THE FALLING LEAF--REFLECTIONS.
By A. S. Hutchins
THERE is always something very solemn and impressive to my mind when the faded leaves of autumn are falling around us. Serious reflections awaken in my heart as they rustle and crumble to pieces beneath our feet. And never were those reflections more solemn than at present. To-day the foliage of the forest is fading fast, withering and dying. The leaf so green, healthful and full of life, but as it were yesterday, drops and is borne away by the gentle breeze and falls to the earth in silence. It beautifies the tree, the grove, the wood, no longer. The bird no longer sits and sings beneath its shade. No more it breaks the rays of the sun from our window, or door, or pleasant walks, or childhood's retreat. The summer is past, the harvest is ended, and a cold winter hastens on. As the buds opened and the tender branches of the trees put forth their leaves in spring, some of our nearest and dearest friends were with us, who have since been snatched away by death, and now silently slumber in the earth's cold embrace. The dreary winds of winter will soon whistle for the first time around their quiet resting-place, and the snow drift above them. The fading, falling leaf should remind us of our mortality—should lead us to reflect on the declaration to man, almost six thousand years ago, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Gen. iii, 19. Says Isaiah, "We do all fade as a leaf." Chap. lxiv, 6. Human beauty, wisdom and strength fade away. The sweetest scenes and associations of life pass away. Our friends that we have loved the most and the best have faded and wasted away before us, and we have borne them to the silent grave to rest a little moment, till the resurrection of the just. "The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish." Isa. xxiv, 4. "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever." Isa. xl, 8. All praise, and honor, and glory be to our God, that his word shall stand forever. "We, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." We look forward but a short time when the King shall appear in his beauty, when the sleeping saints shall awake and sing, and the righteous living shall be changed, and all together be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." There is the inheritance, "incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away." And there is the crown of glory that fadeth not away. No blight nor mildew of sin, no fade nor decay in all that healthful clime. "I'm weary of loving what passes away,
The sweetest and dearest, alas! may not stay;
I long for that land where these partings are o'er,
And death and the tomb can divide us no more." A. S. HUTCHINS.
Melbourne, C. E.