and we cannot understand how men can allow themselves to act as though it
were Bad Friday, as though they could hear the hammer nailing Christ to
the cross. A high churchman's conscience is a wonderful thing, and in
nothing is it so surprising as this, that it can allow itself to act as
though Jesus were slain and in His tomb! Has not the Lord Himself
spoken? Let us listen to Him who speaks in rebuke to those who would
darken our homes and places of worship, and cheat themselves into a
sentimentality which again sees the corpse of Jesus laid in Joseph's
grave.
"I AM HE THAT LIVETH AND WAS DEAD, AND BEHOLD I AM ALIVE FOR EVERMORE."
It cannot be pleasing to Jesus to be spoken of as though He was once more
in the hands of His enemies.
While we regret that so many people in our country should make this day
one of rioting and extravagance, we are sure that it is in some degree a
reaction from the usages of those who would have us spend the day in
sorrow. That which is unreal must in time become unsatisfactory, and
those who would compel us to live over again the sorrows of Calvary, may
drive us to football, or that which is worse! Let men once think that
the church has turned actor, and they will say, "No, we will go to the
theatre, for there the acting is better done."
EVERY DAY we should visit in spirit the cross of Jesus, for every day we
need the merit of the atonement, and the stimulus of that example of self-
forgetfulness. Let us turn away from the so-called realism which would
hang the world in black, and, at the same time let us avoid those who
would make this a day of revelry. There is a middle path, one upon which
Christ smiles, and a path we can tread any day, and thus make it GOOD--we
mean the