EASTER.

Easter, the supreme and triumphant festival of Christianity, is with us once again. Every follower of the faith worthy of the name should find his or her place in some sanctuary of worship on the coming Sunday. The Christian should attend church on this day if on no other, not for the vain display of finery, but to do solemn reverence to the mightiest festival of his holy creed. It is meet and proper that this day should be observed as it is with the most stately and elaborate ceremonial, and it is indeed fitting that our hearts should give gratified praise to the divine Christ whose triumph over death gave hope unto the world and all the people thereof.

"Science may cavil, learning make it plain

That all the sacred promises are in vain."

But science itself halts before the mystery of being, and withers miserably in the face of death. To a certain extent science leads away from religion, but that same science pursued sufficiently far leads to the brink of a gulf whose name is Chaos, beyond which dimly the weary and baffled wanderer may discern the Promised Land, but which to reach he must retrace his steps and take the path that Faith directed from the beginning.

"I am the Resurrection and the Life," said the Saviour of mankind, and in that single sentence lies the sum total of man's hope and belief in the life to come. Blot them out from the faith and the hearts of humanity, and the brute beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air are indeed better than man, because happier. But in this divine assurance the Christian rests content that when the long, cold night of death be past, the sun of an eternal day will break in splendor on his raptured soul. The materialism of the age may scoff, immature science may deride the thought of life after death, but wise old nature gives the lie to all their learnedness when from the graveyard of the winter's desolation she renews the garments to drape the ancient world in the living green of spring.

It is not, indeed, so strange a thing that we may rise from the dead and live again.

"Shall man alone, for whom all else revives,
No resurrection know? Shall man alone,

Imperial man! be sown in barren ground,

Less privileged than grain, on which he feeds?"

The poet's question is her own best answer. The wonder of the resurrection, that miracle of the crucified Christ, is no greater than the miracle of our present existence. Our present life is or should be, the eternal wonder of the thinking soul, and its proper contemplation may lead us the easier to find the perfect faith that is itself superior to death.

Casting aside entirely the divine revelation and bringing the naked world to the cold test of science, and yet its votaries dare not say that

the resurrection of the body is a material impossibility, for the very operations of chance and hazard, unbridled and undirected, may be brought in testimony against them. The physical body of man is composed of the different elements of the material world that encompasses him. In his construction the different elements, atoms, molecules, are gathered and held together. In one form they make the beast, in another the tree, and in still another the man. The endless operations of physical matter eternally repeated throughout infinite space, may so operate to bring together-either near or at some period immensely remote-the same elements under the same conditions that now conspire to make the writer, and thereby repeat the process by which he now lives and has being, to the end that he would live again the same identical personality. Of course, this is the very frenzy and climax of speculation, but given an endless succession of eternal causes, and we say that nature itself might, without the intercession of Divinity, repeat her own processes and bring to pass the miracle of her own resurrection. But this is not our creed, for Christ has said "I am the Resurrection and the Life," and on these words the Christian goes to his grave with an unfaltering faith, that even as the spring arrays herself in the beautiful flowers off the dead leaves of the last winter, so shall his own death prove but the winter to another and a fairer life, where his immortal soul shall stand robed in the garments of incorruption before the throne of One who speaks:

"Behold, Beloved! That which was promised ye has come to pass."

PADEREWSKI.

The performance at the Academy of Music last night was one to be long remembered by those who heard and understood it. It was an achievement to which mere praise adds nothing, and for which critical analysis is to the world-scattered few capable of that task.

Somewhere, somebody has said, that one man of talent is worth ten men of cleverness, and one man of genius a thousand of talent. Nothing could better substantiate the assertion than to mentally contrast the many concerts we have heard with the renditions of the great Paderewski. Paderewski is a genius, and Paderewski is worth a whole generation of talent. With him in sight mere cleverness is resolved into a remote nothingness.

It might almost be asserted that genius is necessary to appreciate the masterly interpretations of this marvelous pianist, but we may compromise by affirming that at least nothing short of talent is capable of such appreciation. An appreciative understanding would be that in which the mechanical difficulties of piano manipulation are realized from experience, added to musical intuition sufficient to recognize the great harmonic soul of the interpreter. Fortunately for the artist, be he musician, poet, painter or sculptor, the quality of genius, latent, quiescent and receptive, is somewhat widely diffused, forming a negative pole of human endeavor, and making possible the enthusiasm

with which the creations of the positive genius are received; and, for the reason that music finds a way to the soul where other art cannot, and that the act of listening entails no labor of mind upon the listener, the musician has the decided advantage of his fellow artists, and rarely fails of the appreciation his talent may merit.

The writer has never before been privileged to imbibe such a soulfeast as that of last night, a few hours of which are better than years of the commonplace, and the like of which becomes a delightful memory forever. The occasion was altogether fascinating and happy. The brilliant interior of the nobby little theatre, the notable and fashionable audience that filled it completely, the half-subdued flutter of anticipation combined with that indefinable sense of pleasureable expectation, all struck the attention with a freshness and novelty for the reason that being an infrequent visitor at the theatre, the writer was not surfeited with such scenes. The few minutes prior to the appearance of the great performer were passed in the contemplation of this pleasant and lively picture, varied occasionally with a nod to a friend here, and a kindly salutation from an acquaintance there, the whole tending to inspire a gratifying ease and rest of mind in which forgetfulness of the worries of the day, and the cares of the morrow, was happily involved.

A large concourse of people, particularly a pleasure crowd gathered within walls, has a tendency to lead some minds into a train of meditative reflection, and not infrequently it is that Melancholy chooses such a setting in which to frame her fancy and emphasize the vanity of the world, dimming for the time with her shadow all earthly pomp, and saddening life's gayest moments. So, as the eye ranged over that fashionable and joyous assemblage, contemplating the manifold moods of its many units, its various degrees of wealth, position and display, listening to the incessant monotone of its genteel conversation and guarded laughter, the thought persistently intruded despite all efforts to banish it, that every individual composing that great company now so full of life and animation, must each in turn drop silently and lonely from his or her accustomed place, until at last, of them all, not one shall be left on this side of the black curtain of death; but yet, beyond that even the spirit's eye could probe and see-perhaps occupying their very places,-another such audience, another such occasion, and mayhap-another Paderewski; illustrating the power of a single attribute of the mind to conquer death. But this melancholy reverie was suddenly dispelled by an outburst of thunderous applause that greeted a slender, complacent gentleman, who at the first careless glance looked anything but the wonder he was.

The performance opened with the somewhat unpretentious BachLiszt Fugue in A minor, a key well calculated to tune the audience to the pitch of the evening. The very first touch upon the instrument, the series of runs, and the delicate interweaving and resolving of the massed chords set at rest any doubt of the quality of the man before the ivories; no hint of hesitation there, only masterful assurance. So effortless appeared the velocity of that magic touch that it seemed at times as if the notes sprang up in anticipation. The hands ranged the

key-board as if guided by some invisible straight-edge. The skill, the capacity, the forte, the cunning of those fingers; the deft manipulation, the facility and the absolute control, might all be expressed in the one word—perfection, and with this assurance one settled down in rapt expectancy.

In Beethoven's Sonata 57, both performer and audience were thoroughly warmed up to the theme. In this delightful rendition impressions were showered in a series of exquisite modulatons comprising a blending of moods and fancies superbly executed. It was a sweet, confidential thing, a heart to heart talk between the artist and his audience; "a discourse most eloquent," in which the plaintive and appealing note dominated throughout. There were passages it would be powerless to translate, now light with the abandonment of happiness unrestrained, now sweetly sad "like snow-drops set to music, then melting into tears." It finished with a delicious blending of massed chords that left the ear aching for its very sweetness. The rendition of the marvelous Schubert-Liszt number led to the contemplation of things holy; as it advanced, expectancy stood speechless before the promise of some heavenly revelation; the deeper harmonies of the soul were set astir and one involuntarily breathed thanks for the boon of hearing. The very instrument seemed a piece vibrating in unison with some saintly symphony.

It was such music as may serve the Lord to call His children home leaving that last smile upon the placid face. There were rhapsodies that reached to the doors of Paradise pleading pardon for a sinful world; symphonies that were swallowed in their own complete sweetness; the pathos of exiles returning to native land, the naivete of childhood, the hope of youth and the melancholy of age; and now, a passage so ravishing that one felt like crying out-"I know,-I know!" A glance about the auditorium at this moment revealed the passionate admiration with which this passage was received, hearts were being led to the altar of memories, the wells of pity and sympathy were stirred and tears came to the eyes of even the worldly-wise; and as it ended, those who had understood were conscious that for once they had touched the confines of the realm of better things.

Following this, the several numbers from Chopin were given with a rich plentitude of power.. They comprised a very festival of fancy. At one moment the measured march of majestic armies, at the next the airy dances of joyous nymphs in sylvan glades. Now limped and luminous like the voice of babbling brooks through daisied fields, now like the turbulent swell of tempest-driven waves that beat on storm-tormented cliffs. Now the dignified measures of colonial dances, now rushing with amazing velocity into some delirious bizarre thing that prompted to madness. Strains that soothed the heart, followed by little bursts that quickened the pulse with their syncopated Orientalism, ending with a clash of discords resolved on the instant to a mighty harmony of heart-lingering volume.

The next number was a wonderful portrayal of passionate power in overwhelming action. Opening almost with a climax it was difficult to discern how a fit ending could be evolved; yet this was accomplished.

From the complicated perplexities of the beginning the accelerated momentum and mounting emphasis of the theme carried into the midst of tumult and a chaotic whirlwind of unbridled impulse, comprehending a supreme tragedy resolving at last into the complete triumph of good. There was conflict of forces titanic; heights impregnable under the attack of powers that knew no fear; engagements dire and disastrous in which defeat was met with renewed determination doubly determined! Now the red tide of Carnage rose to its flood; Havoc shrieked courage in the ears of Heroism; some great, some awful crisis was nearing; and then, just as Catastrophe was rushing to involve all things and Suspense could no longer bear her dreadful burden-a great deliverance-and Peace.

The scene shifted as by magic to a day of beauty in the Golden Age; nature was rejoicing at her own very lovliness; Compassion was over all things and there was no sin, no sorrow, and no suffering. The azure canopy of Heaven was pierced by peaks of mighty mountains up the vernal sides of which Joy led the way to a prospect before which Imagination stood entranced. From off the confines of an Edenic land the illimitable ocean stretched its sun-kissed billows, from which rolled upward to the ravished ear the soul-subduing symphony of the seas. And over all was spread the seal of Peace, and Hope, and larger Liberty!

With that last chord, one saw as in a dream the vision of a bowing, smiling, totally different being from the one who had so unobtrusively entered a couple of hours back. One felt like rushing to the stage to fall in gratitude and thanks before him. What majestic proportions he had now reached-from what a towering height he smiled down upon us! But even as the mind framed these thoughts, Paderewski turned and walked briskly from the stage, and with his disappearance came once more the cold reality of things. The confused tumult of disorderly movement struck jarringly upon the ear; the audience was rising from the seats, and the lights were dancing and people were pushing to get past and all were hurrying to get home, and suddenly I remembered that should do the same, whereupon, with an acute sense of insignificance, I quit the scene of the night's enchantment.