translated us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.
He is the true Adonai, the Lord for whose death though we may mourn
upon Good Friday, yet we rejoice this day for his resurrection. He
is the true Baldur, the God of light and life, who, though he died by
treachery, and descended into hell, yet needed not, to deliver him,
the tears of all creation, of men or angels, or that any god should
unlock for him the gates of death; for he rose by his own eternal
spirit of light, and saith, 'I am he that was dead, and behold I am
alive for evermore. Amen. And I have the keys of death and hell.'

And now we may see, it seems to me, what the text has to do with
Easter-day. To my mind our Lord is using here the same parable which
St. Paul preaches in his famous chapter which we read in the Burial
Service. Be not anxious, says our Lord, for your life. Is not the
life more than meat? There is an eternal life which depends not on
earthly food, but on the will and word of God your Father; and that
life in you will conquer death. Behold the birds of the air, which
sow not, nor reap, nor gather into barns, to provide against the
winter's need. But do they starve and die? Does not God guide them
far away into foreign climes, and feed them there by his providence,
and bring them back again in spring, as things alive from the dead?
And can he not feed us (if it be his will) with a bread which comes
down from heaven, and with every word which proceedeth out of the
mouth of God?

Consider, again, the lilies of the field. We must take our Lord's
words exactly. He is speaking of the lilies, the bulbous plants
which spring into flower in countless thousands every spring, over
the downs of Eastern lands. All the winter they are dead, unsightly
roots, hidden in the earth. What can come of them? But no sooner