Thou didst take away our reproach by Thine Own. Thy Bonds have made us free. By the thorny Crown on Thy Head Thou hast gained for us the Kingly Diadem. By Thy Wounds we have been healed. By Thy descent into hell, Thou hast made us to ascend up into heaven.

Prayers.

Grant, O LORD, &c.-Collect for Easter Even.

Let Thy grace and mercy, O LORD, descend upon all souls bound in darkness and the shadow of death, and redeem them from their cruel taskmasters, and let them not perish. Let it descend on the souls of all my relations, benefactors, and friends, deliver them from the punishment they have deserved, and raise them to everlasting joy. And grant to me, merciful LORD, to see with joy Thy most glorious Body, at Thy second coming, and to rejoice at Thy Presence, with Thine elect for ever. Amen.

To Thee, O glorious and unfading Light, we offer our worship; to Thee, Who, being Incarnate, didst appear in the world, and hast descended even to Hades, and there dispersed the darkness, and showed unto the nations the light of the resurrection. Glory be to Thee, O LORD, the Giver of life. Bury in me all sinful affections, and draw my soul to Thee, by Thy mighty love. Amen.

NOTE. For other Prayers, see "Instructions and Holy Aspirations, for Afflicted Christians," and A. Acland's "Liturgia Domestica," Part ii.

EASTER DAY.

Prophecy.

THEREFORE My heart is glad, and My glory rejoiceth: My flesh also shall rest in hope. For Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption. Ps. xvi. 9, 10.

Holy Scripture.

cometh on the children of disobedience. In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.

stooping down and looking in,
saw the linen clothes lying; yet
went he not in. Then cometh
Simon Peter following him,
and went into the sepulchre,
and seeth the linen clothes lie;
and the napkin that was about
His head, not lying with the
linen clothes, but wrapped toge-
ther in a place by itself. Then
went in also that other disciple
which came first to the sepul-
chre, and he saw,
and believed.
For as yet they knew not the
Scripture, that He must rise
again from the dead. Then the
disciples went away again unto
their own home.

Reflections.

He, Who lay in death, is risen in glory. The blessed day dawns, the day that holds pre-eminence among days: the day when the Light first shone, the day on which the LORD rose triumphantly, and said, This is the day which the LORD hath made, let us rejoice and be glad therein. After the mockery and blows, after the vinegar and gall, after the wounds and torments of the Cross, after death and Hades, arose the new Flesh from its funeral, the latent Life returns. The LORD took His Body again, rose in His Own Power, and went forth from the closed and sealed Tomb. None ever awoke and rose from sleep CHRIST so easily as CHRIST arose from the dead.

went out of the closed womb of the Virgin, so He went forth from the closed sepulchre with His glorious Body.

And lo, there was a great earthquake, and the Angel of the LORD came down from heaven. As the earth was moved at His Passion in token of mourning, so was it moved at His Resurrection in sign of joy. The hearts of men must be moved by faith in the Passion, to fear and repentance, before they can be moved to the joy of His Resurrection. If the earth quaked when the LORD rose for the pardon and justification of His Elect, how will it tremble when He shall rise to punish all the guilty! How will they bear the presence of the LORD, Who could not bear the presence of His Angel?

He rose on the third day. There is mystery in the third; the emblem of the Holy TRINITY, showing the harmonious consent of the Holy TRINITY in the work. He rose on the first day of the week to renew and re-create the world on that day on which He made it. He remained dead forty hours, to give proof of the reality of His Death, and of our redemption. The Godhead, however, quitted neither His Soul in hell, nor His Body in the Tomb; and what Its power had severed, It united. Thus has He confirmed our patience, and quickened our hope; and to show us two lives in the flesh; one laborious, which we must endure, and another blessed, for which we must hope.

But though His Body rose again, It rose not as before, but glorious and spiritualized. The same in Nature, but changed in quality; the same in Essence, but changed in glory. But, O my soul, let us lay

aside all plaints of sadness, and clouds of mourning, and let us breathe the calmness of joy; and now that we have dwelt with tears upon the burial of our Redeemer, Who by His death, hath destroyed death, let us exult at His glorious Resurrection, Who, by His rising to Life again, hath restored us to everlasting life. CHRIST being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. GOD the FATHER hath clothed Him with the robe of Immortality and glory, hath put a crown of beauty on His Head, and heaped upon Him treasures of joy and delight. All therefore is full of joy, all is overflowing with delight, all is refreshed with exultation. For the Flesh of CHRIST is that most beautiful flower of the root of Jesse, which bloomed at His Nativity, for it shone forth from the Virgin as the eminent grace of the fairest flower without spot; in the Passion it faded, when it had neither comeliness nor beauty; in the Resurrection, having taken again all that was of the truth of man's nature, it bloomed again in glory, so as to be the grace of all. His most glorious Body was clothed upon with such brilliancy, that it shone brighter than the sun, giving us the pattern of our glorified bodies, when the righteous shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their FATHER; and if this be so, what is His brightness! Then did CHRIST renew His youth as an eagle's. Then did Jonah come unharmed from the belly of the whale, then was the tabernacle of David, which had fallen down, raised up again.

Great and very solemn is the Paschal solemnity, surpassing all other solemnities. The dignity of this