THE K I NG ' S B U S I N E S S
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it is all we ask. The body in which we die will be the same body in which we were born,—everybody admits that, though it is certainly not the same as in all its particles; nay, every particle may have been exchanged, and yet it will remain the same. So the body in which we rise will be the same body in which we die; it will be greatly changed, but these changes will not be such as to affect its identity. . Now, instead of mentioning this statement in order to make the doc trine appear more easy of belief, I assure you that if I saw it taught in Scripture that every fragment of bone, flesh, muscle, and sinew which we put into the ground would rise again, I should believ^ it with the same ease as I now accept the doctrine of the ident ity of the body in the manner just stated.-—C. H. Spurgeon. WOMEN AND CIGARETTES The London Tit-Bits says: “Before the outbreak of war, hundreds of women in England who found consolation in the weed smoked from fifteen to twenty cigarettes a week. But not so now, for the smoking craze has made such headway that there are thousands or women at the present time who think nothing of smoking one hundred to one hundred and fifty cigarettes a week.” RIGHT WAN TO FALL “One of the saints of a past genera tion remarked that the important thing about a fall was whether you fell for ward or backward. He said that if a Christian gained his length every time he fell, he would win his race in the end. But the man who allows himself to become discouraged by his falls is losing his race.”
EASTER HY do people celebrate the Easter season with eggs and rabbits and Easter lilies and new clothes? What connection have eggs or rabbits or lilies or new clothes with the
resurrection of Christ? And why do we, call the day Easter; what has the east to do with it? And why do we observe Easter, or the day of Christ’s rising, on a movable date when we observe Christmas, the day of his birth, on a fixed date? Why in one year do we celebrate Christ’s resurrection 88 days after his birth day, and in another year celebrate it 125 days after the same date? The answer to all these things is that we are obeying custom; we do these things because that is the accepted and ap proved practice and we don’t stop to analyze the reasons. The origin of Easter was oriental, and we really have no Christian name for the day. “Easter” is pagan—-a tri bute to the goddess of the east or of spring, and “paas” and “paschal” refer to the Hebrew passover. The association of eggs with Easter comes from the ancient Persians, who regarded the egg as sacred because it contained the germ of life and was therefore a symbol of re-creation. The rabbit was also worshipped in the orient because of its fecundity. In short anything connected with procrea tion or the re-birth or reproduction of life was held sacred. The lily was sacred because it did not grow as ordin ary plants do but it came from a bulb, in which the elements of life were stored up. The sun was also worshipped, as the agency which brought things into life, and its rising in the east, marking the birth of a new day, was correlated with the re-birth of the soul into the future life. The early church leaders found
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