immediately above the foot-stalk. In some trees this bud is entirely surrounded (capped, as it were) by the base of the petiole of the present leaves, as in the platanus, the sumach, virgilia lutea, and some others; which bud, swelling considerably in autumn, and acting as a wedge between the firm stem and the weaker foot-stalk, forces the latter downwards, and at last detaches it completely." Is there not in this, instruction? Life's fading is for man only introductory to life's falling; nor doth the human race suffer harm or loss, through the removal of the units. Even before the vacancy occurs, a provision is made for what shall happen; and the expectant heir only enters into the enjoyment of what he had long anticipated. It is the courtier's cry, heard around on all sides, "Le roi est mort. Vive le roi!" Displacement from his position straightway brings the Departed One low as the clods of the valley. The dust returns to the earth as it was. It is unmade and is speedily dissolved. Pulvis et umbra sumus.

Leaves drift, or fall, after a variety of modes. I am writing in a calm, clear, forenoon, when not a breeze is stirring a branch around or above me; yet the leaves, in swirling eddies, seek a resting-place upon my garden-beds. Wordsworth* shall describe the

Scene:

"Withered leaves-one-two-and three

From the lofty elder-tree!

Through the calm and frosty air

Of this morning bright and fair,

Eddying round and round they sink
Softly-slowly."

* Poetical Works. Vol. ii. p. 69. London: Edward Moxon, 1836

But it is not so always, nor often. Rarely, doth the leaf find its leisure time of separation from the tree; and commonly the fierce winds of heaven come forth, as though glorying in their desolating work, to tear down their handfuls from the tormented boughs, and to cast them forth with moaning and muttering over the earth. I have realized all this, in my ministerial experiences. By death-beds, calm and holyalmost like heaven itself: and what were they, but the foretaste of heaven?-have I stood, or knelt; and have seen that "the last enemy Iwas the believer's true friend. There was no fear in the Christian's love; but perfect love had cast out fear; because fear hath torment. The hour of separation from home, from kindred, from all that could make life dear, was come; and it was welcomed, inasmuch as it brought with it no separation from the love of Christ. Of other-far different-parting scenes, I can only speak with shuddering. Hopeless, cheerless, and tempestuous, they were fitly typified for me by the wailing wind, the wintry scene, and the leaflets driven to and fro. Hell, with its terrors, was already felt to be sure. There was a fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.

Such are some of the phenomena, attendant on leaves of deciduous trees. But there are plants, of a different character, which retain their verdure throughout the winter, and are termed, for this reason, "persistent," "perennial," or "ever-green;" and from

T

these latter, there is some fine Scriptural imagery borrowed. Of the man who is truly blessed or happy, because his delight is in the law of the Lord, wherein he meditates day and night, the Psalmist thus speaks:

"He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,

That bringeth forth his fruit in his season;

His leaf also shall not wither; ["fade," in margin;]
And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."

Jeremiah (chapter xvii. 7, 8) has a like blessing for Jehovah's faithful servant :

"Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord,

And whose hope the Lord is:

For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters,

And that spreadeth out her roots by the river,
And shall not see when heat cometh,

But her leaf shall be green;

And shall not be careful in the year of drought,
Neither shall cease from yielding fruit."

A time of fruitage, as well as of foliage, is described a time of maturity is indicated; but the leaves are not to wither, as with mere earthly things, nor shall the fruit be gathered once for all, to re-appear no more for a season. It is Life's autumn that brings to the Christian his declining—yet his happiest days; when he reaches to a ripeness, hitherto unseen; when he flourishes like the palm-tree,* and

* The palm, the cedar, and the olive, when they have attained the growth of two or three centuries, become to their owners only the more valuable. Oriental travellers describe the "fruit in old age" (Psalm, xcii. 14) of the olive, as singularly luscious, agreeable, and refreshing. Is this not the character of aged Christians? Doth not acidity betray, full often, the immaturity of young Believers?

grows like a cedar in Lebanon. His passions are hushed; his emotions are subdued; and if he have less of hope, he also has less of disappointment. There is a calm—a hush-a holy waiting; and all are introductory to the great in-gathering that is now approaching. Is not the following depicturement of the Christian's Autumn very beautiful ?*—

"Autumn days have come, and the heart has settled down to this state of things, and is content that it should be so. It is better, far better, the old man sees, to be in the autumn of life, though he yet thinks tenderly, lovingly, of those young days in the impetuous, over-blossomed spring. The 'visionary gleam' has left his sky. But a truer, if a quieter, lustre has arisen in it, and abides. There hath passed a glory from the earth.' But the glory has been transferred to heaven. It was sad, at first, when the glamour, and the magic, and the glow passed away from this world, which to youth's heart seemed so exceedingly, inexpressibly glorious and fair. But it is better so. A mirage gave, indeed, a certain sweet mysterious light to life's horizon, and he could not but feel dashed at first to find little but bare sand where the unreal brightness had been. But he journeyed on, learning, somewhat sadly, in manhood God's loving lesson-that we are strangers and pilgrims upon earth; that we have no continuing city here, not love, nor fame, nor wealth, nor power; none of these could, even had we attained it, prove a city of rest: we must still journey on, before we can sit down satisfied. And God's true servant, in his autumn days, has learned not to miss nor to mourn over youth's mirage. Nay, his future has no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it. For the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.'"

Peace and joy are found by him, in turning from the earth and in "looking upward":

"He looks at the sky, which is certainly darkening, because life's one-day sun is going down. But the lower it sinks, the less he laments it, for he finds that it did indeed hide from him the vast tracts

* "The Sunday at Home," September 2, 1865. Volume xii., page 551.

of infinity, and close him in, by its light, in a small low-ceiled room. O quiet days of peace, and reverence, and mild serenity; the rocking waves of the passions asleep about the tossed heart, and the glittering thoughts of heaven reflected instead from the calm soul; and its speechless, infinite depths gradually mirroring themselves in the being! Happy days, when life's feverish, exciting novel is closed; and we are just reading quietly for an hour in the Book of Peace, before the time comes for us to go off to bed! Happy days, when God Himself is striking off one by one the fetters and manacles of earth, and will soon send His angel to open for us the last iron gate of earth's prison."

Shall I then mourn if, while I am reposing in this quiet nook, Memory flits away to other scenes, and shows me leaves, drifting like those around me, and falling softly upon grassy graves? Shall I shrink, or shudder, if—by a little, a very little-I anticipate, and consider that, when Autumn comes again to enkindle the foliage, it may be also to pour down the tree's leafy honors upon my own tranquil restingplace. Never hitherto have I remarked such tints in the groves. Never did the oaks exhibit to my admiring gaze such dying glories, or the beeches show such gorgeous hues, or the ash-trees so mark the contrast by their undeparted verdure. A farewell glance it seems, it is so deep, so true, so tender. Earth is beautiful indeed; but how much fairer will be-Heaven!