The Easter Sermon of The Flowers

Easter Sermon of The Flowers

by Peter McArthur.

The Easter sermon of the flowers

Is best of all to know.

They hear the preaching of the showers

That speak the one word "Grow!"

They waited for that glad command

Through wintry storm and strife,

And now throughout the rousing 

land

They stir and wake to life.

I, too, have watched and waited

long,

for I was fain to learn

The word that wakes the birds to song

When life and joy return.

I, too, must grow and feel my heart

O'erflow with prayer and praise:

With birds and flowers must take my

part

And hymn the Easter days.

From The Cross to The Crown

 

Hark to the Master's voice so sweetly calling,

"Come, follow Me

O'er the dim moorland, where the dews are falling,

O'er hill and lees

Forsake for Me thy dear familiar places,

Thy father's shelter'd house, thy cherished beding placed,

Out in the stormy night,

Far from the warmth and light.

I have a cross for thee.

Arise! for in the East the dawn is breaking,

And come away,

My burden on thy shoulders meekly taking,

Nor even stay

Kiss once more through blinding tears they dearest,

O' clasp with bleeding, breaking heart thy nearest,

Hands must unloose their hold.

Earth's joys grow faint and cold--

I will be all to thee.

Have I not trod life's bitter road before thee

With bleeding feet,

Bearing alone the Cross that shineth oer thee

With message sweet?

For thy sake have I wander'd faint and weary

Thro crowed city ways and deserts dreary,

High on the mountain bare

Thro' the long nights of prayer

Have I not thought of thee?

When night is darkest and the way seems longest

Press onward still,

Striving in thickest fight when foes are strongest

To do My will.

Look not behind thee to thy soul's undoings

Urge on thy footsteps faint, yet still pursuing.

When clouds above thee dose

Whisper to me thy woes--

Am I not near to thee?

"Tis but a little while and then the dawing

When I will come

In the bright sunrise of eternal morning

To call thee home.

If thou hast follow'd me through gloom and sadness

Shall I not comfort thee with joy and gladness?

When life's dark days are o'er

There on the shining shore

I have a Crown for thee."

by George Byng

Anna's Easter Dream by Louise Cooper

When little Anna went to sleep

Upon the eve of Easter day

She dreamed of candied eggs a heap

And frisky, brisky lambs at play.

Plump Humpty Dumpty, with a bow,

Stood smiling on the counterpane,

And Ducky Daddles, wondering how,

Was at the foot just to explain.

Three baby ducks in noisy play,

Who never thought to pardon beg.

Cried "Quack, quack, quack for Easter day!"

And then tobogganed down an egg.

A rooster and a hen on nest

Exclaimed, "Please put us in the rhyme,

for we are doing our level best

In working up the Easter time!"

five bunnies, each with eyes of pink

And ears so long they flapped like wings,

Said, "We are not considered bad.

And, don't forget, we're little too."

five sparrows, proud of their wee size--

They never grow too broad or tall--

Chirped, "We should surely win a prize,

for we are littlest of them all."

Two tiny men from Titakum,

With good strong arm and sturdy leg,

Held steady as a block o fgum

A large and glowing rainbow egg:

There, standing on it like a queen.

With rosy lips and roguish eye.

In pink and gold and bronze and green,

The girly, curly butterfly.

by Louise Cooper

Comforting Easter Bells

Comforting Easter Bells

Sweet is the comfort that the chimes

Are throbbing down upon the ear

In pulsing beat of wordless rhymes--

Life and death, human breath,

Joy and pain, naught is vain,

For Christ is risen! Heaven is near!

If sorrows come, they also go:

If joys must fly, they reappear.

Still, gladsome bells, swing to and fro--

Life and death, human breath,

Joy and pain, naught is vain,

For Christ is risen! Heaven is near!

Then ring for joy, ye Easter bells,

That love divine has conquered fear!

Immortal hope your rhythm tells--

Life and death, human breath,

Joy and pain, naught is vain,

For Christ is risen! Heaven is near!

            by Helen Evertson Smith.            

Immortality

Jesus with outstretched arms.

      The miracle of the rejuvenating spring had been witnessed by many thousand generations before men dared claim as a certainty the great hope which its parable indicated--before human soul dared boldly believe that it was itself as deathless as the germ of slumbering over winter in the buried seed.

      Since the Conqueror of Death, by the triumph which the world is to-day celebrating, certified the validity of that belief, the season in which Nature annually illustrates the appointed victory of life over death has become the most significant of all festivals. At Christmas the world is glad as children are glad--with the unconsidered glee of youth. At Eastertide it rejoices as men rejoice in the presence of deliverance from fear--with recollected voices and bosoms girt with thankfulness.

      The austerity of the earth and sky prepares to yield to the conquering sweetness of spring. Already the winds caress with an unfamiliar softness, the earth beguiles with a dimly green prophecy of vernal liveliness. Nature is timidly yearning heavenward. But the hymn of awakening life is not mere telluric nor aerial--it sings out in the souls of men who have considered the mystery of life and its persistency under the sod and through the chill of winter's apparent death. To such Easter Day--set in the midst of a season which witnesses as far as anything earthly can witness, to the verity of a spiritual fact; coinciding with the ancient festivals which celebrated the immemorial human hope of immortality, dimly adumbrated in the dramaturgy of Greek, Scandinavian and Aryau; but consecrated newly to the rising from the tomb of the Man of Galilee--to such Easter Day stands for the chiefest affirmation or religion, the most consoling and heartening thought that mind and heart are justified in entertaining. That life does not shudder and perish at the grave; that beyond it somewhere in the warmth of God's sun and in the benignity of His nearer presence human spirits shall still have part in the joy of life refined, etherealized, made holy--neither philosophy nor religion has another teaching so solemnly precious as this.

• Is the desire for immortality a universal one, or must we regard it as one that appeals only to the enlightened or spiritualized heart?
• His Name Is Jesus

Death And Immortality. 

by George Gascoigne.

The dreadful night darksomnesse

Had overspread the light,

And sluggish sleep with drowsinesse

Had overprest our might:

A glass wherein you may behold

Each storm that stops our breath,

One bed, the grave, our clothes like mould

And sleep like dreadful death.

Yet as this deadly night did last

But for a little space,

And heavenly day, now night is past,

Doth show his pleasant face;

So must we hope to see God's face

At last in heaven on high,

When we have changed this mortal place

For immortality.

He Will Arise!

Easter Day

Oh, day of days! Shall hearts

set free

No "minstrel rapture" find for thee?

Thou art the sun of other days.

They shine by giving back thy rays.

Enthroned in thy sovereign sphere,

Thou shedd'st the light on all the

year.

Sundays by thee more glorious break,

An Easter day in every week.

And week days, following in their

train,

The fullness of thy blessing gain

Till all, both resting and employ,

Be one Lord's day of holy joy.

Then wake, my soul, to high desires,

And earlier light thine altar fires.

The world some hours is on her way,

Nor thinks on thee, thou blessed day.

Or, if she thinks, it is in scorn.

The vernal light of Easter morn

To her dark gaze no brighter seems

Than reason's or the law's pale

beams.

"Where is your Lord?" she scornful

asks.

"Where is his hire? We know his

tasks.

Sons of a king ye boast to be.

Let us your crowns and treasures

see."

We in the words of truth reply

(An angel brought them from the

sky):

"Our crown, our treasure, is not

here.

'Tis stored above the highest sphere.

"Methinks your wisdom guides amiss

To seek on earth a Christian's bliss.

We watch not now the lifeless stone.

Our only Lord is risen and gone."

Yet even the lifeless stone is dear

For thoughts of him who late lay

here,

And the base world, now Christ hath 

died,

Ennobled is the glorified.

No more a charnel house, to fence

The relics of lost innocence,

A vault of ruin and decay--

The imprisoning stone is rolled

away.

'Tis now a cell, where angels use

To  come and go with heavenly news

And in the ears of mourners say,

"Come, see the place where Jesus

lay,"

'Tis now a fane, where love can find 

Christ everywhere embalmed and shrined--

Aye gathering up memorials sweet

Where'er she sets her duteous feet.

by John Keble.

The Lord Is Risen Indeed by Cora Dolson

Come, listen to

the anthem that 

we sing!

Listen, and let your 

doubts take wing,

take wing.

Listen, and let your 

hearts be comforted, 

for Christ, your

Lord is risen from

the dead.

That tomb of stone no

longer is his prison.

The door is open, and

your Lord is risen.

by Cora A. Matson-Dolson

He Is Arisen

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