Norwich bulletin., 1909-08-09

The third of the union services of the Congregational churches was held Sunday morning at the Second church with good sized congregation to hear Rev. F. M. Chapman of Old Lyme. His helpful sermon was followed with the closest attention.
 Speaking from the text, Hebrews x. 20; "A new and living way" he said that as there may be discovered in the letters of an individual, some phrase revealing the dominant idea, the re- current strain of life, so 1t was with the text Although we may never know by name the man who wrote these words, yet we can see him clear ly revealed by this letter to the He- brews. This is a message so vital, so crammed full of meaning that is shown to be the word of a great man filled with a high concern for his peo pie. He had found a new and living way for the Hebrews but they were disposed to take the old way with their problems. Apd first of their problems was that of their sins, a world old struggle. He saw them trusting in altar sacrifices. They had sense of sin, but too often it was the breaking Cf form rather than a concern of the inner life He said to them there is better way since Jesus came. God is fer you. not against you. His is message of grace and forgiveness. To come face to face with Christ was the new and living way not to cover sin up, but to have it cleansed away, and this was the characteristic difference between the ole and the new testa- ment in Inc attitude towards sin.
 Then there was the problem of earthly defeat eliminating in death. This lay square across the old He brews' path as it does across ours to- day. But no man thought then of it with hope. Death represented life's defeat, the sapping of it's energies, the ending of its charms. Behold, says the writer of the text, a new and living way. Since Jesus Christ came a great glad change has come upon it. He tasted 1t and translated it into a means of salvation. And so may each man do who treats death as Jesus did, high adventure to te entered into, larger chance than life can offer. sort of accolade lifting man to higher knight hood.
 They had also the problem of be- lief They were face to face with a new faith and they were fealful lest grasping after the new the old should be lost altogether. So they strove to keep the old. Christianity today asks no man to define at twenty what he will believe at fifty nor to tie to the creed of his fathers. The great phrases, tae central truths of religion abide, but they are subject to the in tcrpretaation of the times. Faith is like sunlight, old as the race of man, but tomorrow which this sunlight brings $ ever a new day
 There remains the homely and pro- saic problem of the conduct of our daily life. In this there is the wild oats theory but over the shoulders of its advocates loom the spectres of it's effects upon the next generation. Yet the wild, oats theory is a fairly con- sistent theory and so many have fol- lowed 1t that I cannot afford to be contemptuous of 1t. But it is the old and dying way. There is also a phrase of the street. let us do this ignoble thing, '1et us have a good time for we shall be long time dead" And this too seems well enough if we prefer to set death more than life and cowardly self-indulgence over more noble self control. There is a new and living way and that man. shall be- finally justified who loves and speaks the