Editorial April 11, 1903 Issue

The Easter Light

Luke's references to the diversity of nationalities and tongues which was found in Jerusalem "when the day of Pentecost was fully come" (Acts, 2), is best appreciated by those who have been privileged to spend an Easter in the City of David. A motley gathering of pilgrims, representatives of every clime and Christian sect, is then surging through its narrow streets, and on Easter morning the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and its approaches are packed with an innumerable company of those who seem to have little in common save pale-faced weariness and hungry hope. Very many of them are Russian peasants who have come from every quarter of the empire, to witness the elaborate and imposing ceremonies attending the Easter festival of the Greek Church, which dominates the many factions that crowd each other contentiously at the threshold of well-nigh every sacred spot in Palestine.

Each of them has an unlighted candle or lantern of some kind, in readiness for the appearance of the holy flame. This, as believed by the credulous, leaps from out the unseen at a solemn moment in the service, and is given by the officiating Patriarch to the people, among whom it is passed from wick to wick joyful haste, to be religiously cherished and borne with ceaseless vigil to the far away homes and altars there to dispel with its sacred and suggestive glow the darkness and discouragement of unnumbered lives.

We may not all find it possible to "go up to Jerusalem," but we can all come to the "Mount of clear vision," and light our torch upon its illumined summit. We can ascend in the realization of humanity's escape from the self of material sense.

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