Editorial May 21, 1904 Issue

A Cause for Joy

Among the many interesting letters to our Leader which we are permitted to read in the Sentinel, a recent one from abroad tells of a custom unfamiliar to this country; viz., the wearing of mourning and the display of other manifestations of grief on Good Friday.

If a stranger to the Christian religion were to ask one of these sable clad mourners, what was the occasion of his apparent woe, the answer would doubtless be, that it was in commemoration of a God-like man who had suffered a cruel and ignominious death nearly two thousand years ago. The stranger might then ask why such an one had met with such a fate, and the answer would depend largely upon the religious bias of the respondent. If the questioner were told that Jesus had died to propitiate an offended Deity, he would recognize an almost world-wide belief in the necessity of human sacrifice. If, however, he were directed to the gospel story, he would learn from it that Christ Jesus had appeared in Palestine at a time when the people were looking for a long-expected Messiah; that his birth was lowly and obscure; that his teaching and practice were so entirely at varience with popular expectations as to arouse the bitterest opposition on the part of the religious teachers of the nation, and that he steadily refused to make any concessions to the prevailing opinions as to the place and function of the Messiah, but pursued an undeviating course, declaring the truth and proving it to be the only healing and saving power. He would also find that the common people gladly heard and accepted this message at first, and then, sad to tell, they were influenced by the calumnies of his unrelenting foes, until only a few faithful friends stood by him at the closing scenes of that most cruel of all earth's tragedies.

Having learned that, in process of time, the name of Jesus of Nazareth came to be loved and honored above all others, the stranger might ask if the truth for which Jesus contended had replaced the material beliefs which pursued his steps with such malignity; if the kingdom which he sought to establish, with its "righteousness and peace and joy," was now to be found; if all his followers now knew that "the flesh profiteth nothing," that it is "the spirit that quickeneth," and if this teaching now resulted in the healing of "all manner of sickness" as in the Master's day.

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