The Portland daily press., 1876-04-10
SUNDAY SERVICES.


Yesterday was Palm Sunday, and applopri'
ate services were held at the Catholic and
Eniscopal churches. AT the Cathedral of I'm
maculate Conception, Bishop Healey presided
and delivered a short but appropriate address
upon the day and its observances. The altar
cloths were purple. tie color for Palm Sunday.
A large congregation was present.
At st. Luke's Cathedral Canon Hayes
preached in the morning and Rev. Mr.. Pyne in
the evening. Both discourses were in keeping
with the observance of the day.
PARK STREET.
Rev. Frederick rockingham preached yes
terday at Park street church, on the occasion
of the twentieth anniversary of his entering
upon the ministry as pastor of that church.
The pulpit was deliberately decorated with
flowers, and on the table in front was hand.
some floral basket. A large audience was in
attendance. MIR. rockingham selected as his
text, from Isaiah 12-2l, the single word 'Re-
turn" After general discussion Of the law
of repetition, he spoke Of matters personal 10
himself and the parish, as follows:
To-day, friends, rejoice in a return, if but
for day, to this sacred place, which yet my
heart has never fcrsaken since the hour which
made it mine. Sacred it is to me, on account
of not only host of memories connected with
the living and the dead, but as the introduction
to my life-work as Christian minister. Here
twenty years ago to-day that work was COM
mitted to my charge. Here its first difficulties
were encountered, its first essays made, its first
perils met. Here was laid on the altar OF nv
first peoples service the best that my early en-
thusiasm had to offer. How crude, how imper-
feet, how insufficient it was! Most of the SER
mons of that early time could not look you in
the face and preach to-day. The one comfort
about them is, that they were not false nor did
they trifle with my people or the truth.
Beautiful was the welcome that was mine
that day! A truer and warmer cannot eX-
pect to see anywhere on earth. Nor can | con-
ceive of the blessed Jesus himself, on that day
of entrance triumphal into the Holy Guy of his
patriotic love, which many of his professed
followers ON this Palm Sunday celebrate, re-
joicing more really amid the palm-brapches
Hosannahs OF his thronging countryman, than
did on that day which placed me here. For
here it was my wish to be. This dear old city
had to me some of the near associations Of
family and home, ana so l was glad and proud
to begin here the work on which through all
my life my heart had been set. j can truly say
wanted to do it well, to do my people SER
vice of which neither they nor should be
ashamed That, friends, is good memory to
have at the end of a score of years. Can you
wonder-I am sure that you will forgive me-
that when | found that this anniversary came
on Sunday, l wished and sought to spend il
here, here among those OF my first people who
yet remain and with all the associations and
memories of that sacred day clustering thickly
around me.
How little we knew what was before us!
How little we dreamed of what one short score
of years was to unfold! How far Gods provi-
dence was preparing to outrun the greatest and
boldest word that his bravest prophet dared to
speak! How little any OF us, even the best and
the wiseSt realized the Length and breadth, the
height and depth, of the need and demand of
the time! Were we not like parcel of chill
dren, some seeing little farther and forecast
ing little more wisely than the rest, but all
children still? Some of you can remember the
prayer, which, on the wings of utterance glow
ing with fire kinded at the altar of heroic
life,-utterance ringing now out OF the immor
tai silence of the good mans death,-bo us
all up to God and invoked for US the help and
strength divine Did we not sorey need that
help? What a time it was! A time of strug-
gle, anxiety, amazement, fear. The portents
OF the deadly coming strife were already in the
sky. The air was hot and sitting. 1t was get
ting too suffocating for men to breathe. In the
clearer atmosphere whica now we have, it is hard
TO imagine that such time of cuoking dread
like an impossible dream. In sharp sense it
was time of choice. God or Baal it was en-
phaucaly then Choose which one would,
trouble and DISAPPOINTMENT was surely before
I'm. In that time of se+thng unrest We could
not escape our share. 1t had to come, and
come it did. The utmost we could do was to
keep ouI head well to the wind. Thick and
last the pOrtents came, -the Samner outrage
the border rufians IN Kansas-Jefferson Davis
in Portland, aye, in this church and in the very
fknnt str N1 81 I'll,
7 hen came the flash of lightning-the gun
opening on Sumier-which let loose The storm.
All through those years the piteous pleading
voice of the cruciied in the form of the slave.
IL was dreadful time-a time to try mems
souls indeed. Had we only Enoagn what was
before us, how different all might have been!
But we did not know, and how slow of faith
all OF us were! Would il, however, have made
difference if we had known? / think it
would-certainly for mel suspect for all Of
us. But what the difference would have been 1
find it hard to tell: and wonder if it would not
have been one that would have paralyzed us all.
But Gods merciful concealment kept our
strength alive to meet and stand the shock
when the shock must come. 1t came, it pas
ed; and what blessed change! Bruised, toro,
bleeding, stricken our country-but alive and
free, her starry flag without shameful stain,
the promise of her natal year redeemed for her
Centennial year, and that not through foreg n
saviors, but through the devotion and the
blood of her own children. A new struggle
opens before her now, a struggle against a
mighter foe than slavery, and deiverance
from darker bOndage-the struggle against
that corruption which some men fear will eat
out the heart and destroy the life of the Re
pu bic. But l, for one, do not believe it can,
do not believe it will. The awakening of the
public mind to the danger is good augury
for the new century of the Republic. Our
country enters on new arena, in which if we
are faithful, she ought to and believe she will
prove victorious, and in her victory bring de-
liverance to mankind.
With this vast national change all life's 9TH
er changes have swept on; not even it could
suspend or stay them. How great they have
been to this fair Forest City! How the tenn
pest of flame swooped down upon and we'll
nigh destroyed its glory in single night! And
how the more silent, but not less certain power
of removal and of death has withdrawn names
and forms honored and honorable, and substi-
tuted for them others whose honor and fame
are yet to be achieved.
Within these walls how great change AS
look back through these twenty years, an
other congregation meets my eye than that be-
fore me now:-among them conspicuous the
faces and the forms of good and faithful ones
SO loyal to the highest that as we recall them
to mind, we rejoice to think that in them, as
our dear old Scripture says, ''our eyes have
seen and our hands have handled portion of
the word of life." They will be seen here in
~ DouJ 1o naoAo. Auo ehOy i've Ill Jul
thought and love and may return again to live
in our lives, which shall take up and carry on
ward their worthiness. And congratulate
you, friends, that here stands in the place
where once stood, a man worthy of your trust
and love. One thing beseech you: Stand by
him faithfully Strengthen his heart no Id up his
hands and aid him in his work by word and
deed and by your presence here. Let all the
good that in him is, flourish in the sunshine of
your appreciating sympathy. And may the
good ne strives to gain and give to you find
fair return in the growing goodness of the
fruit which comes to pass in his peoples lives.
AS look down into the familiar faces here
before me, what changes there L read from all
these twenty years! Twenty years is a long
period in the life of any one of us What ex-
periences it brings of joy and grief, of health
and pain, of prosperity and adversely. Who of
us can tell them as we know them in ourselves?
Yet in these aforementioned faces the years
have writ their faithful story All! what has
that story been? Joyous or sad? OF necessi-
ty story of advance, is it of that advance
which leads the soul unto higher consecra-
tion,so is it the reverse? Oh! let it SO be that
that conservation shall surely come and we re-
turn into that true childhood through whose
pure love to God and love to man we pass into
the eternal and immortal life.
PLYMOUTH CHURCH.
Rev. Mr.. Dole, the pastor, preached q very
Interesting sermon from Isaiah Xxi, 1. ''The
spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the