WITHERED LEAVES. 215 



every side. Cut, carved, and polished by the hand of the 

 artificer, they become articles of beauty for our personal 

 adornment. Dug and quarried by brawny arms, they afford us 

 the light by which we read this paper, and the fire by which the 

 apartment is warmed. They help to propel us in our travels by 

 land and sea, and set in motion a myriad wheels to supply the 

 unnumbered wants of civilised life. Transformed by the skill of 

 the chemist, they supply some of our sweetest perfumes and 

 richest dyes. They are all around us like some vast circle, within 

 whose almost boundless circumference we may describe the 

 smaller circles of our daily needs ; and the central point of all 

 these wonders is but a withered leaf ! 



Our tale is told, but ere we close, permit one w^ord of moral 

 teaching conveyed in two brief extracts. The first is from the 

 pen of a modern anonymous writer, slightly altered to suit 

 our title : — 



Oh withered leaves ! through branches bare, 

 I see the sky broad stretching, where 



Ye bounded once our vision. 

 Ah me ! until grim age destroy 

 The glamour of uncertain joy, 



We think the world Elysian. 



Yet wherefore should we sigh to know, 

 . The charm of May, the summer glow. 



Too transiently are given ? 

 Earth's beauty haply is but gone, 

 That we may learn to rest upon 



The sweeter hope of heaven. 



Thrice happy he who thus receives, 

 A lesson from the withered leaves, 



While Nature round him sorrows. 

 Who meets with mind attuned to praise 

 Reflection born of darkening days, 



And so contentment borrows. 



Our second extract is from a higher, because inspired source, 

 and bears upon it the imprimatur of the Divine Architect, who 



