especially as Christ, if He were really risen from the dead, would doubtless have shown Himself immediately in the midst of His apostles, instead of giving the preference to weak and unreliable females. Finally, our blessed Lord permitted this uncertainty to exist in the minds of the apostles, in order that by afterward allaying their doubts, and confirming their faith in His Resurrection, He would the more indubitably prove to all mankind that He had really and truly risen from the dead.

7. THE FABLE ABOUT THE SLEEPY SENTINELS

"When the women were departed, behold some of the guards came into the city and told the chief-priests all things that had been done. And they being assembled together with the ancients, taking counsel, gave a great sum of money to the soldiers, saying: Say you, His disciples came by night and stole Him away when we were asleep. And if the governor shall hear of this, we will persuade him and secure you. So they, taking the money, did as they were taught; and this word was spread among the Jews even unto this day." (St. Matt.)

It is thus that passion always renders men blind, stupid and unscrupulous. Did not these chief-priests and elders know that it were absurd to talk of sleeping witnesses, and that even the most credulous persons could not believe such a paltry excuse on the part of the drowsy sentinels? Did not these Jewish priests perceive that these very sentinels, when mocked by their companions, or questioned by their superior officers regarding this disgraceful neglect of duty, namely, of falling asleep at their posts, would, sooner or later, in order to save themselves and their reputation, reveal the whole truth, and that thus the plotters would be unmasked and exposed to the ridicule of the whole world? Did they not see that this very Christ, of whose wonderful Resurrection they had been so positively informed and assured by the sentinels, must be powerful enough to rend in pieces this tissue of falsehood, by appearing before the whole world as the risen and immortal Messias? Puny and pitiful subterfuge of these unworthy Jewish priests! How repulsive and despicable their malice! Twice they paid money for the commission of crime; first in the case of Judas' treason, and again in the corruption of the guard. Each time, too, they abstracted the money from the sacred treasury of the temple. Thus one iniquity begets

another, and the man who once allows himself to be misled by passion descends from one folly to another, from one abyss of destruction to a still lower and darker one.

8. THE CHRISTIAN FESTIVAL OF EASTER

Oh, what a good and well-founded right the Church has to rejoice and be glad on this day! It is her own Jesus, her Founder, her Judge, her Bridegroom, who has vanquished death and hell, and risen in triumph from the tomb. His triumph, therefore, is really her triumph, His resurrection from the darkness of the grave is also her resurrection from the mournful observances of Passion-time. In the glory of Easter, all that Christ had taught and wrought during the three years of His ministry secured its confirmation and explanation. If the dull cold vault of death had held Him fast in decay and corruption, as it had retained all other teachers, we would have no pledge for the truthfulness of His teachings, while all the testimony in His favor, given by the Eternal Father, would have been in vain. But to-day, by rending asunder the chains of death and rising triumphantly out of the tomb, He proves Himself incontestably to be the promised One of the prophets, the One to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth, whose word is truth and life. But there can not be the least doubt about the truth of the Resurrection of Christ. For nature proclaimed it in the midst of an earthquake; heaven declared it by the voice of the angels; virtue preached it in the words of heaven-favored women; evil testified to it through the report of the heathen sentinels and the proceedings of the Jewish priests; faith confirmed it in Peter and his companions; unbelieving doubt recognized it in St. Thomas; and, finally, the apostles and countless disciples substantiated it by their sufferings and death. Hence all Christendom rejoices; for Christ is risen not for Himself alone: He is the First among the risen; and in His Resurrection, each man who is of good will, holds a guarantee of his own future resurrection from the grave.

On this glorious festival, every Christian should unite with the Church in her joyous triumph. For on this day, death loses its terrors for the individual Christian. Before the resurrection, death was truly named death. But by the Redeemer's victory over the tomb, death has become a mere temporary sleep, a sweet and gentle slumber. Saith the Lord, "the girl is not dead, but sleepeth." Sleep implies a speedy

awakening. In speaking of the death of His beloved friend Lazarus, Jesus said to His disciples: "Lazarus, our friend, sleepeth." St. Paul, in several of his epistles, calls death a sleep, and speaks of the dead as those fallen asleep in the Lord. Nowhere is he more explicit than in his first Epistle to the Thessalonians: "And we will not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them who have slept through Jesus, will God bring with Him." (1 Thess. iv. 12, 13.)

To-day Christ burst asunder the bonds of death, and chattered the prison bars of the sepulcher, rendering the prison unavailable forevermore. When the Son of God pulls down and shatters, who will dare to build up.

Down to the hour of the Resurrection, no one had been able to compel death to relinquish its prey; but when He appeared in the dark prison, His omnipotence set the victims free. How do we designate the victory by which, on this Easter morn, the divine Conqueror acquired a right to claim the prisoners from the clutches of death? Hear St. Chrysostom: "The Saviour first chained the 'strong man armed,' and then despoiled him of those treasures, called by the prophet Isaias, 'the dark, invisible treasures.' And in truth they were enveloped in darkness until the Sun of Justice arose over them and converted their hell into heaven."

After

Isaias had good reason for terming death a treasury of darkness, for it heid very many valuable treasures. All humanity, that real treasure belonging to God, but stolen by the devil when Adam fell, was imprisoned under the empire of death. Christ has liberated our imprisoned race. first putting death in chains, He carried off His treasures, namely, the whole human family. St. Paul teaches this truth in the following words: "He hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath transported us into the kingdom of the Son of His love."

On this blessed Easter day are verified the words which our divine Lord uttered on a previous occasion, that of healing the paralytic: "For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and giveth life to whom He will, amen I say unto you, the hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself, so He hath given to the Son also to have

life in Himself. wherein all that the Son of God.

Wonder not at this; for the hour cometh are in their graves shall hear the voice of And they that have done good things shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment."

To-day we should also recall to mind the words of St. Paul: "But now Christ is risen from the dead, the first fruit of them that sleep. For by a man came death, and by man the resurrection of the dead. And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." In these words we are reminded of a very profound though very evident truth; namely, that there are really but two men in history, the first Adam and the second Adam; the latter being Christ our risen Saviour. As the first Adam was the origin of death, the second Adam is the principle of life. As it is our union, or rather our identity, with the first Adam, which has inflicted death upon us, union and identity with the second Adam, who has triumphed to-day over death, will restore us to life, to the true life of which He is Himself the principle.

Let us rejoice, then, and from the bottom of our hearts be thankful to that divine Saviour who has torn from the pallid brow of death its dismal laurels, who has stripped the grave of its terrors.

CHAPTER II

THE THIRD AND FOURTH APPEARANCES OF JESUS. HE APPEARS TO THE TWO DISCIPLES ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS, AND TO SIMON PETER

Mark xvi. 12, 13; Luke xxiv. 13-35

1. CHRIST AND THE TWO DISCIPLES ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

"AFTER that Jesus showed Himself in another shape to two of them, walking, the same day, as they were going into the country to a town called Emmaus, which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem to the west. And they were talking together of all these things that had happened.

"And it came to pass that while they talked and reasoned these things together with themselves, Jesus Himself also drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held, that they should not know Him. And He said to them: What

'Namely, Easter Sunday.

are these discourses that you hold one with another as you walk and are sad? And one of them, whose name was Cleophas, answering, said to Him: Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things that have been done in these days? And he said to them: What things? And they said: Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty in work and word before God and all the people; and how our chief-priests and princes delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we hoped that it was He that should have redeemed Israel. And now, besides all this, to-day is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also, of our company, affrighted us, who before it was light, were at the sepulcher, and not finding His body, came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who say that He is alive. And some of our people went to the sepulcher, and found it so as the women had said; but Him they found not.

"Then Jesus said to them: O foolish, and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory? And beginning from Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things that were concerning Him.'

Consider here first, the pensive and sad condition of these two disciples on their lonely journey to Emmaus, and, secondly, the tender, condescending manner in which Jesus seeks to rouse their drooping hearts. The fresh remembrance of the deep disgrace to which they had seen their beloved Master reduced, had shaken their faith in Him. Afraid to concur in the manly declaration of St. Peter: "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God," they style Jesus a prophet only. Their hopes are blasted, their charity is extinguished, and they are sad; that is to say, the happiness they used to feel in being His disciples and adherents is gone, their zeal has grown cold, their courage is departed.

2. HE IS RECOGNIZED AS HE BREAKS BREAD

"And they drew nigh to the town whither they were going; and He made as though He would go farther. But they constrained Him, saying: Stay with us, because it is toward evening, and the day is now far spent. And He went in with them. And it came to pass, whilst He was at table with them, He took bread, and blessed and brake, and gave it to them,