The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-07-25
"LIKE RAIN ON MOWN GRASS"
REV. DR. CHIPM1N'S SERMON AT
 TRINITY M. F. CHURCH.

l
 Yesterday Morning-Jesus Christ Comes as the Rain From the Ocean of
 Gods Goodness and Mercy-Lifc Conn
 pared to the Brown and Scared Mead-
 o1ys.
 | Large congregations gathered at the
 First M. D. church yesterday morning
 and evening to hear their former pas-
 tor, the Rev. Dr. Chapman. pr. Chap
 man has been elected professor in l Boston university and will begin his work in that position in the fall. Talk
 ing for his text Psalm 72, G. He shall
 come down like rain upon the mown
 grass" he said in part:
 Did you ever go through the anguish
 of draught in any of the great states
 or the west? had that experience
 once and l never want another. For
 many days burning sun blazed down upon the earth. Clouds had come but
 had vanished and left. The blazing sun
 looked down upon the streams that had l become mere gravel beds with here and | there stagnant pool. Wells began to
 dry up, and along the highways driven
 cattle went panting to some well not yet dry. Pastures became brown. Pa-
 tient sheep stood all day long with their I heads together in the scanty shade of a I I Farmers waited and prayed for rain. Then fires began to break out Through l the long hours of the fevered night | fires leaped from tree to tree in the pine forests and a dull red glow in the west told where men fought for their homes and their lives. The good God seemed at last to have forgotten this world. Life became mockery. At | last cloud appeared in the southwest It rose and widened. As it rose a thou sand eyes watched it. It overspread the skies and grew darker. Rain is coming, leaped from thousand throats. Soon the blessed rain was fall ing upon the brown meadows, auench- ing the fever in nature. And as I saw
 the fields quenching their thirst in this
 rain l thought He shall come down like the rain on the mown grass This is photograph by a messen- ger of one who should be the savior of
 the whole world. To these seers ana singers it was a mysterous message. But time has been a commentator and we see plainly what they saw dimly They sang of one who should come We sing of one who has come.
 That is the poetry of the text. What is it's prose? It is the open secret of this universe, the incarnation of the
 unseen God. What is the mown grass in this natural imagery? It is life; life l as you and I know 1t; life with it's mo- notony, it's dullness; life with it's grief and it's sorrows; with it's solitudes and its vacancies. You know we live on the very summits of this worlds prod ucts. Consider what life must mean to the millions of India who live on $7 a year. Consider what it must mean to the millions in China who live on eleven cents day. Traverse the world; go among the toiling and struggling men and consider what it must mean to them. How many there are in every community who are weary of life! It is the complaint of unsatisfied nature 1t IS the repining of the immortal soul which can never be contented with things that perish. The'immortal soul does no want more life or more soul It wants God. We are more than mere creatures. We are children As chill Tdren we want father: a father who will make us his own and enrich us with all that he has, and come down upon His complaining, repining chl- dren as the rain upon the mown grass
 Life is the burnt, scared grass. Jesus Christ is the rain which refreshes the life God. the invisible, the omnipres- ent IS too fast for our needs. Jesus Christ comes not as the overwhelming ocean, but as the gentle rain. The rain is the oceans answer to the meadows
 cry Jesus Christ refreshes and en-
 riches life, renews it; transfgures it, Need tell you how he sweetens labor? Itislove that makes life tolerable. Jesus Christ comes into the hearts of those that love Him so that loss becomes gain. He comes down like rain upon he mown grass
 Looking over congregations like this where l know every household, I can follow the trail of fire just as I can fol- low 1t in the forest. Desolateness of the household burns away the verdure of life. But if we can look away from our sorrows unto Him acquainted with every affliction and realize His pity and love for ts there comes to us a rein torcement; peace and confidence, un- til We can say as that little child said
 under the anguish of surgery, I think
 l can bear the pain better if some one will hold my hand And upon the
 mown grass of our sorrow he comes
 down like the rain for our comfort. He
 comes down like the rain-gently. He
 comes down impartially. Jesus Christ
 is doing His best every hour of every
 day for every one of us and for every
 soul of this universe. When we have
 turned deaf ears to his appeals and
 when the winds we have sown come
 sweeping back upon us as whirlwinds,
 when as a last result we fling ourselves
 upon His mercy, He comes down like
 rain upon the mown grass