_Preached Easter-day Morning_, 1852. This is a night to be much observed unto the Lord, for bringing the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.—EXODUS xii. 42. YOU all, my friends, know what is the meaning of Easter-day—that it is the Day on which The Lord rose again from the dead. You must have seen that most of the special services for this day, the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, and the second lessons, both morning and evening, reminded you of Christ’s rising again; and so did the proper Psalms for this day, though it may seem at first sight more difficult to see what they have to do with the Lord’s rising again. Now the first lessons, both for the morning and evening services, were also meant to remind us of the very same thing, though it may seem even more difficult still, at first sight, to understand how they do so. Let us see what these two first lessons are about. The morning one was from the twelfth chapter of Exodus, and told us what the Passover was, and what it meant. The first lesson for this afternoon was the fourteenth chapter of Exodus. Surely you must remember it. Surely the most careless of you must have listened to that glorious story, how the Jews went through the Red Sea as if it had been dry land, while Pharaoh and the Egyptian army, trying to follow them, were overwhelmed in the water. Surely you cannot have heard how the poor Jews looked back from the farther shore, and hardly believed their own eyes for joy and wonder, when they saw their proud masters swept away for ever, and themselves safe and free out of the hateful land where they had been slaves for hundreds of years. You cannot surely, my friends, have heard that glorious story, and forgotten it again already. I hope not; for God knows, that tale of the Jews coming safe through the Red Sea has a deep and blessed meaning enough for you, if you could but see it. But some of you may be saying to yourselves: “No doubt it is a very noble story; and a man cannot help rejoicing at the poor Jews’ escape, and at the downfall of those cruel Egyptians. It is a pleasant thought, no doubt, that if it were but for that once, God interfered to help poor suffering creatures, and rid them of their tyrants. But what has that to do with Easter Day and Christ’s rising again?”