The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-12-04
REV. DR. MASON'S TRIBUTE
TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE RET.
 DIR. $. DRYDEN PRELPS.


 ness in the Councils of His Religious De- nomInations-His Many Sided Character.
 The beautiful and just tribute to the late Rev, pr, Phelps given by the Rev MT. Mason at the First Baptist church last Sunday will be read with interest by the host of people in this city who knew the deceased personally, and by the community at large in which the deceased was for over half century prominent figure, Dr. Mason's address was in full as follows:
 James 4, IA: 'SWhat is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for little time, and then vanisheth away"
 And is that all? Is that life? Does that definition reach the limits of life? Does that plummet sound the depths of life? Life only vapor, handful of mist in the sky, soft cloud on summers day? Drifting, shifting, van ishng, gone? Is that life? Yes, that is life, but 1t is not the whole of life. The definition is true, but narrow. "It is not all of life to live nor all of death to die"
 We meet under peculiar circumstan- ces this morning. We have just follow ed to the grave the earthly remains of a loved and venerated pastor of this church. It is fitting that in this place more than passing reference should be had to his useful and extended life. Public services have been held, simple, adequate, full of feeling. A noble trib- ute has been paid to his memory. Many friends have stood by his open grave. Many from afar have sent mes sages of loving sympathy Yet it is natural that we of this church, which he has Served so long and so well, should have our own personal thought con- cerning his life and his work, and should gather one lasting and inspiring lesson as we stand on the borderland between two worlds.
 It is no time for tears the moment of Christians triumphant entrance into glory. Let us save our tears for the man whose whole life has been de- feat not for him whose life has served it's noble purpose and who has won the victor's crown.
 I am thinking this morning not of this life in the light of the text, but I am thinking of this text in the light of the life. I interpret the Scripture by life which have known, and it is plain that the thing which James is speaking about in the text is life in its smallest and narrowest and shallowest sense Why life is a vapor if you think of it only as earthly existence in the flesh. There Is nothing between us and the grave but a breath. Let something stop that just for a moment or two and the life has past; the vapor has vanish ed away; death has come. But who that has known a Christian soldier, who that has entered into another's Christi ian labors will sum up his life by the figures that are cut into his tombstone as the measure of his years?
 To-day I think of life, first, as op- portunity. But how few there are who ever think of the magnificent opportu- nifty of life. Called out of the unknown; born into this world, how few there are who are clear eyed enough and strong souled enough to seize that which God holds out to them at the beginning of life. To him who has gone from us there early came a perception of life's opportunity To him life speedily be- came something more than existence In his early years he found the true center of being. Rooted in Jesus Christ the divine spirit began to pervade his spirit and the activities outspringing. Then he wanted to make the most of himself for his Master He saw the value of an education But many diffi- culties were in the way. By none of them was he turned aside. He pressed forward; secured his education; in the meantime heard Gods call to the Christ ian ministry, and in the vigor of his young manhood became our pastor. The best years of his life were given to this church. I mean by that the years of his most vigorous activity. For himself perhaps there were no better years than these last tranquil years of his earthly life, in which heaven was manifestly drawing nearer every day.
 The full fruits of his ministry here God only could describe. For the reach of human effort in Gods service there Is no human measurement But for all most a generation he gave himself without reserve to this people. It has always seemed to be happy coinci- dence that the year in which this church was founded was the year of his birth. So the church and it's pastor went on counting their birthdays together. The last birthday for each was the seventy ninth.
 For twenty-eight years, almost the life of a generation, he occupied the pastorate of this church. His term of service covered the birth and the bap- tism and the marriage and the death of not few who were here in former years. Many of those who are most active in the church to-day worked by his side forty years ago, and it will be yet many years before the last of those baptized at his hands will have closed their earthly labors. His love for this church never died. On his return to New Haven in later years he would again have been numbered with this people, but that the distance from his residence seemed too great in the growing weight of his years. But on all special occasions he was glad to be with us, and the greeting which he met was always most cordial.
 But the field in which he ministered was wider than this city. In the coun- cils of the denomination his judgment was always of weight. And through his Christian h1ypopC 10 Inv