But His to whom all knees shall bow,

In whom all hearts rejoice;

The voice of Him who yesterday

Within that rock was Death's resistless prey.

"Why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? The living with the dead?

Take young spring flowers and deck thy brow,
For life with joy is wed:

The grave is now the grave no more;
Why fear to pass that bridal-chamber door?

Take flowers and strew them all around
The room where Jesus lay:

But softly tread; 't is hallowed ground,
And this is Easter day.

"The Lord is risen," as He said,

And thou shalt rise with Him, thy risen Head.

II

HYMN FOR EASTER.

HE tomb is empty; wouldst thou have it full ?

Still sadly clasping the unbreathing
clay;-

O weak in faith, O slow of heart and dull,
To doat on darkness, and shut out the day!

The tomb is empty; He who, three short days,
After a sorrowing life's long weariness,
Found refuge in this rocky resting-place,
Has now ascended to the throne of bliss.

Here lay the Holy One, the Christ of God,
He who for death gave death, and life for life,
Our Heavenly Kinsman, our true flesh and blood;
Victor for us on hell's dark field of strife.

This was the Bethel, where, on stony bed, While angels went and came from morn till

even,

Our truer Jacob laid His wearied head;

This was to Him the very gate of Heaven.

The Conqueror, not the conquered, He to

whom

The keys of death and of the grave belong, Crossed the cold threshold of the stranger's tomb, To spoil the spoiler and to bind the strong.

Here Death had reigned; into no tomb like this

Had man's fell foe aforetime found his way; So grand a trophy ne'er before was his,

So vast a treasure, so Divine a prey.

But now his triumph ends; the rock-barred door

Is opened wide, and the great Prisoner gone; Look round and see, upon the vacant floor

The napkin and the grave-clothes lie alone.

Yes, Death's last hope, his strongest fort and prison

Is shattered, never to be built again ; And He, the mighty Captive, He is risen, Leaving behind the gate, the bar, the chain.

Yes, He is risen who is the First and Last;

Who was and is; Who liveth and was dead;

Beyond the reach of death He now has passed, Of the one glorious Church the glorious

Head.

The tomb is empty; so, ere long, shall be

The tombs of all who in this Christ repose; They died with Him who died upon the tree, They live and rise with Him who lived and

rose.

All that was death in them is now dissolved,

For death can only what is death's destroy; And when this earth's short ages have revolved, The disimprisoned life comes forth with joy.

Their life-long battle with disease and pain,
And mortal weariness, is over now;
Youth, health, and comeliness return again,
The tear has left the cheek, the sweat the
brow.

They are not tasting death, but taking rest,
On the same holy couch where Jesus lay,
Soon to awake, all glorified and blest,

When day has broke, and shadows fled away.

EASTER CELEBRATION.

HOU, that on the first of Easters Cam'st resplendent from the tomb, Leaving all Thy linen cerements Folded in the cavern's gloom, Come with Thine- All hail

Come, our Paschal joy to be

to greet us,

Let our altar, clad in brightness,
Yield a throne of white for Thee.

This shall crown the Queen of Sundays;
Grant but this our cup runs o'er ;
Hymns that welcomed in Thine Easter
Made us long for this the more:
All the Paschal Alleluias

Craved to see the Lamb appear;
Come the hour when faith shall tell us

He is risen; He is here.