192 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
becomes an item in the universal progress, and Nature 
stands in the presence of the Deity as a being endowed 
with hopes and aspirations which, throughout eternity, 
shall be ever developing, and at every phase claiming 
closer kindred with the Divine. What to man this death, 
but a pledge of his eternal endurance, and a warning of 
the duties of the “eternal Now ?” As the ages have passed 
through phases to higher and higher growths, so shall 
the individual, so shall the social circle, so shall the 
nation and the race. Every age and every man has 
lived to represent a thought, and the universal man is 
embodied in the growth of all the individuals through all 
the ages of their lifetime. It is but the browning of 
the leaf. When Nature has attained perfection in one 
type, she will not tolerate less perfection in another, but 
raises each creature, step by step, into new perfections; 
and as forests fall that more stately forests may flourish 
upon their decay, so the conditions of humanity pass 
and change, that others more noble may be raised 
above them, and so on for ever. Greece built her 
temples upon the ashes of Persian and Egyptian mag¬ 
nificence; Pome caught up and diffused the fire which 
had burned upon the altars in the fanes of Greece; 
and Europe has risen with its civilization, its poetry, its 
moral grandeur, upon the ruins of the nations of the 
past. Where blood flowed, and thrones crumbled to 
dust, the green grass waves: and the man of science 
learns, from its flexible sprays, the dependence of man 
and nature upon God, and the necessity of both to 
grow—to grow. It is only the browning of the leaf, 
Autumn decay, and Spring revival; the perishing of 
