Long before the day of the telegraph, a new method for dispatching news had been set up in England. It consisted of towers set on high places in several different directions from London, and on these towers was a system of wooden arms, called semaphores, that could be moved to spell out sentences. The messages were sent from semaphore to semaphore. This system was in use at the time of the Battle of Waterloo. The people knew that a great battle was being fought, and great crowds of them kept watching the semaphores for news. At last the semaphores spelled out the words, "Wellington defeated." Then great banks of cloud obscured the towers on which the semaphores were erected. The region for miles was in deep gloom. But after some time the fog lifted and the sentence was completed: "Wellington defeated the enemy." Gloom was changed into joy. So when the two from Emmaus were walking home, the unrecognized Jesus asked them why they were so sad. But in a little while they recognized the risen Lord, and their hearts burned within them for joy.  

– Choice Illustrations - W. W. Clay

Good Friday

Good Friday is the day that commemorates the death of Jesus on the cross. In the liturgical calendar of the Western church it is the Friday preceding Easter. "Good," as an adjective applied to the day, is an Old English expression for "holy."

Good Friday services lasting from noon to three in the afternoon are traditional. These are the hours Christ spent on the cross. In these recent decades the Good Friday services have been ecumenical. The Roman Catholic church generally celebrate an evening rite that stresses the Passion of Christ, adoring the cross, and celebrating mass.

Sources: The Dictionary of Bible and Religion, William Gentz | The Bible Almanac, White

Easter Quotations

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

       —   A. E. Housman  

   

The trumpet! the trumpet! the dead have all heard:
Lo, the depths of the stone-cover'd charnels are stirr'd: From the sea, from the land, from the south and the north The vast generations of man are come forth.