendid fish, fresh, The coals of fire glow— ruddy ina-.. thtle heap, and a tiny thread of opal smoke rises straight in the air of the windless dawn. On an outer garment, placed blanket-wise for him, perhaps by the tenderness of a disciple, sits the Lord. In even so simple a pose the noble and commanding presence of his personality is yet unmistjikable. At his right hand lie heaped up a dozen flat cakes of the newly baked bread whose luscious brown almost suggests their f nigra nt aroma. On a simple split stick a fish is spitted, and the Lord holds it ip one hand above the coals to brown, with the other hand moving in simple gesture and with uplifted face, as he speaks naturally, familiarly, and with .most evident fascination to the spellbound men that squat in oriental fashion facing him across the fire. “Spellbound.” did we say? You should-see the - pk»njrp-la-with, what divine pdw"erThey are held. Motionless as statues, the most of them yet lean eagerly, amazedly. passionately forward, their eyes centered Un his face as if no looking would ever satisfy the hearts that feed on the joy of seeing him. hearing him, j participating in the heavenly marvel of tlie-hour. • Such is the scene. I cannot know just what it means to you. But may I not tell you what It means to me? It lias been my privilege, rnov ami again, to sit as friend or guest at the tables of the rich, where the snowy

cl a mask gave"joy alike to the appreciative eye and ■ the touching hand, where countless silver ghmmed,-Where glass sparkled like the diamonds that it approached in value, and where the j daintiest china of Fra nce~sup ported tish, flesli and. fowl of two continents and two seas. It has been my honor, now and again, to sit at the tablesof the great, where men of intellect and fame and women of intellect anil charm have made an hour unforgetable and have taught one more thtpt a whole university of mere classrooms could do. It has been my profit to sit at banquets where hundreds sat about the tables ami listened to the words of heroes, heroes of war and heroes of peace, captains of soldiery and captains of industry, and felt th<* while they listened, that they were in touch with the men and the forces that move -tlie worid,- it- has-been -my -benefi t to sit at meat in the homes of the humble- in log cabins »and huts, dining off metal plates and plain fare, and there to learn that not circumstances, but clia ra ct er s make men and “women; ft has been my—delight Ao sit about the talile of the grass, in forests and wildernesses,the campfire at ha ml and Hie viands wbn from stream or forest only by gun or rod. But when T contemplate the circumstances of that morning meal beside the lake of GallJee_and realize the realities that were there present —things, emotions, sights, that surpass words’tovtescribv —I-know that I had rather have been one of those men that a tert he bread -the Lord baked, the fish his hands caught 'ami cooked for them, that saw what they saw and heard what they heard, than to have attended any other banquet that wealth ever bought or meal that the friends*Tif one’s bosom prepared for friendship’s tribute! "Wliy Tell ini', who were there ; Tell me whom that group consisted of !” “Oh, a group of coarse fishermen, fagged out by a night’s work, listening to a chance rabbi who is getting breakfast for them while he talks," Yes: you can make that answer If you- hate succeeded im-wlping '-Easter-day but of your ca I end ar. Who Were Tfiera? wasn’t that the time when Jesus met his disciples and the miracle of the great draft pf fishes occurred?” It was; and that is about the way the average churchgoer (shall I have to say the average Christian?) would answer. Who was there? Listen ! Men were there that had seen tin* man in their midst die in pain on the ho’rrnT crossof a Roman criminal exe<mtj'ojiWbaiL witnessed Ids writhings of agony, had seen the sweat of blood, had heard from those very lips at which their eyes now gazed as' if enchanted the last scream as the body sank lifeless in the nail-suspended collapse of death. ‘Men sat there who had taken that i body down in fears and dismay and in ; the shock of disillusioned hopes had buried it and gone away feeling as if } their universe had tumbled in wreclc about their heads, murmuring to one ahother as they went : "And this is the 'end of him whom we hoped that it had been he that should have redeemed Igrael !" And that man sat there before them alive! Alive? He had caught fish and made a tire and baked bread and helped them to make one of the great hauls of their fishermen s experience, and now while they sat stunned, amazed, astounded, incapable almost of realizing what had occurred —incapable, as they afterward wrote, of speaking a syllable of inquiry—he i

-crrhnty-serverh and—frrt“Ttn*m whtle he talked to their white faces! .'■■■■. - ••oh impossible., incredible.! talse, never to be believed Lit my th. a. lie, a dream, a delusion, a frenzy, or fantasy of disappointed,"nvorwronghrimd“fm“ mitica! brains." Yes. and if you can Think of :tiiy other terms of denial to -write- agtunst-IL -setWt down! -Anfiwhen you have said and doneit The plain statement of these men who sat there will challenge you to your face to hear them tell you that it happened, that he was there, that were there, and he whom they had laid in that sealed-up grave sat in their midst in the same body that they had known, and cooked for them and ate and served them as he chatted the while! God be "praised for heaven’s sweet simplicity, that it was not in some awful, supernal shape, “trailing clouds-of- glory.” That he came back to them, but that It was in the shape of the man whom they hacLknowmbad lived with, walked with, talked, slept and eaten with —and 10! before their byes The moved and breathed and takable and now incredible. but still actual being that he was before! Oh, if you will let these tKTngs. these truths, even this simple scene, get into your head and your heart —what an amazing Easter this day would be to you ,!„ “Why?” Because, I care not who and what you have been before, if you have never realized lhe mighty meaning of this simple scene, you may | have known a dead Jesus, but you have never known the risen Savior! We have asked who were there? Let us take a final moment to ask what else was there? There, in that hour, all the mighty realities of the two worlds were gathered; this world and the next, the world that the disciples had known so long and the world of which they were catching faint but dazzling, astounding glimpses as they gazed on him; the world that he had been born in. lived in, worked in, died in—and the world that he was living inat tlie time that he ate and talked The realities of this world were there. Labor was theft'—-they of the toil-worn hands, calloused by the wet net cords, they of the many a night of fruitless toil, they know what the weariness and uncertainty of''labor is as few others know. Hunger whs there, the meal that his love prepared to meet their famished bodies, doubly worn with, abstinence and disappointment. Death was there, the end of all earth— of “ why the- meal to keep the body going, the'labor for one’s loved ones, and why the amazement at seeing one over whom the omnipotence of .death had tfo power? And the realities of the world beyond were thgre. Life was there —- such life as never a soul had dreamed of since Adam cowered beneath his sentence of mortality. The body was there; ami now we know why it is called the “Apostle's Creed.” that says: “L believe in the resurrection of the body ’" What other faith, what other verdict, what other creed could they have that saw the nail marks in the hands that served them? Love was there—incarnate in him, who. though, already in the, life beyond so loved Them-Tha-t-he-could. jewa rd their workr, a-day toil and could prepare for them the fotal that was affection’s tribute itself. And the Christ was there L Language fails. Words can say no more. But this—all this—is the true Gospel of Easter day.