Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the Living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
Revelation. i. 18 (R. V.).

Let all things seen and unseen.
Their notes of gladness blend.
For Christ the Lord is risen.
Our Joy that hath no end.
St. John of Damascus, A. D. 760.

“THE time of the singing of birds is I come,” — the time when nature calls aloud to us and bids us awaken out of the deadness of personal grief, and rejoice in the new manifestation of His beauty that God is making to the world. “Behold, I am alive for evermore, and the dead live to Me.” Was not this the secret saying which the new verdure was writing all over the hills, and which the young pattering leaves and singing-birds were repeating in music? It must be well to have ears to hear and a heart that could respond with a little flutter of returning joy and thankfulness.
Annie Keary.

The return of Easter should be to the Christian life the call of a trumpet. It is the news of a great victory. It is the solution of a great perplexity. It is the assurance of a great triumph.
Frederick Temple.