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THIRTEENTH WEEK-SUNDAY.

THE FALL OF THE LEAF.

LET us suppose a stranger to visit some beautiful valley in summer, when the cloudless sun looks down on a mass of verdant and seemingly unfading umbrage. He wanders delighted through its pleasant woods, rustling with unnumbered leaves, loading the air with sweetly blending odours, and all echoing with the voice of song and the murmurs of streams. He especially fixes his eye upon the varied foliage that forms the canopy over his head, and admires its freshness and symmetry. He sees in the millions of leaves "above, around, and underneath," the main element of that beauty and pleasing shade which render the whole scene delightful to his eye and heart. He departs, almost wishing them to be immortal. But suppose, again, that he returns at the latter end of autumn, and retraces his former steps. Where are now the leaves that beautified the sylvan scene, and formed, as it were, its life and joy? They have disappeared from the trees, and are lying shrivelled and decayed at his feet, while the branches which they formerly adorned are lifeless and bare. How vividly is he impressed with the unceasing changes of nature, and with the mortality diffused like an attribute through all her kingdoms.

Now, let us compare with this stranger some heavenly visitant, sent down to view this earth, and its busy inhabitants. On his first arrival, he beholds the various generations of men swarming in the fertile valleys and plains, some contending with the toils of life, others enjoying its delights, but all mingling in one vast and bustling community. He wonders at their ceaseless activity, and their splendid works. In their glory and

strength they seem destined to live for ever. A century rolls away,—a mighty age upon earth, but scarcely a moment before the throne of God,-and again the angel descends upon our globe. He looks for the race he formerly beheld, but he only beholds their tombs. Their energy, their glory, and their gladness are gone; they have fleeted away, and the places that knew them once know them no more.

Every one must be struck with the moral of this comparison. Even the unobservant and thoughtless can see their destiny imaged forth by the fall of the forest leaves. Yet how few apply to their hearts and lives the lesson here so impressively taught, and muse, as the Christian observer ought, upon the evanescence of all sublunary things, their own inevitable decay, and their latter end. I would here address a solemn warning to all, and invite them to pause in devout meditation, while they behold the present state of the woods, and their fallen generations of leaves. The luxuriant verdure of summer, and the glowing tints of autumn, have vanished from the sylvan scene. The frost has now dismantled the umbrageous forest, and strewn its withered garments upon the breeze. Our woodland walks, lately over-arched with green boughs, a fresh and rustling canopy, are warm and sheltered no longer, but piled up, and even obstructed, with the shrivelled wrecks of a sere and fallen foliage. Let us linger a while amidst the bared and melancholy woods, now tossing in the cold winds of October, and endeavour to derive the appropriate lesson from the frailty and disappearance of their lost honours.

The decay and fall of successive generations of leaves, so statedly and so mournfully presented to our view, naturally suggest solemn thoughts of man's similar mortality. The analogy is so obvious that it is felt and expressed by all. The frail families of our busy race that people in succession this motley scene, are represented to every mind as falling under the icy touch of death, like the multitudinous forest leaves; and annually is

that picture of decay restored in all its colours by the desolations of departing autumn.

In many points this mournful analogy holds. As trees of every kind, and in every locality, lose their leaves, so all nations and families fleet rapidly away. Individuals of every description, also, are subject to the same melancholy doom. The vigorous youth, the fullformed man, and the old man bowing under his years, are equally withered by the blast of death. Unexpectedly they fall from life, and are no more visible where they lived and walked. If some leaves, also, are not violently snatched from their boughs by the freezing gale, the surer process of natural decay at length effects their fall, and they at last follow their decaying predecessors. Thus again is it with man. The violence of various accidents, fire and flood, war, famine, and pestilence, or the diseases which he brings on himself, or inherits, cut off most of his race, many of them in the full prime of their days. If a few, escaping all these casualties, remain behind in their homes, they are only like the last leaves upon the bough. The juices of life at length dry up, and the survivors drop down silently, even though not a breath of wind agitates or disturbs their aged repose. Surely the race of man is frail and fleeting as the leaves!

In the Word of God many impressive images are drawn from the leaves, the grass, and the flowers, those beauteous natural monitors of our mortality. Man, says Isaiah, "fades as a leaf;" "his glorious beauty is a fading flower;" he is “as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water." Job, in one of his most moving complaints, likens himself to "a leaf driven to and fro." "As for man," says the Psalmist, "his days are as grass; as a flower of the field so he flourisheth; for the wind passeth over it and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more;" Psalm ciii. 15, 16. Such are a few of the simple and pathetic allusions of the Hebrew poets to the flower-like frailty of our race; and theirs is the sublime voice of inspiration. Here, while

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we acknowledge and apply to our hearts the truth of their images, let us profit by the lesson they give us of deriving from the natural objects around us, impressive illustrations of our weakness and our doom.

Were it not for our assurance of immortality, the fall of the leaf would suggest to us mournful thoughts indeed. It would only disturb all our enjoyments and feed our despair. Nature teaches us our feebleness and death; but it is Revelation that, while it directs our attention to such lessons as nature gives, assures us that we shall rise from the grave to a new life, and thenceforth be immortal. The winds of winter ravage the groves, and a feeling of death arises in the mind; but in the unchangeable word of God, we find what robs this feeling of its sting, and fills us with enlivening hope. There we find Him who is the Resurrection and the Life, of whose rising from the grave, the pledge of our immortality,this and every returning Sabbath is a solemn memorial. There also we learn, that if we receive Him into our hearts, and obey Him in our lives, we may contemplate death, and all the images that shadow forth his power, without shuddering or dismay. O then, let Nature, in all her moods and seasons, only direct us to this source of all consolation-this sovereign remedy for all the pains and diseases of the soul. J. D.

THIRTEENTH WEEK-MONDAY.

GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT.-GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD BY GENERAL LAWS.

THERE is a characteristic feature in the works of creation, on which the infidel has founded one of his most insidious attacks; I allude to that which exhibits the world as under the direction of general principles, known in common language by the name of laws. It

has been alleged that these laws are no other than certain powers inherent in matter, necessarily existing independent of an Intelligent Agent, and acting as mere mechanical or chemical forces, without design, and without a rational object.

This is the atheistic theory in its extreme form, which, if I have not altogether laboured in vain, I need not now employ a single word to refute. But there is another and more plausible theory sometimes assumed, which it may not be superfluous to notice. By this theory it is admitted, that the world, and all its productions, were originally formed by a Being of infinite power and wisdom; but it is maintained that, after the act of creation, every thing was left to be regulated by the forces and qualities then impressed upon it, the Creator retiring, as it were, from an active charge of his works, and leaving the machine to govern itself by the wisely balanced laws of its own exquisite mechanism. The Eternal and his universe are thus placed in the relative position of a watchmaker and his watch, with this difference, that when the machine of the universe was once wound up, it was wound up for ever, and, being an instrument of perpetual motion, will never run down.

In proof of this hypothesis, an appeal is made to the uniformity of nature, and the invariable relation of cause and effect. So entirely, it is said, are the powers of nature unintelligent principles, operating precisely and uniformly according to their own peculiar qualities, in all circumstances, and under every modification, that you can calculate, with unerring certainty, their results; and that these results will blindly follow, even although they should be productive of the most ruinous consequences, by causing disturbance in the elements, or should give rise to monstrosities in the vegetable or animal world; and hence it is inferred, that whatever power and wisdom have been exerted in the first formation of nature, no such qualities are at present actively employed in its preservation and direction.