The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-04-19
REV. DR. CHAPMAN'S SERMON
At First NJ. E. Church Yesterday Morning
 The True NIiseIN of the Preacher.

REV. DR. CHAPMAN'S SERMON At First NJ. E. Church Yesterday Morning
 The True Mission of the Preacher.
 A large congregation greeted Rev. Dr. M. B. Chapman at the First Meth odist church, yesterday morning, that being the initial Sunday Of his second pastorate of the church.
 Dr. Chapman remarked in the open ing part of the service that several faces which he had always noticed in the congregation during his former pastorate were gone. He said that when sent to New Haven for second pastorate here he had some doubts as to the expediency of such action, but he hoped that his work here might prove successful and that all would work to- gether in harmony.
 In opening his sermon, pr. Chapman said that a touch of grief tempered the Easter joy, He then referred to the death of Dr. Williams, who was for number of years the pastor of the First Methodist church. He spoke of the transiency of life, its unceasing change, and said:
 If We are to have any Easter hope at all, we must turn our thoughts from the world to Him who reigns yesterday, to-day and forever. Combine Easter thoughts into one which may comfort and help, go back to Isaiah 40:6, ', &: NNn nf -ctI !, ,l,o shall I cry? All flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, etc.
 "Montaigne in his Spanish prison waiting for death, heard one day from his prison window a pilgrim chanting in the street below. As he listened he discovered that it was Flemish song a song in his native tongue, and was startled to notice that the pilgrim was singing to him. To the people in the street it was only a voice; to him 1t was a message, telling that friends were near, that deliverance was at hand, telling of life and liberty.
 Isaiah was singer under the walls of Babylon, singing to his countrymen wondrous song, telling them to lift up their hearts, that God would speedily come to them, that deliverance was at hand. Babylon heard a voice, Israel the message, that they would return to Zion with everlasting joy, and from that day to this long line of prophets and teachers have chanted around the walls where men lie in the tyrannies of evil
 Into every year come the blossoms of June and the blizzards of January. the changes of scenes and seasons. The world is constantly changing. Moun- tains are changed, gradually washed down into the valleys and into the sea- The stars of night are changing They flash and flame now, but are destined to die out and fall to some central sun, which lights new worlds. Generations of men come and go like shadows, chil- dren in delight, youth in promise, man. hood in care, old age in exhaustion. Civilizations and notions are no more substantial They rise, wave and dis appear until we have to die in the des- erts to find out about empires that have disappeared. Churches, rituals and I. Although 1t is the fashion of this world for things to pass away, yet some things endure Structures fall, but un- derneath all this seeming transiency is firmness of purpose. When we look On the shifting scenes of the earth. we realize that although the grass Withers and the flowers fade yet the splendid vision of the vesture of God remains. A flower is a Vesture of an unseen beauty, the disclosure of an invisible presence. The flower fades, something abides, some sense of beauty vision of the internal loveliness of God stays and becomes a part of our nature The outer eye sees only the flower of color, the soul sees it afiame with God
 we never know what is going to happen when we are dealing with any thing that has life in 1t. The vire- dresser at Baden drops cuttings into the Danube and thinks no more of them. But there is life in these cut tings, and farther down the river they take root in the Black Forest, and the banks of the stream are covered with vines; the waste of the vineyard be- cones the fruit of the wilderness.
 "One day we shall discover that in the economies of God life is never vast ed. The sacred vitalities of truth drift away, but they do not die out The preacher shall rejoice to see that his feeble endeavors have taken root far down the stream.
 Tt is the mission of the preacher to preach the abiding gospel, a song of three notes. The first of these notes is the gospel of faith. The preacher S great work is to quicken faith, to bring men to see unseen things, to enlarge their spiritual horizon. But we are buried in earthly interests, imperative and immediate, and we are apt to for get what we are here for. It is the preachers business to turn down the light on the ephemeral, and, standing in the shadow himself, to call attention to the spiritual. the divine, not filling