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2. We sit together, with the skies,
The steadfast skies above us;
We look into each other's eyes,

"And how long will you love us?"
The eyes grow dim with prophecy,
The voices low and breathless

"Till death us part"-O words, to be

Our best for love the deathless!

Be pitiful, dear God!

MRS. BROWNING.

XVIII. EASTER WAYS.

MARGARET E. SANGSTER.

MARGARET ELIZABETH SANGSTER (1838) is one of the prominent women journalists of America. She is a native of New York State. Her life has been a busy one, devoted to editorial work and the writing of poetry. For twenty years she has been connected with the Harpers' publishing house of New York city. In 1882 she began editing Harper's Young People, and in 1890 she assumed the editorial chair of the Bazar, which position she now occupies. She has written many beautiful short poems. volumes of her writings have been published. They are: Poems of the Household, and Home Fairies, and Heart Flowers.

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Two

1. WITH the return of spring blossoms and birds, a general feeling of gladness prevails the world over. However we may have enjoyed the winter, we bid it good-by without regret, and go merrily onward to meet the spring. In our thoughts of winter and in the pictures which the painters make of that season, he figures as an old man, stern and severe, with a snowy beard, and icicles clinging to his robes, while his pretty successor is

always a maiden, dancing and singing, or scattering flowers from full baskets.

2. When the old paganism of the ancient Saxons was given up for the worship of Him whom the people of Britain in those days called the White Christ, the missionaries found established a festival to the goddess of the spring, whose name was Ostera, a word signifying "to arise," and symbolizing the awakening of Nature after her wintry sleep. This in turn pointed to the old Greek myth of Persephone, called Proserpine by the Romans. The story, familiar to youthful students as one of the daintiest and most graceful of any in the ancient mythology, was that while Persephone was gathering narcissus in a field near Ætna, in Sicily, the god of the underworld suddenly emerged from a dark hole in the ground, with a chariot and four coal-black horses, and swooping down upon the hapless virgin, carried her off to be the queen of his gloomy domains.

3. Demeter, the mother of Persephone, was wild with grief, and ran up and down imploring everybody she met to tell her what had become of her daughter. Finally the all-seeing and all-hearing god of the sun, from whom nothing that happened could ever be kept secret, took pity on the distressed goddess, and told her of the fate that had befallen her child. She, of course, felt more distressed than before, and begged Zeus and the other deities to interfere and restore the lost one, but they declared themselves unable to do this unless Persephone had eaten nothing in her new abode. The discovery that she had tasted a pomegranate made her return to earth for the whole year impossible, but she was allowed to come back to her mother, Demeter, or Ceres, to the fields and the light, for half of each twelvemonth, during which the flowers bloomed and the fruits grew ripe, the corn and the wheat flourished, and the land was glad with har

vest joy. A legend similar to this is found in nearly all the mythologies of the world.

4. I have dwelt on this story and referred to the Saxon goddess Ostera, who was Persephone's mythical relative, in order to show that in the old pagan religions there was a hint of that victory of life over death which is one of the grandest articles of the Christian creed. Persephone's six months in the regions of darkness were emblematic of death; winter, with its silence and chill and cessation of activity, being a sign of that dreaded state. Her return to the earth was a poetical way of saying that the torpor of death had been broken, and that spring had brought life and bloom to the world once more.

5. I am coming step by step to the higher meaning which our Easter has for all who believe in the Lord's resurrection. In winter, you know, there is no real death; it is only apparent; for even when at rest, nature is busy, and under the snows the wheat keeps on growing to make the next year's bread, while the sap is stirring in the heart of the trees, although they are bare and leafless. The early missionaries, wishing great happiness to the people whom they taught to love and serve the White Christ, in contrast with the dark and cruel gods to whom they had hitherto given reverence, desired them to observe the feast of the resurrection. It always came round in the spring, and its name, Easter, was like that of the old goddess, rechristened and made beautiful and fragrant. In keeping the Easter festival, again, the Christians simply endowed with a new and more lovely life the venerable feast of the Passover, which the Jews had observed from the date of the Exodus.

6. Easter is full of brightness and joy, not only because of the lower meaning given it by nature, the vanishing of the winter death and the kindling of the spring-time life, but on account

of that event, far greater and most mysterious and sacred, the rising of our Lord from the three days' bondage in the tomb.

7. Children know little of sorrow, but your parents will tell you that it is this which enables us to bear patiently all the sorrows and partings of this life, feeling when our dear ones are taken away that it is not forever, but only for a time. Sooner or later we shall have them again, if we and they love the Saviour, for He arose from the dead, and He alone can bestow on all who follow Him eternal life.

8. Why does Easter not always occur on the same day, as Christmas does, is a question asked by some little people who have heard their elders remarking that there will be plenty of flowers to dress the churches this year, Easter coming so late. There was originally a good deal of trouble in deciding on what day to observe the Easter festival, some pleading in favor of one, and some of another day, and it was finally decided by a great Church Council at Nice, A. D. 325, that Easter should always be the first Sunday after the full moon which happens upon or next after March 21st, and if this full moon happen to be on a Sunday, then Easter is the following Sunday. It is thus, you see, what we call a movable feast.

9. In reality, every Lord's Day, which was the name given by early Christians to Sunday, is a feast of the resurrection, an anniversary on which we may devoutly say, "I believe in the life everlasting."

10. In those countries where the Greek Church includes most of the population, and especially in Russia, where it is the state church, Easter is kept with the greatest pomp imaginable. Good Friday found every home hushed, the children forbidden to touch their toys and games, the houses closed to visitors, and the churches draped with mournful black. But in the faint

pearly dawn of Easter all is changed as if by miracle; people run from house to house with gifts and greetings, and bearded strangers embrace each other in the street, crying, "The Lord is risen!" Similar experiences take place on the continent of Europe, where the Church of Rome keeps Good Friday with solemn music and a mournful midnight mass, where the shadow of the crucifixion rests on every face until Easter dawns, when the flow of gladness is unrestrained.

11. The Church of England, as well as the Episcopal Church everywhere, has never given up its right to keep Easter, but until within a few years other Protestant denominations have not entered with full zest into the spirit of the occasion. At present it is pleasant to know that Easter, like Christmas, is an all-around-the-world period of rejoicing in which Christians unitedly share.

12. The chick emerging from the egg is a favorite Easter emblem, and eggs have been largely used in connection with the pastimes of Easter. An old English custom requires them to be colored in delicate or deeper tints, or gilded, silvered, and inscribed with appropriate mottoes. A little basket of Easter eggs, painted prettily and filled with moss or flowers, is a very acceptable Easter gift. To test the relative strength of the shells by "pecking," or knocking the ends together, is an Easter game in England, and has found its way to some parts of our own country. In Washington the grounds of the White House are, by courtesy of the highest officials, at the disposal of the children on Easter Monday, and hundreds of boys and girls repair to the accustomed spot to peck eggs, play ball, and indulge in happy sports. The cracked eggs become the property of the winner who happens to possess a very tough-shelled egg or else to have a happy knack of hitting softly. If he have the true

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