29 



THE SEASON OF BEO\VN LEAVES. 



Race after race of leaves and men, 



Bloom, ■wither, and are gone. 

 As winds and waters rise and fall, 



So life and death roll on. 

 And ever as the ocean heaves 



So life and death roll on; 

 Drop, drop into thy grave, old leaf, 

 Drop, drop into thy grave. 



EmoTT. 



The spring time came with green and gladness, and the summer fol- 

 lowed with its rosy flowers and fruits : and now, after so brief a 

 season of exuberance, the green things fade and die, and the joy of 

 the year withers with the browning of the leaf. For a few moments, 

 ere the branches are stiipped of all their russet glories, let us reflect 

 on these autumn changes as they hint of analogies in life and nature, 

 and suggest ideas of hope and duty. 



That view of the world which represents the outward and material 

 forms, as perishable symbols of imperishable ideas, is that which 

 should guide our first steps into this region of comparison and spe- 

 culation. Nature is a series of progressions or unfoldings, and all 

 her creatures are representative of ideas. The human form sinks 

 into decay and perishes ; the individuals pass from existence one by 

 one ; they do not live as individual types, but collectively as repre- 

 sentatives of Man. So the year, with its manifold changes and un- 

 foldings, its many forms and colours and voices, has its spiritual and 

 moral analogies, which are infinitely more poetical and instructive 

 than any of its details of animate or inanimate beauty. All through 

 the universe the same few laws peep out under an unity of expression 

 which makes them all parallel. Spring, summer, autumn, winter : 

 Infancy, youth, manhood, age. The seasonal unfoldings of the indi- 

 vidual ; the spring, summer, autumn, and winter changes of the 

 man are seen again in the progress of the race, and the ages of gold, 

 silver, bronze, and iron are but other modes of expressing the same 

 fact. The tree of life has its budding and blossoming, its finiitage 



