THE FALLING LEAVES by Clifford G. Howell

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 15, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 15.

THE FALLING LEAVES.

By Clifford G. Howell

[We are in the season of the springing leaf in our northern clime, but the SIGNS reaches many readers who live where the leaves are now falling. In any case the lesson is always true.—EDITOR.]

HOW MANY lessons are written upon little things around us. The summer’s sunshine and moisture and air stored the leaves with living green. A few breaths of autumn’s chill stilled the life-pulse in their tiny veins, and brought the rainbow tints to their upturned faces. Beautiful even in death, they stamp their lessons upon our memory; and, quitting their hold twixt earth and heaven, silently sink to the bosom of mother earth, and give to this time of year its name.

What were the thoughts of Eden’s pair, who from its fair enclosure had been expelled, as they gazed upon the first fading, dying leaf? They must have been somewhat akin to those of the ancient seer when he wrote, “We all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” Thus the fate of the leaves attaches to our own fading forms, and reminds us that “the wages of sin is death.”

And what does He yet see who has written such lessons upon the leaves? Forth from another living page His voice is heard: “Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people; let the earth hear, and all that is therein.” Ye who bow at nature’s shrine and worship her activities, pause a moment in the presence of her Author while the veil in which each leaf is wrought is lifted. “All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth from off the vine.”

The great closing drama of the world is thus connected with each fading, falling leaf. And because men refuse the remedy, “the indignation of the Lord is upon all the nations, and His fury upon all their armies.” In the sear, faded, rolled-up leaf, the prophet sees the story of the heavens rolled together as a scroll; in its descent to its silent bed, he sees the story of the nations’ final fall.

There are yet other lessons. It was a leaf brought back by the dove, which gave gladness and hope to Noah and his family in the ark. To the man who obeys the first two verses of the first psalm, it is promised that he shall be like a tree whose leaf “shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

In the last book of the Bible, we read the pledge of Eden restored, where the leaves of the tree of life shall be for the service of the nations that are saved.

Why such mighty lessons upon such perishable parchment? Partly, it may be, that they may be ever before us, and that we may know that He who writes such thoughts upon the leaves will write even greater in our minds and hearts if we will let Him.

O may the lessons Thou hast traced Upon such puny page Ne’er from our mem’ry be effaced By tempest, storm, nor age.

And may the leaves that gently fall Uplift our earthward thought To Him who ever loveth all, And loving, changeth not.

CLIFFORD G. HOWELL.