Page:SermonsFromTheLatins.djvu/266

 impressions have  they  left? Alas! I fear,  we  mourned in Lent  as  children  do,  not  knowing  why,  but  weeping just  because  the  Church,  our  Mother,  wept. Our Easter joy,  I  fear,  is  woefully  conventional,  inspired perhaps by  the  genial  breath  of  spring,  or  the  consciousness that  fasting  and  sackcloth  have  given  way to feasting  and  the  respectability  of  brand-new clothes, Easter  rejoicings,  my  Brethren,  should  be more  thoughtful,  more  rational. They should  be founded  on  the  deep-laid  truths  that  lie  beneath  it all,  and  on  the  vast  field  of  possibilities  the  Resurrection opens  up  to  Christians. " For,"  says  St. Paul,  "  if  Christ  be  risen  from  the  dead,  therefore  we also  shall  rise  again;  therefore  we  are  true  witnesses of  God;  therefore  our  preaching  is  true  and  our faith  divine;  therefore  the  penitent's  sins  are  forgiven; therefore  they  who  have  died  in  the  Lord have  not  perished;  therefore  we  shall  all  rise  again  in the  resurrection  at  the  last  day."

Brethren, Christ's  Resurrection  is  the  fundamental truth of  Christianity. Prove to  me  that  Christ  arose not, and  in  a  moment  I  am  an  infidel;  prove  to  me that  Christ  arose,  and  in  that  instant  I  conceive  a faith  broad  enough  to  accept  all  the  teachings  of Christ  and  Christ's  Church;  a  hope  that  stops  not short of  everlasting  life  for  my  soul  and  for  my  body too, and  a  charity  for  God  and  my  fellowman  which, God willing,  will  procure  me  a  happy  and  a  blessed immortality. For if  Christ  rose  again,  then  beyond all peradventure,  He  was  God,  and  every  word  He uttered  and  every  truth  taught  by  the  one  true