Welcome Easter

1917

Man likes to rule, not merely to wait upon nature. So it is that he has learned through the ages to look for, and love the tiny things that mark the coming of the soil's great Easter session, and give him a hint that spring is waiting for him to commit his hopes and promises to her, that she may carry them on strong and hearty to her more vigorous successor, the sunny summertime.


IN THE HOLY LAND

Easter the Accepted Time for Gathering of Pilgrims From All Countries.

Easter has always been the most popular season for pilgrims and tourists to the Holy Land. Both the Roman and Greet Catholic churches have from remote ages encouraged and promoted the pilgrimages to the Holy Land. Scattered throughout the land vast hospices have been erected for the proper care of the religious pilgrims "under the supervision of the various Catholic and Protestant faiths that are drawn to the promised land. For, as someone has said. "This, the least of all lands, is the one country toward which Christian and Jew, Romanist, Greek and Moslem turn with adoring devotion and longing desire."

About fifteen thousand have been in the habit of visiting the sacred scenes of biblical history every year, entering the country through the ancient seaport or Jaffa. The European conflict has interfered with the plans of many a devoted follower of the Christian faith who proposed this season to carry out the dreams of a lifetime. The writer recalls a band of more than 135 German Catholics whom he frequently met last summer in Jerusalem, under the guidance of Brother Sebastian, formerly stationed at the American Catholic university, Brookland, Washington, D. C. The pilgrims were taken prisoners as they sailed from Jaffa a few hours after they had left Jerusalem with songs of devotion and praise to Christ and his church upon their lips.

One of the principal sights of Easter in Jerusalem is to witness upon Holy Saturday the so-called miracle of Holy Fire. It has been denounced by Roman Catholics and devout Christians of many faiths as a grass imposture, yet year after year for hours the section of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher upon Holy Saturday is crowded with the motley multitude, mostly from Russia, who are waiting for the Holy Ghost to appear unto them in the sacred fire. The people believe that it descends from heaven that day or is brought by an angel to the Holy Sepulcher.

Early in the last century two oval holes were pierced in the walls of the Chapel of the Angels, which is a portion of the Holy Sepulcher, where Greek, Roman Catholic, Armenian and Coptic Catholics worship at the burial place, as they believe, of their Lord. After being shut up in the sanctuary for several hours, the Greek bishop passes the miraculous fire through the little openings.

Immediately the multitude that has waited for over twenty four hours without food or drink becomes a howling mob and the fanatical Russians, Armenians, Copts and Abyssinians contend like maniacs to get their tapers lighted so that in a spirit of penance they may sear their bodies with the burning taper that has been lighted by "the holy fire."

The task of the Turkish guard stationed there in the great Christian temple erected in the cradle of their faith, symbolizing in its worship the unity in diversity of the church, is virtually powerless to keep order, much less to check the rioting and fighting of professed Christians. Frequently the enacting of the ceremony results in leaving upon the floor of the basilica the mangled dead forms of many who came there to worship. Above all the strife and superstition of the various sects that worship in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the fact that they all stand for a common truth that is symbolized in the sacred spot which for fully fifteen centuries has been considered the most sacred place on the earth.