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AN EASTER SYMPHONY.
She thrummed on the piano,
With no thought of how she played,
And the Easter bells chimed sweetly
While her fingers aimless strayed.
Now sotinds minors deep and solemn,
Then majors sharp and clear,
From the bells and piano
Issued tones of grief or cheer.
And some power occult within me
The various notes combined
Into chords that swept the feelings,
Raised to ecstasy my mind,
Till my soul was filled with music,
, And I lived but in a dream
Mid the shifting lights and shadows
Of a grand orchestral theme.
And its sway became still stronger
As each inner wave of sound
Trembled o'er the chords of feeling,
Stirred my soul to depths profound,
But no earthly passion swayed me,
For 1 lived in higher sphere,
And my world of sense had vanished.
With it vanished doubt arid fear.
And I thanked the risen Christ
For that symphony divine,
For such potency of music
Of a surety was not mine.
Who composed it? Who the player ?
Ask the violin as it thrills
At the touch of master player
Whence the soul of sound it fills.
—XNeil MacDonald.
EASTER TENDENCIES.
Junius Henri Browne on the Religious Festival.
Causes That Have Conduced to Its Growing Favor
‘Among Protestants—The Normanizing of Creeds
d the Fellowship of Creedists—The Doctrine of !
2 yo {manner disclosed, and faith be supplant-
(ed by knowledge.
Immortality.
oe
ee ca
Wate
much in favor with
the Christian
churches in this
country of recent
years as Easter, commemorating the res-
urrecticn cf Jesus. The day, or what
was believed to be such (there was a
wide difference as to the date between
the early Christians of the east and
west), was solemnly celebrated for cen-
turies in the old world as the most mo-
mentous of miracles because it alone es-
tablished, in their eyes, the absolute
truth of Christianity. But here, strange
to say, Easter was hardly observed at
all, except by the Roman Catholics and
Episcopalians, who have naturally much
in common, as the latter are wholly de-
rived from the former until the second
half of the present century.
Now nearly all the various Protestant
sects celebrate Easter with great zeal
and fervor, as it would seem they should
have always done, to be consistent with
their faith. As Jesus is the sole founder |
of Christianity, how could they afford
to neglect at any time the day, when-
ever it may have been, on which he, to
their mind, rose from the dead? The one
explanation is that many of the sects, re-
garding Easter 40 or 50 years since as a
Roman Catholic holy day, refused to cele-
brate it. The old Puritans of New Eng-
land, with most of their immediate de-
scendants, particularly so considered it.
And they could not theologically share
with what they called the scarlet wom-
an anything that she might sanction.
Not a little of their religion was to de-
test ‘‘popery’’ with the whole force of
their pious souls. Many of the later
Protestants have been similarly affected.
But this feeling has been steadily wear-
ing off, as is shown by all the denomi-
nations in the observance today of Eas-
ter. Congregationalists, Presbyterians,
Baptists, Methodists, Unitarians, Uni-
versalists, commemorate the occasion,
notably in cities, by a special service,
with elaborate music and lavish decora-
tions of flowers. This is another tend-
ency of the time to the gradual har-
monizing of creeds and the fellowship
of creedists. =
Since theology as snch is generally
conceded to be declining the world over,
particularly in the republic, the wider
and wider acceptance of Easter may ap-
pear to be exceptional. Reflection, how-
ever, will corroborate, instead of con-
tradicting, the opinion. A great many
church communicants who are counted
as orthodox do not believe in the divin-
ity of Jesus—that is, in his being the
son of God, coequal with him. The
Unitarians, for example, renounce that
belief altogether. But they hold him to
be the best, the purest, the noblest, the
most exalted of men, and, in such sense,
divine. They rank themselves and they
are ranked as Christians nevertheless.
Christians are, in any liberal inter-
pretation, all who love, admire, revere
the life and teachings of Jesus, his hu-
manity or divinity being of minor con-
sequence. The Scriptural injunction
about believing in him has reference to
this, not, as they claim, to any theologic
assumption, as Lord or Saviour. It is
essentially his human character, it is
thought, which has brought Easter into
go ardent and general favor. Jesus is
not wrapped up in form and dogma, is
not connected with any ecclesiastic bias
or patristic subtlety. His record in the
New Testament is clear, consistent,
convincing, practical, all goodness, sac-
rifice, fulfillment of the highest duty.
Everybody in civilization, be he or-
thodox or heterodox, theist or infidel,
skeptic or devotee, esteems dnd admires
Jesus. He is an incarnation of all the
virtues, not abstract, metaphysical, snb-
limated, symbolic or allegorical, as are
$0 many Biblical creatures. He appeals
to and answers the needs of humanity.
He really represents an anthropomorphic
deity, as so many of us try to represent
what we conceive to be God. Jesus
stands for humanitarianism and ideal
morality. He is our spiritualized, glori-
fied brother whom we would resemble if
we might, and whom we elevate into
the zenith of our affections and aspira-
tions. He always typifies what is high-
est, broadest, grandest in our possible
selves, the best that is attainable in our
conception, and yet wholly free from ob-
scurity or mysticism. Who has ever
heard any one complain that the nature
of Jesus is unintelligible? No wonder
that most Christians have turned from
the idea of the Father to the presenta-
tion of the Son, the embodiment of char-
ity, the ultimate of beneficence.
The majority of thoughtful persons
have ceased to ponder the supernatural,
which defies comprehension. They are
exaploying themselves instead with the
natural, still occupying immeasurable
space and promising to elude complete
apprehension for ages to come. Jesus
will ever remain an ideal, albeit so very
human, for man, strive as he may, dis-
closes at present no possibility of match-
ing him. But man, who has existed and
improved for hundreds of thousands of
years, will continue to improve for tens
of thousands of years longer, backed by
the law of eternal progress, and may
finally reach the plane on which the
good Jesus stands. Then he will have
solved the mysteries of nature, and the
supernatural, as now named, will -be
superfluous. The human and the divine
will be absorbed in one another and will
be virtually synonymous. The plan and
purpose of the universe will be in some
This will be the
| spiritual acquirement long foretold by
| the transcendental. .
Another reason, doubtless, why Easter
| appeals so much more to the mass of
Protestants today than it formerly did
is its immediate association with the
doctrine of immortality. The doctrine
is the same that was taught 19 centuries
since, but as time has gone on the mere
doctrine has become less abstract, more
and more concrete, taking the form of
feeling. The great majority of enlight-
ened beings in this era undeniably long
for conscious immortality, in part be-
cause life here has palled upon them,
grown grievous to bear. Through science
and philosophy having been made skep-
tical of the future, they have as a
result been more eager for it. While
they may not believe at all in the di-
vinity of Jesus, they identify him with
the doctrine, and such is the incongruity
of man they adhere to the observance
of Easter because it in some way an-
swers to what they suppose to be their
psychal need. :
Strictly speaking, Easter and all its
concomitants belong exclusively to the
Roman church. Its celebration is |
complete harmony with its rites an
methods, which ere opposed to the sim-
pler, severer creed of the Protestants.
The Catholic church regards the in-
creasing love of form and display in the
heretical denominations as an evidence
of their gradual return to the pristine
fold, something of which it has never
despaired.
At any rate it is easy to sec why,
from spiritual and social reasons, the
ceremonial observation of Easter stead-
ily grows in favor.
Junius HExXR:1 BROWNE.
Sports at Easter Time.
INCE the begih-
ning of the
church sports
and games have
characterized the
Easter observ-
ance. In this
country we are
familiar with the
egg rolling
games on Easter
Monday on the
White House
grounds in Wash-
ington, but in
other countries
there are Easter sports and games quite
unknown to us.
The Easter festival of our forefathers
covered a period of 15 days. The week
beginning with Easter Sunday was al-
most entirely given over to sport and
games and general merrymaking. An
odd feature of the old time celebration
was that of heaving or lifting, the
‘“heaved’’ sitting in a chair decorated
with white ribbons. Easter Monday and
Easter Thursday were known as heav-
ing days, the women sitting in a chair
on Monday and the men on Tuesday.
Those heaving or lifting the chair were
expected to life it three times and then
kiss the occupant, who, in turn, kissed
them. To the regret of the lads and las-
sies in the districts where the novel cere-
mony was once performed, the custom
has long since died out.
Handball was formerly one: of the
most common of Easter games, and at
one time a sort of water tilting contest
was much in vogue. Young men would
drift about in boats without oars and
allow the craft to drift against a shield
suspended in midstream, striking it
as with a lance. If the lance was broken
against the shield, it was considered a
good stroke and won applause, but if the
shield was missed or the spear remained
intact the owner of the lance invariably
lost his balance and tumbled into the
water.
In Switzerland a peculiar game is
played at Easter. Large baskets filled
with bran are placed in a circle some-
where on a free field or public place.
Then as many rows of 100 eggs as there
are competitors are laid, each egg a foot
or so apart from the next, the rows
radiating from the baskets to an equal
distance. The task is to put the 100
eggs, one by one, into the basket with-
out breaking any, and who does it in
the shortest space of time is the winner.
In Moscow, St. Petersburg and other
Russian cities swings and merry go
rounds are erected for the festival season
on the boulevards, and all sorts of
amusements prevail in the concert and
dance halls.
UNIQUE CEREMONIES.
Distributing the ‘Royal Maundy” to the Poor in
England. His Holiness the Pope Still Washes the
Feet of Twelve Poor Old Men—S8olemn Observance
of Eastertide at the Vatican.
mony.
A Touching Cere-
Nowhere is Easter celebrated with more
pomp and ceremony than at the various
courts of the old world, even the Protes-
tant rulersretaining many of the quaint
observances that originated in mediseval
times with the fathers of the Roman Cath-
olic church. Thus in England the old cus-
tom of distributing to the poor what is
known as the ‘royal maundy’’ takes
place in Westminster abbey on each Thurs-
day of holy week, on which day the offi-
cial celebration of Eastertide may be said
to begin all over Europe. Royal pageants
of hundreds of years ago are dimly sug-
‘gested when the bishop of Winchester,
clad in his episcopal robes and acting in
his capacity of lord high almoner to the
queen, attended by the dean of Westmin-
ster, as well as by the chapter and the
choir of the abbey, and escorted by a com-
pany of yeomen of the guard in their
quaint costumes of the reign of King Hen-
ry VIII, marches up the nave and enters
the choir of the grand old fane. Seated
in rows on either sideare the persons cho-
sen as recipients for the royal bounty. As
soon as divine service is over and the anti-
A ROYAL ALMSGIVIN' AT WESTMINSTER,
phon, commencing v 1 the command
oé Christ to his discipic Mandatum no-
vum da vobis,’’ has beei. chanted by the
choir, the distribution oi the alms by the
lord high almoner takes place. The alins
in question amount to about $26 for every
man and $21 forevery woman, in new sil-
ver and gold money specially coined by
the mint for the occasion, and arc con-
tained in red and white kid purses, to
which long tassels are attached. They are
borne on a huge gold salver by one of the
sergeants of the yeomen of the guard, who
is flanked on either side by comrades armed
with halberds. The lord high almoner
himself is assisted by several gentlemen
ushers of the queen, arrayed in gorgeous
gold embroidered court uniforms and with
scarfs of linen tied across their shoulders,
emblematical of the towels used in the
days when the British sovercigns used still
to wash on this particular day the feet of
12 poor men and 12 poor women.
This custom of washing the feet of the
poor on Holy Thursday is still adhered to
at the courts of Vienna, Madrid, Lisbon, |
It is a very sol- |
Munich and the Vatican.
cemn function, and while it is in progress
one of the prelates in attendance reads
that portion of the gospel which describes
Christ as washing the fcet of his apostles.
At Vienna and Munich, Madrid and Lis-
bon, the sovereign is attended on these oc- |
casions by the members of the reigning .
family, by the great dignitarics of the
rcalm, and by the entire court in full uni-
form.
shoes and stockings of the old men and
women, bishops and cardinals hold the
gold ewer and basin respectively, while the
sovereign kneels before cach aged pauper
in turn, and after having poured rosewa-
ter over their feet dries them with a gold
fringed napkin. Afterward the old pcole
are entertained at a banquet, at which
they arc waited upon by the sovereign and
by the princes and princesses present, and
at its close the guests are sent to their
homes in court carriages, cach bearing a
handsome present in money.
The pope, while washing the feet of 12
poor old mmen—which, by the bye, he does
in a very conscientious and proper manner
—wears a white linen apron over his white
cassock. This apron is sent every year to
the gencral of the Benedictine order, who
causes it to be cut up and to be used in
one of the churches of the order for cover-
ing the chalice. His holiness insists on
himself serving the 12 aged paupers at the
banquet which follows the ceremony, and
each one of them finds under his plate a
hundred franc bank note.
But the most solemn feature of the ob-
servation of Eastertide at the Vatican—in
my opinion, at any rate—is when on the
following night punctually at 12 a car-
dinal arrayed in his scarlet robes presents
himself and strikes 12 blows on the door
of the private chapel of the pontiff. The
latter thereupon arises from his knees be-
fore the altar, and, taking therefrom a
golden crucifix, approaches the window,
which is thrown open by the cardinal, and
makes with a sweeping and majestic ges-
ture the sign of the cross over the slumber-
ing city at his feet, exclaiming “Et red-
didit Spiritum.”’
This Thursday before Easter is likewise
the day on which Emperor William, with
his nearest and dearest relatives, but with
no attendants of any kind whatsoever, re-
ceives the sacrament in the little chapel
which has been established in the hedroom
of old Emperor Willian. It is very plainly
furnished and lighted by a small silver oil
lamp, and after the imperial chaplain has
administered the holy bread and wine the
illustrious communicants spend half an
hour in solemn meditation before return-
ing to their apartments.
On Goed Friday a remarkableatid unique
ceremony takes place in the royal chapel
at Madrid. During the course of divine
service, just at the moment for the adora-
tion of the cross, tho chaplain approaches
the kneeling sovereign with a gold salver,
on which are full and free pardons for
three prisoners lying under the sentence of
death, and pronounces these words: ‘‘Mad-
am, does your majesty grant her pardon
to these criminals lying under sentence of
death?”’
The queen thereupon touches the papers
lightly with her hand and repeats the tra-
ditional words, ‘‘Yo os perdone, yasi Dios
me perdone’’ (May God pardon me, as I
pardon them). EX-DIPLOMATIST.
Love's Resurrection.
Oh, chime of sweet St. Charity,
Peal soon that Easter morn
When Christ for all shall risen be
And in all hearts new born.
; —James Russell Lowell.
-—=Subscribe for the WATCHMAN.
Princes and princesses remove the |
dressing for fine shoes.
Shoes.
EqWard L. Powers’
New Spring Shoes
—ARE ALL ON THE SHELVES—
In Ladies’ shoes we are prepared
to meet all in
STYLE
QUALITY
OR COLOR
at any price from $1.00 up
Our line of Men’s Shoes is all right
and includes
All the Swagger Toes.
A Special for the Ladies.
The reduced sale inaugurated
April 1st still continues in High
‘Grade Oxford and Southern
Ties, in Black and Tan, up-to-
date in style,on A, B, C and
D widths, all sizes. Regular
price from $1.75 to $3.00. Will
close out the entire lot at $1.00
and $1.25 per pair.
..A Box of Shoe Dressing Frep...
All of our lady customers will be
given a large box of Multim in Parvo
A mit for
applying it will be given with the
dressing. The dressing preserves and
beautifies the leather and is proclaim-
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EE. IL. POWERS,
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TR STOR
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Men's All-Wool Suits, nobby Spring and Sum- :
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all colors, Light and Dark Plaids............coouneeeen
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We have closed out an entire stock of Chil-
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A better quality Children’s Suits—S$1.24, 1.49,
MEN’S, BOYS’
ers, in Black, Light and Brown.
Men's Derbys...
eee i80., $1.23, 1.50, 1.73, 2.00.
A full assortment of Men's and Boys’ Golf,
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all the Latest Mixtures: also Tam O'Shanters.
Men's Alpines, 5
eh MEN'S, BOYS’
THE OR 5d FRIST
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fe,, Te. Sl, 1.25, 1.50, 1.73, 2.00 | sessecsarearee
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LETRAS
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li
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eee sree () ree ee eee
Prices That Speak for TIeMSEES
—— eee () ee
CLOTHING.
1.75, 1.98, 2.50, 3.00, 4.00, up to the best. These
prices are less than manufacturer's cost.
250 Children’s Knee Pants, ages 4 to 15 years
—0, TeglIar 250. QUANILY.......cccocvsreeses Our price 17c¢.
Better qualities Children’s Knee Pants...........
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A newand full assortment of Men's Pants at
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6he., 7he., 98c., $1.25, 1.50, 2.00, 2.30, 3.00, 4.00, 5.00
A special lot of Men's Pants, orted sizes,
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of 81.69.
rere (ere
AND CHILDREN’S
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Also a splendid line of Boy's and Children’s
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LYON & CO.
t Yeo
Easter Op
Head-qua
In Gl
ening!
Men
Rous
ov re
Bniidren.
Easter Novelties in Suitings.
‘Shirts, Manhattan and Monarch.
Guyer Hats.
Finest Neck=wear.
Latest Collars and Cuffs.
Newest Shades in Gloves.
Golf Caps and Golf Hose.
Bicycle Suits and Caps to Match.
Childrens’ Crash Suits and Caps.
Canes and Umbrellas.
Suit Cases and Trunks.
All the Newest Goods for
Easter and after.
MONTGOMERY & Co.
Tailors and Clothiers.