ee
~ Theodore N.Va
=
Bellefonte, Pa., April 6, 1928.
EE ———————————————————
EASTER SUNDAY
NEW YEAR'S DAY.
Easter Sunday was formerly equiv-
alent to New Year’s day; though not
the first gay of the year it was the
day on which the opening of the year
was celebrated. Historically the
Christian Easter is simply a continu-
ation of the Jewish Passover, which
was celebrated on the 14th day of the
first month of the Jewish year—that
is, on the day of the first full moon
next following the day of the equi-
nox. It has been questioned whether
any special observance of this day
was practiced or enjoined by the apos-
tles and the early Church fathers;
yet the words of St. Paul in I Cor.
5:7-8 seem to sanction if they do not
recommend an observance of some
sort and foreshadow the thought which
came finally to underlie it: “For even
Christ our passover is sacrificed for
us. Therefore let us keep the feast,
not with old leaven, neither with the
leaven of malice and wickedness, but
with the unleavened bread of sincer-
ity and truth.” According to the Jew-
ish tradition, the Passover commemo-
rated the passing of the angel of
death over the houses of the Israelites
in Egypt, the doorposts and lintels of
which had been sprinkled with the
blood of the paschal lamb. The Chris-
tians, in adopting the festival, gave it
a new significance. For them the Sav-
jor became the true Paschal Lamb,
and the new festival commemorated |
His resurrection on the third day fol-
lowing the Crucifixion.
The proper day for celebrating |
Easter was one of the questions which |
the Council of Nice was called upon |
to decide. By the eastern Christians |
it was at that time celebrated on the
same day as the Jewish Passover,
without regard to the day of the |
week on which it might fall. Among |
the western Christians, who held that |
the crucifixion occurred on a Friday
and the resurrection on a Sunday,
there had arisen a custom of celebrat-
ing Easter on the first Sunday fol-
lowing the 14th of the first month,
and to this custom was given the of-
ficial sanction of the council. Fur-
thermore, the rule then established
for fixing upon the proper Sunday |
was designed partly to prevent the |
possibility of Easter ever falling on |
the same day as the Passover, but |
the rule has failed on several occa- |
sions to prevent this coincidence, and |
at rare intervals the two festivals |
came together. |
i
|
The old Roman year, like the Jew- |
ish year, begain in March, when the
sun entered the constellation Aries. !
When the calendar was reformed un-
der Julius Ceasar, the year was made
to begin on the first day of January. |
After the adoption of Christianity in |
Europe, the date of the beginning of !
the year was changed to March in
most countries, so that Easter became
recognized as a New Year's day. ‘The
reform of the calendar by Pope Greg-
ory, in 1582, again changed the day
on which the year began, although in
England it continued to begin on the
95th of March until the adoption of |
the “new style” there in 1742. !
Christianity found. Spring festivals |
already in vogue in heathen Europe, |
and to these oldtime festivals many :
of the customs and superstitious rites
still connected with Easter are clear-
ly traceable. The name Easter, given
to the day by the Teutonic nations—
the Roman nations have retained the
old Hebrew name, pascha, under mod- |
ified forms, as the Jour de Paques,
of the French—is derived by Bede
from Oster or Ostara, the name of
an old Anglo-Saxon goddess, in whose
honor a spring festival was celebrated.
Grimm was unable to find any men-
tion of a deity of this name among
the ancient Germans, but from the
fact that the month of April still
bears the name Ostermonat, he did
not doubt that such a goddess, prob-
ably “the divinity of the radiant
dawn,” had been known among them.
The old Oster festival was clearly of
a solar character, a celebration in
honor of the birth or the rejuvenation
of the sun of the new year. This is
made. evident, aside: from the known
character of similar festivals in oth-
er parts of the world, by many of
the observances which is bequeathed
to Kaster. Thus, it was formerly a
custom all through the provinces of
Germany, on the night of Easter Sun-
day or the third night following, to
kindle bonfires on all heights, afford-
ing a magnificent spectacle, when
these fires were to be seen here and
there over miles of country. This
custom had become simply a mode of
merrymaking, but it is held with
plausibility that originally the bonfire .
was symbolical of the new fire that.
was to warm the earth and quicken
it into renewed life after the cold em- |
brace -of winter. :
Another indication of the ancient |
solar character of this festival is an |
old popular belief, said to survive |
still in Bradenburg and Saxony, that !
the sun at the moment of rising on |
the morning of Easter gives three |
joyous leaps, that he dances with |
youthful joy. This curious belief was:
not confined to Germany. In the mid- |
dle districts of Ireland, according to |
Brand, it was customary, after spend- |
ing Easter eve in merrymaking and |
carousing—watching the pot boil, the |
contents of which were to break the
long Lenten fast, yet must not be
touched before the crowing of the
cock—for the whole company of rev-
elers to go out just at daybreak to
see the rising sun take his three East-
er leaps. Sir Thomas Browne, writing
of popular errors, mentions thus
quaintly the existence of this belief
in England; “We shall not, I hope,
disparage the resurrection of our Re-
deemer, if we say that the sun doth
not dance on Easter day; and though
I would -willingly assent unto any
sympathetic exultation, yet we can-
not conceive therein more than a trop-
ical expression.” Perhaps there is no
more striking illustration than this of
the power of an inherited belief to
live on in spite of the testimony of
all experiences against it. In some
for Acts of
The Shenandoah Central Office grou
right the Misses O’Brien,
Kathryn Dalton and Rowland; lower,
Miss Leonora McCann
il Bronze Medals Awarded
Bravery in Public Service
Four Individuals and a Central Office Group of The Bell Telephone
Company of Pennsylvania so Honored in 1927
John P. Croft
Teeley, Butler, Dugan and Anna Dalton
Announcement has just been
made of the award of the Theodore
N. Vail bronze medals in Pennsyl-
vania for the year 1927. These
awards are made annually for
“conspicuous acts of public ser-
vice” which result in the saving
of a human life or the continuation
of a public service in times of
stress. The fund from which the
awards are made was created in
memory of the late Theodore N.
Vail, for many years President of
the Bell System.
The Pennsylvania Bell Tele-
phone recipients of the medals are
Froenk Mifflin Baiderston, Repair-
man, Philadelphia: Leon Bernnard
Miller, Combination Man, Shenan-
doah; John Paul Croft, Wire
Chief, Lancaster, and the traffic
force at Shenandoah. In addition,
Miss Leonora McCann, Night Op-
erator for the South Penn Tele-
phone Company at Greensboro,
was cited for her activities on the
occasion of a very serious fire that
had broken out about 500 yards
from the exchange and threatened
the entire town. She telephoned
for assistance from six adjacent
towns and from Uniontown. The
latter fire department made a rec-
ord run to Greensboro and Miss
McCann, although working in the
dark, for the electrical power was
interrupted, kept in touch with the
situation by relays of messengers
and continued
p. Upper left to
Whalen, Murphy, Armstrong,
Misses Swoyer,
Frank M. Balderston
switchboard until she was relieved
the next morning.
Mr. Balderston’s citation was for
his aid at a time when a passing
freight train struck two small
boys. One boy had a hand crushed
off at the wrist and Mr. Balderston
went to his assistance, controlled
the bleeding and directed the ap-
plication of a tourniquet. When
the boy was lifted it was found
that the other arm was terribly in-
jured, the flesh being torn from
the bone above the elbow. Mr. Bal-
derston held the bleeding artery
during the. ride te. the hospital.
while another was looking after
the second boy who had received a
fractured skull.
Leon Miller and the Shenandoah
Central Office force were both cited |
for coolness and courage at the
time of a serious fire in an adjoin-
ing building. which spread to the
exchange, . Mr. Miller discovered
the smoke and: blaze in the central
office, directed bne of his men tol
procure an extinguisher and noti-
fied the Chief Operator. He de-
vised an emergency exit for the
operators, removed the records and
returned to fight the fire until
smoke compelled him to leave. The
period of tension was from 4.50
P. M. until 6.15 P. M. Under the
leadership of the Chief Operator
and the Operator in Charge the
central office group handled the
in
to operate the
traffic without interruption
spite of the confusion. The young
women cited in the award included
Mae (Armstrong, Chief Operator;
Margaret Dugan, Operator in
Charge; Bernadette Butler, Anna
and Catherine Dalton, Anna Mur-
phy, Anna, Kathryn and Marion
O’Brien, Elizabeth Rowland, Eve-
lyn Swoyer, Isabelle Teeley and
Anna Whalen.
The medal awarded to John
Paul Croft, of Lancaster, was ac-
companied by a citation “for in-
itiative and conspicuous profi-
ciency in first aid, resulting in the
saving, of 2 human life.” On April
22d. at the. intersection of Hum-
mel Avenue and Third Street, Le-
moyne, Mr. Croft heard a scream
and after a trolley car nassed
found a woman holding in her
arms a child, both of whose legs
had been run over Realizing that
the bleeding was arterial,: he
grasped: the child at, the points of
pressure at the thighs. stopped: the
bleeding and carried her to a doec-
tor’s office at the corner. There he
assisted the doctor until compresses
and tourniquets were applied and
then took the woman and the child
to the hospital, where it was found
necessary to amputate the little
girl’s feet.
The medals will be presented
early in the future at special exer
cises to be held in Philadelphia.
places, apparently as an alternative
for giving up the belief wholly, it was
held that in order to witness these
three leaps one must look, not at the
sun itself, but at the reflection of it
in a pool of clear water. As a last
resort, to save the belief, the sun
might be made to dance. Brand could
recall that when he was a boy he had
seen “a vessel full of water set in the
open air, in which the reflected sun
seemed to dance, from the tremulous
motion of the water.” If the moun-
tain will not come to Mahomet, then
Mahomet must go to the mountain.
Among the customs handed down
through long ages and accepted by
the Church were those of Easter eggs
and the Easter tale which the preach-
er told from the pulpit, in lieu of a
sermon connecting it with Christian
reminiscences. Later still there were
in Germany dramatic shows, named
Osterspiele, executed by twelve per-
the leader, and represented Summer
beating Winter out of the land.
dances and sports prevalent at
Easter Eggs Past and Present.
The custom of associating eggs
with Easter, like mary other custems
of Christian festivals, was derived
from pagan usages. Eggs had been
associated with the worship of Ashto-
reth, of the Astarte of the Phenecians,
Isis of Egypt, Diana of the Greeks
and Romans and Eostre of the Teu-
tons worshipped in spring. Easter
is said by some to have derived its
name from the latter goddess; others
say it was named for an old pagan
spring festival in honor of the ‘sun’s
new birth in the east. Tts time co-
inciding with that of the 'Resurrec-
tion, the symbol was taken over by
the council of Nice 1,062 years ago,
and the day of celebration fixed as the
first Sunday after the paschal full
moon, the season of the Hebrew Pass-
over. The egg with its life germ, des-
tined to burst forth after the appear-
formers one of whom, apparently, was .
The |! urrection,
this | adopted it as a sign of man’s regener-
season in Germany among the youths : ation,
ance of death, became popularly as-
sociated with the general idea of res-
just as the Egyptians had
and the Jews as a symbol of
and maidens appear sometimes to | their delivery from bondage.
to have been marked with something
|
The lore of Easter eggs touches on p
of the looseness characteristic of the any phases of life in many different
floral games in Italy.
ere —— A —————
Bell Company Shows 63,241 Tele-
phones in Operation.
An increase of 63,241 telephones
over the 1,061,571 in operation on
January 1, 1927, is shown in the an-
| nual report to the board of directors
of the Bell Telephone company of
Pennsylvania, just released. Of this
total, 307,645 telephones or 29 per-
cent of all Bell telephones in the
State were being operated on the dial
basis at the end of the year.
The Bell Telephone company of
Pennsylvania, according to the re-
port, now owns 105 buildings in the
State and rents 363. One building is
now in course of construction. Dur-
ing the past year the company’s in-
vestment in land and buildings ap-
proximated $28,000,000.
An interesting feature of the report
is found in the daily volume of tele-
phone calls last year. The daily av-
erage in 1927 was 4,674,000 in ad-
dition to handling 281,400 toll calls.
The report shows that there are
now in the Bell system 228 connecting
companies serving 221,692 telephones
in addition to 12,215 telephones op-
erated on service lines owned by mu-
tual associations.
countries. Under old ecclesiastical
laws in England rent was payable in
' eggs of Easter; games were played
with them: and in the north of Eng-
land children asked for them to play
with.
The custom of dyeing Easter eggs
is centuries old. Commoners for the
most part dyed them red as a symbol
of Christ’s blood. Lords and ladies
covered theirs with gold leaf. Later
the decorations were elaborated, par-
ticularly in continental Europe.
times the eggs were merely marbled
in a varity of colors; sometimes they
bore cupids and love knots, flaming
hearts and signs of the zodiac. Again
they would be halved and the shells
hinged together with ribbon and lined
with gzilt paper and religious pictures.
Venetians used to send out gift eggs
bearing their portraits.
Tourist Map will be Ready on 10th
of May.
Revision of the tourist map pub-
lished annually by the Department of
Highways was completed recently and
the contract let for printing the first
lot of 150,000. Delivery of the first
shipment is estimated for May 10,
earlier than any year since the law
provided for free distribution of such
a map.
Some-
De Luxe Autos with Bars for French
Travel.
A fleet of ten “grand luxe” auto-
cars fitted with a bar, at which the
passengers may be served their fa-
vorite cocktails during the voyage,
will be ready to transport incoming
tourists to Paris this season, accord-
ing to plans being made by a large
agency.
The directors of the compay say
the cars will be pullman cars on
wheels with special springs for riding
qualities and will deliver passengers
in Paris eight hours after their ar-
rival ‘from. the liners.
A stop will be made at the half-
way for lunch in some picturesque
Normandy “Auberge.” A barman will
be in attendance who will act also in
the capacity of guide and will point
out the interesting sights along the
route.
“The cars will pass the Malmaison
and the Castle at St. Germain into
Paris and will drop the passengers at
their hotels.”
The management of the new bus
lines point out that the new trans-
ortation will enable passengers on
the small liners to get better service
into Paris than heretofore.
Up to the present time the railway
company would not furnish special
trains for the liners arriving with a
small number of tourists. These pas-
sengers were obliged to take “local”
trains that made a ten hour run into
Paris. With the new system the com-
pany hopes to get the unfortunate
ones into Paris as soon as those pas-
sengers off the big liners.
Plan Inspection of All Roadside
Stands.
Plans have been completed for the
spring clean-up of public eating and
drinking places throughout the Com-
monwealth. This activity, according
to Howard M. Haines, chief of the
restaurant hygiene section, State De-
partment of Health, will include a
thorough inspection of roadside eat-
ing stands located on the main and
secondary highways; to protect the
motoring public.
The health officer personnel will be
used by the department making the
actual investigations which will be di-
rected toward general cleanliness,
method of cleansing eating utensils,
protection of foodstuffs and the medi-
cal examination of food handlers.
~—Subscrihe for the Watchman.
Pennsylvania Rail-
road Stock
ERTAIN action in the interest of the
holders of Pennsylvania Railroad Stock
is to be taken at the Annual Meeting of the
Shareholders to be held April 10, 1928.
Do not neglect sending in the proxy that
you have received from the company, as a
-wo thirds vote will be necessary to effect
this action.
The First. National Bank
BELLEFONTE, PA.
Thought and
Action
o doubt you have thought many
times about making your Will but
yet have delayed it. Now is the
time to act upon that good im-
pulse. Make your Will now and appoint
the First National Bank Executor or
Trustee. :
THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK []
2 STATE COLLEGE, PA.
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