air, and in the woods,—a melancholy and even mournful tranquillity, that is, perhaps, the distinguishing characteristic of the season. The wild winds of winter have not yet begun to blow; but the land seems to lie in silent expectation of their desolating blasts; and we feel as during the ominous pause, before the full outbreak of the tempest. The earth has matured and yielded up to man her yearly produce; and the energies of that "all-bearing mother," as if exhausted, seem to demand the repose of winter. Vegetation almost ceases, and universal death (which, however, is but the predecessor of another life) is fast spreading over all the families of flowers, shrubs, and trees. The brilliant tints lately assumed by the woods, and which at first might appear to indicate a new and brighter foliage, are rapidly fading into a sombre hue, where the boughs are not yet bleak and leafless. Here and there only, some hardier or later tree still flares, amidst a mass of naked branches, in its brightest autumnal robes. There is a sad beauty in the scene, which cannot well be hid even from the common eye. Traces of

summer loveliness are still every where to be seen; and the few flowers that yet bloom in the hedges, or by the walls, or on the sheltered woodland bank, have a singular sweetness, a forlorn and surviving beauty of their own.

The transition from autumnal richness to the desolation of winter, is gradual, gentle, and even beautiful. The nature-loving eye can even be pleased with the last signs of vegetation still hanging upon the branches, or silently dropping to the ground.

"The beauty of decay

Charms the slow-fading year,

And sweetly fall away

The flowers and foliage sere ;
And lingering summer still we see

In every half-dismantled tree."

But little singing of birds disturbs the still life of a day in the close of autumn. What birds still remain with us are almost dumb, and seem to feel and mourn the approaching rigors of the season. A few feeble and plaintive notes, alone express their sadness. But for the rousing

echoes of the sportsman's gun by day, and the cawing of the "blackening train" of crows, flying in the twilight to their roost in the distant woods, scarcely a sound would break the deathlike and all-pervading stillness.

The farmer, with his crop now gathered in, and his winter wheat sown, enjoys his consciousness of security, and, like the sailor who foresees the impending storm, is prepared for the severity of the coming season. His well-filled and neatly trimmed barn-yard is a striking sign of rustic plenty, the object and precious reward of all his toils. Yet, though rejoicing over the riches of the year, he, not unmindful of another, is ploughing his stubble fields, that the soil may be exposed to the pulverizing effects of the winter's frost. Behind him, settling upon the newly-turned up furrow, flock the hungry crows, in quest of worms, and other food. If we look from the farm to the garden, here too we see nothing but symptoms of past fertility, and preparations for the coming ungenial frost and snow. The delving of the cleared soil, the planting of a few hardy greens for winter use, and the pruning of fruit-trees, form the chief occupations of the gardener, professional or domestic. The calm and settled weather invites him to his work, and gives ample scope to his habits of precaution.

Thus gracefully and gently wanes the dying year. There is something in the gradual coming on, the calmness, and the beauty of the transition, which powerfully suggests to us the goodness and wisdom of the Author and Controller of the seasons. Were the air suddenly to assume a winter temperature, and the forests and fields all at once, in a single night, we shall say, to lose their beautiful foliage, how, even with the greatest precaution, would this rapid change invade our comforts, endanger our health, and derange our agricultural operations. But, under the present constitution of things, our frames are insensibly prepared for the winter's cold. There is a seasonable pause for the farmer and the gardener to set about their preparatory processes, and a gradual removal from our sight of the splendid decorations of autumn. The beauty of the woods lingers ere it finally departs,

In

and each much-loved autumnal flower seems frequently to bid us farewell, in gradually sinking to the earth. all this, every heart, not steeled to natural emotion, must feel a designed goodness, and gratefully acknowledge the unremitting care of a kind and bountiful Father.

It were easy to point out, in this gentle decay of the year, many analogies to what we daily witness in human life; as, for example, that which obtains between the said decay, and the quiet ebbing of life in the aged and almost ripened Christian, whose gray hairs fall peacefully like the undisturbed leaves, and whose time-worn frame is imperceptibly, and by slow degrees, fitted for the undreaded winter of the grave. But I enter not upon this pleasing and solemn subject: the reader requires no instruction to make of it a profitable theme of meditation.* J. D.

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 odors, 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. 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

He

* [On this subject, see, among other beautiful compositions, a hymn entitled "The Autumn Evening,' by Rev. Mr. Peabody, of Springfield, and the Death of the Flowers,' by Bryant, one of the sweetest little poems in the language.-Aм. ED.]

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 silvan 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 silvan scene. The night-frost has now dismantled the umbrageous forest, and strewn its withered garments upon the breeze. Our woodland walks, lately overarched with

1

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 awhile amidst the bared and melancholy woods, now tossing in the cold winds of October, and endeavor to derive the appropriate lesson from the frailty and disappearance of their lost honors.

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 colors, 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