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- f* I t » 4 N ■ The Chronicle Strives To Be A Clean News paper, Complete, Newsy and Reliable \ l If You Don’t R^a^ The Chronicle You Don’t Get the News Volume LIV Clinton, S. C, Thursday, April 2, 1953 Number 14 EASTER WILL COME By JOSEPH R. SIZOO, In April Issue ChrisUan Herald The heart of the world is kneel ing again before’ the moving story of the resurrection. Like bells of hope—clear, resonant and harmon ious—the song of the risen Christ rings over land and sea. Easter Sunday is the one day whose sunrise is awaited by untold millions. Indeed, there are those for whom it is their wily excursion into the spiritual world. We know- now that the history of the mod em world began when angels in shimmering white announced, ‘He is not here, He is risen.” Chesterton once wrote, ‘‘A real uncertainties. We have become fussy and panicky. Despair is gnawing at the lute strings of life. Some are cynical, shrugging their shoulders and saying, “What is the stuff of eternity. If w r e could lay hold of that as surance, turn it loose in* the world, implement it in our time with courage, imagination and vision, use?” Many are already despair-; this bewildered age would have a ing of a new world before we have finished laying its foundations. To such an age comes the Easter an irretrievable disaster. Golgotha scarred their souls. It seemed like the closing of the book—the last, goodbye. There was nothing left j festival. We can look class hatred, | but to pick up the broken threads! racial bitterness and crass secular ) of life and walk back into endless ism in the face and say: You can’t | 1 win! Evil hasn’t a ghost of a ( chance. In the long run, wrongdo-1 ing is alway^a dead-end street. ; Christ is still the most omnipo- new birth of freedom. The ser mon on the Mount will outlast a blood purge. The cross will outwit the hammer and sickle. Jesus Christ will outlive Karl Marx. Not Pontius Pilate, but Jesus speaks the last word. A man is a poor Christian who does not feel the steadying power of this story in his pilgrimage through the years. Take heart. This is Easter. Jesus Christ triumphs. God is still Christ; love loneliness. Betrayed by those He loved, scourged by those He pitied and, with a scarlet camp mantle flung contemptously across His shoulders, crowned with a crown of thorns, He carried His cross to an i tent thing in th^ world. Issues m outlaw’s grave. The setting sun! which God has a/stake may be de- held no vistas.' He who had been;ferred and postponed, but they born in a borrowed manker rode cannot be defeated. History is to triumph on a borrowed beast coming out somewhere. History Ch'nsUar who 0n Sl 1 e W vr ,: ;ho"ld‘d“o. and was laid away in a botfowed, belongs to God. I am Witting to Chnstian-^wfto-Deneves snouj^ oo Their last act of devotion' believe that many things happen- two things: dance, out of the sheer ^ ^ prepare and anoint His body in g in this wor i d t0 day can defeat for burial. If they had thought He would rise again they would have brought Him garlands and fruit. Not a single disciple believ ed He would rise again. Then something happened. Out! ™‘ov™r, social worker, of the sepulchral glow of the :,ar~ lMdCT . ever y suf,erer sense of joy; and fight, out of the sheer sense of victory.’ Why is that so? What makes this day so profoundly significant for our time? What does it say to us in this hour of tension and bewilder ment? First, Easter is the story of a dis covery—the discovery that Christ lives. It has taken one deep fear out of lif^—the fear of death. Have you ever thought how visibly dis appointed the disciples must have r been with the events of those last few days? Calvary was to them SANTA CLAUS IN REVERSE A burglar makes a poor Santa Claus. Instead of bringing gifts, he takes your valuables. Foil him with Residence Burglary and Outside Theft Insur ance. S. W. Sumerel AETNA-IZER Tele. 80 Jacobs Bldg. Youll find the answers to "Who sells W, "Where are they located?" and to many other questions in the NEW Classified Section of your next Telephone Directory. cdu*?/ Southern Bell Telephoto and Telegraph Company den of the Armathean came the glo rious song, “He Is Risen.” They were not alone. He had walked back into their lives. Death had no changed Him. His love had not ended: His compassion had not folded up; His forgiveness had not shriveled. He knew Mary by her voice, Peter by his faults and Thomas by his doubts. In the heart of the Easter story stands the deathless assurance that Christ lives, making Himself avail able to our needs. We are not alone. We do not make our way alone through this world. As sure ly as He walked the dusty roads of Palestine, so surely He accompan ies us on evejy highway. As sure ly as He gave sight to the blind and healing to the sick, so surely does He open our His will. What holds the universe together is not chemistry, but spiri tuality—not blind chance, but eter nal purpose. The fundamental question which po- for truth, must ask is: Is it worth while? r Will anything come of it? On Easter you hear the ageless assurance: There is no evil power ful enough, nor hate bitter enough to keep it in the grave. It may be postponed but not conpuered: de ferred, but not defeated; defaced, but not effaced. To the man who thinks, life is a comedy; to the man who feels, life is a tragedy; but to the mart who belives, Itfe-is >a vic tory. The moral ventures you make, the costly loyalties you en dure, the unrequited love you suf fer, the holy dream are not in vain. Greed and hate are only illusions. < At best they are like rockets dis-! playing fantastic cascades of stars for the moment. But they soon fade and burn up. 1 Spires outlast spears; altars are dom, truth, love, belong to The ! tual world and heal the hurts of more i as ting than armaments; free life. Christ is not a memory, but- Presence; He is not a figure, in time, but a timeless figure. When doors close and life tumbles in, when the lamps go out and the lights begin j to flicker, when hope no longer' sees a star and love no longer hears i the rustling of the leaves, when j horizons lose their crimson | skies become leaden—then comes a | voice saying, ‘Trust Me: You rae | not alone; be not afraid; I live.” j And because He lives we, too, | shall live. In answer to the age j old question, “If a man die, shall he ; live again?” Easter declares, “As | in Aram all die, so in Christ shall; all be made alive.” The souls of | the righteous are in the hands of. God. No torment shall touch them.; Over the broken waves of life comes the golden glow: “He that believeth in Me though he were dead, yet shall he live. • Whoso ever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.” We shall -see them again in that better country where we never grow old, never know pain and where God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes. Easter is more than the discov ery that Christ lives. It is the dis covery that Christ triumphs. It takes out of life not simply the fear of death, but the fear of defeat. It holds before us the guarantee of victorious living. If Christianity had ended in a cross we should never have heard, of it. If it offered nothing beyond Calvary it would be a religion of despair. If Christ had died and remained in a grave, what Mephis- topheles said to Faust would be true: ‘The ultimate value of every thing is nothing.” Easter changed a martyrdom into a triumph; it turned a disaster into a coronation. On . Good Friday the world said “No.” On Easter Sunday God said, ‘Yes.” There is no grave deep enough, no seal im- j posing enough, no guard powerful enough, no stone heavy enough, “to keep Him in the grave. The world learned for the first time that hate, violence and greed are not the most potent forces on earth. Cal vary does not settle the issue, nor close the book. Pontius Pilate does not speak the last word. The political double-crossers who scourged Him did not speak the last word: they only wrote them selves into oblivion. The crafty men who tried to push Him out of the world did not speak the last word; they only became subjects of laughter. The traitors who sold Him short did not speak the last word; they only dug their own graves. That is why Easter is the esence of everything that makes life worth living . It means that truth is tnore powerful than error; that principle is more eternal than expedience; that giving is more di vine than getting; that sharing is more lasting than saving. That needs saying today. We live in a badly frightened world. A kind of irrationality rests upon our world. Issues seem confused. The age is full of misgivings, anxieties and SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE “The Y'aper Everybody Reads” FROM TERMITE DAMAGE Coll *odoy . we II iruorct your property & S es‘. ate. « D * V EFIRD'S EXTERMINATING CO. Dial 8341 Spartanburg, S. C. POT PLANTS Easter Calls For FLOWERS LOVELY CORSAGES • EASTER LILIES • HYDRANGEAS • GERANIUMS • AZALEAS • CHRYSANTHEMTS • AFRICAN VIOLETS • GLOXINIAS • TULIPS • CALLA LILIES • POTTED ROSES ORCHIDS AH Colors $3.50 to $12.50 • GARDENIAS • ROSES • CARNATIONS •VANDAS AND OTHERS. THE PERFECT WAY to express your sentiment. Share the joy of Easter with your family, friends and loved ones by sending flowers — from our wide selection. 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