Jerusalem—First Day of the week.

My Dear Father:

How shall I make known to you, in words, the marvelous, joyous, happy, happy, and most wonderful news which I have to tell! My heart beats, my hand trembles with rapture, while a sense of profound awe impresses all my soul! Jesus is alive! Jesus has risen from the dead! Jesus has proved himself to be the Son of God!

I can scarcely hold my pen for joy and wonder, or collect my thoughts, for very amazement, at what has transpired.

Upon hearing my name called by Mary, and others, in eager, joy-trembling tones, I hastened to go down. On reaching the staircase I met my cousin ascending, almost flying. Wonder, love, and happiness inexpressible, beamed from her beautiful countenance. Meeting me, she threw her arms about my neck and essayed to utter something! But her heart was too full, and, bursting into sobs, she wept convulsively upon my bosom, in an ecstasy of delirious joy.

Amazed and confounded, not knowing what had happened, I held her to my heart, and tried to soothe her emotion.

"What—oh, what hath happened? Speak, dear Mary!" I asked, unable to wait longer in suspense.

She raised her head, and through her tears and smiles, at length said, brokenly:

"He—he—is—risen—oh, he is risen from the tomb!"

"Who?" I cried, half believing, yet doubting.

"The Lord! Our Mighty Master—Jesus—the very Son of God, the Blessed! He is alive, Adina! Come—delay not! I have flown into the city to tell thee, and Mary has told Peter and John, whom she met at the door, and who, doubting, as thou hast done, have run to see if these things be so. They will find the sepulchre empty! Haste to go with us!"

While, overwhelmed with wonder, and trembling with joy, I was preparing to accompany her, Martha appeared, her face radiant with celestial happiness.

"You have heard the tidings of great joy, O Adina?"

"Can they be true, Martha?" I asked, earnestly.

"Yes, for I have seen him walking, heard his voice, and touched him! You, also, shall see him, for he hath sent us to tell his disciples!"

I wept for joy!

At the gateway we met Mary of Bethany, and we three now hastened together towards the garden of Joseph, I wishing my feet wings, that I might reach the sepulchre sooner, fearing that the vision of Jesus would be vanished ere I arrived. As we were going out of the gate, we were met by four or five Roman soldiers, who, with aspects stamped with fear, were running past us into the city.

"What means this flight and terror, men?" cried the captain of the gate. "You fly as if you were in full retreat from an enemy. Speak, Marius! You seem to have your senses!" he demanded of the youngest of the soldiers, an officer under a centurion.

We paused to hear what he said.

"Per Dian, captain! we have been terrified beyond measure," answered the soldier. "My heart beats yet, as if it were an alarum-drum. You see, we were a part of the guard left in charge of the sepulchre of this Jewish Prophet, crucified three days ago. Before dawn this morning, as I was pacing to and fro before the tomb, there suddenly shone round about us a light, like a descending meteor, accompanied by a rushing as if of a legion of wings. The men started to their feet in amazement! On looking about us I saw a dazzling form, in the mid-heavens, with broad wings of gold, sparkling with myriads of stars, every feather a star, and clad in raiment white and gleaming as the summer's lightning. This terrible presence, like that of one of the Dii Immortales, made us fear exceedingly, beyond any terror we had before experienced. But when we saw this mighty being descend straight towards the tomb, and beheld the resplendent majesty of his celestial visage, which blinded us, our hearts failed within us. The angel, or god, alighted amid a blaze of radiance at the door of the sepulchre; and as his foot touched the earth it trembled, as if with a great earthquake. The soldiers shook with terror, and fell to the ground, before his presence, as dead men. I stood, unable to move, frozen by fear to a statue. He touched the great stone door with one of his fingers, and it rolled outward at his feet, as if a catapult had struck it, and, like Jove taking his throne, he sat upon it!

"But one thing more," continued the soldier, "was wanting to fill my cup of terror to the full. And it followed. I saw the crucified Prophet rise up from the slab on which he was laid, and stand upon his feet, and walk forth alive, with the tread of some mighty conqueror! The celestial being, so terrible in his majestic splendor, veiled his face with his wings before his presence, and prostrated himself at his feet, as if in homage to one greater than himself!

"I saw no more, but fell, insensible with terror, to the earth. When, at length, I came to myself, the tomb was filled with dazzling forms of resplendent beauty; the air rang with music, such as mortals never before heard; and I fled, pursued by my fears, the rest of the soldiers rising and following me, each man fearing to look back, but bewildered we lost our way."

The soldiers hurried forward into the city; while, confirmed now in the certainty that Jesus was risen, I hastened, with Martha and Mary, in the direction of the garden.

"How and where did you behold him, Mary?" I interrogated, as we drew near to the steep path leading to the gate of Joseph's garden.

"When we reached the tomb, with our spices and precious ointments, to embalm the body, we found it open, and the soldiers, who had guarded it, lying about upon the ground like dead men. Upon the stone sat the archangel, but the resplendent light of his apparel and countenance was so tempered to our eyes, that, although we believed it was an angel, we were not terrified, for his looks were serene, and the aspect of his face divinely beautiful, combined with a terrible and indescribable majesty. We shook with fear, and stood still, unable to move, gazing on him in silent expectation.

"'Fear not,' said he in a voice that seemed to fill the air about us with undulating music, 'fear not, daughters of Abraham. I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified! He is not here, but is risen, as he foretold. Lo! see the place where the Lord of Life, and Conqueror of Death, hath lain!'

"We then timidly approached, and looked in, and saw the sepulchre empty; but a soft light filled the whole place.

"'Go and tell his disciples that the Lord is risen,' added the angel, 'and that he will go before them into Galilee. There shall they see him not many days hence!'

"When the angel had thus spoken to us," continued Mary, "we departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy, and ran to go into the city, to bring his disciples word, according to the command of the angel. But I had not advanced so far as the gate of the garden, being behind the rest, when I beheld Jesus himself standing in my path. I stopped, between terror and joy.

"'All hail! daughter of Israel,' he said. 'Be not afraid. I am living, that was dead! Go, Mary, and tell my mother and my brethren, and Peter, and John, and Lazarus, that I am risen, and that I have spoken with you. Be not afraid! I am the resurrection and the life!'

"I then cast myself at his feet, and worshiped him with awe; and when I looked up, he was gone.

"The others did not see him. We now continued on to the city, as if we had wings. But see! we are now at the gate of the garden," added Mary of Bethany, in a low tone of awe. "He must be near us."

But we approached the tomb without seeing any man, having arrived before Peter and John, who had been delayed some time at the Jaffa gate. We, therefore, found no one at the sepulchre. It was open, and empty. The stone in front, on which the archangel sat, was vacant. As we drew near, a bright light suddenly shone out from the tomb; and upon going higher I beheld two angels, clothed in white robes, and with countenances of divine radiance, seated, one at the head and the other at the foot of the slab of marble, on which the body of Jesus had lain.

"Be not afraid, daughters of Jerusalem," said one of the angels, speaking to us in the Hebrew tongue; "He whom ye seek, liveth! He is risen from the tomb, which could not hold him but through his consent; for Jesus is Lord of Life, and Victor over Death and Hell, for evermore! Go your way, and tell his disciples that he awaits them by the seaside."

The angels then vanished from our sight; and at the same moment John and Peter came running, and seeing the stone rolled away, John stooped down, and looked in, and said that he saw the linen clothes in which the body of Jesus had been wrapped, lying folded together, and also the napkin which had been bound about his head. Peter, now coming up, breathless with eagerness and haste, no sooner saw the tomb open, than he went boldly in, and carefully examined all for himself. When we made known to them what the angels had said to us, that Jesus would go before and meet them in Galilee, they rejoiced greatly, and shortly afterwards departed, to hasten into Galilee. I also returned with them, to convey the news to Mary, the mother of Jesus, who had scarcely left her couch, in her great sorrow, since the day of the crucifixion. Mary of Bethany, however, remained, lingering near the tomb, hoping that Jesus had not yet left the garden, and that she might once more behold him.

Seated upon the steps of the tomb, weeping for joy at his resurrection, and wishing once more to behold him, she heard a footstep behind her, and, turning round, saw a man standing near her. It was Jesus himself, and kneeling, she was about to clasp his feet, when he said to her:

"Touch me not, Mary. I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go and tell Lazarus, and my brethren, and my mother, that I ascend ere many days, unto my Father and your Father, and unto my God and your God."

Jesus then vanished out of her sight; and she came and told all these things to us, and to the disciples.

But what pen can describe, my dear father, the amazement and consternation of Caiaphas, and the chief priests, and the rest of his enemies!

Caiaphas, hearing the uproar of the soldiers, sprang from his couch to inquire the cause, and on being assured by his servants that "Jesus had burst his tomb and risen alive from the dead!" he quaked, and became deadly pale.

When Pilate received the account from the centurion of the guard, he said:

"We have crucified a god, as I believed! Henceforth I am accursed!" and leaving his Hall of Judgment, he went and shut himself up in his own room, which he has not since left.

Caiaphas and the chief priests and scribes, in the meanwhile assembled together in full Sanhedrim, and hearing the testimony of the centurion, were convinced that the fact could not be concealed of Jesus' resurrection.

"Who has seen him alive?" demanded the High Priest.

"I have seen him, my lord," answered the centurion. "I saw his pierced feet and hands as he walked past me; and the morning breeze blew aside his mantle and exposed to my eyes the open wound made by the spear of my soldier, Philippus. He was alive, and in full strength of limb!"

"Thou sawest a vision, Roman!" answered Caiaphas. "Come aside with us, and let us talk with thee."

In a few minutes afterwards the centurion left the court of the High Priest's palace, followed by a Gibeonite slave, bearing after him a vase of Persian gold. He has told every one since, that he must have seen a spirit, for "the disciples of Jesus came by night and stole away the body of their master, while they slept, overcome with watching." His soldiers have also been bribed to tell the same tale!

Such is the false version that now goes about the city, my dear father; but there are few that give it credence, even of our enemies. As Æmilius, who is filled with great joy at the resurrection of Jesus, to-day very justly says:

"If these soldiers slept on guard, they merited death therefor, by the military laws of the empire. If, while sleeping, their charge—the dead body of Jesus—was taken away, they deserve death for failing to prevent it. Why then are they not placed under arrest by Pilate's orders, if this story be true? Because Pilate well knows that it is not true! He knows, because he has privately examined many of the soldiers, that Jesus did burst his tomb, and that angels rolled away the stone without breaking his seals, which could not have been left unmarred but by a miracle. He knows that Jesus has arisen—for it is believed that he has also beheld him—at least such is the rumor at the Pretorium. It was the form of Jesus visible before him, doubtless, that drove him in such amazement from his Hall to his secret chamber; for it was remarked that he started, turned deadly pale, and essayed to address the invisible space before him, as if he saw a spirit."

Besides the facts which I have stated, is the increasing testimony of the thousands who, to-day, have gone out of the city to see the sepulchre where He was laid. They say, both enemies of Jesus as well as our friends, that it was impossible for the door to have been opened by any human being, not by Pilate himself, without marring the seals. They also assert that, to remove the stone by night, which would require four men, and to bear forth the body, would have been impossible, if the guard had been present; and if they had been asleep, they must have been awakened with the heavy noise made by rolling the massive door along the hollow pavement outside the sepulchre.

"If," say the common people, "the watch slept, why does not the Procurator put them to death?"

This question remains unanswered, and the watch go about the streets unharmed! My dear father, remember no more my unbelief, but with me believe in Jesus, that he is the Son of God, the Savior of Israel, the immortal Christ of the Prophets.

Your affectionate daughter,

Adina.