a sympathising friend, and by whom they were never sent empty

away.

But pre-eminently as a Christian did the excellence of his character shine forth with the brightest lustre. He was humble and devout, cheerful in the performance of duty, and punctual in his attendance on the services of the sanctuary. He said less in regard to his private feelings than some would have done, but we doubt not experienced much of that peace which passeth understanding. During the latter part of his life, being laid aside from active duties by his infirmities, much of his time was spent in the retirement of his own room in acts of devotion, communing with Him who is no longer seen through a glass darkly, but face to face. The approach of death brought with it no terrors to him; for he had long regarded the dread messenger as a welcome friend who would remove the shackles of clay, and enable him to wing his way to that house not made with hands whose happy occupants shall never more be distressed by the trials of life or the infirmities of age. His hope, built upon the Rock of Ages, did not fail him; and when informed that he could not long survive, he replied, "I am ready to go whenever the summons comes," blissful confidence, in view of which the most thoughtless might offer the request of one of old, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his !" His departure we should not regret; for he has gone to his everlasting reward.

-a

In closing this discourse, we cannot refrain from the expression of one interesting thought. This aged veteran was a soldier in another army besides the one we have mentioned. He had felt the chains of the soul's slavery; and he heard a voice from Heaven exclaiming, "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed!" He enlisted for life under the great Captain of Salvation. He maintained a successful warfare against the soul's adversary, with weapons which are not carnal but spiritual, and he now wears the victor's crown. I invite you, beloved hearer, to participate in this "glorious liberty of the sons of God!" The civil freedom which you now enjoy--the blood-bought gift of a patriotic ancestry--is as a means to this glorious end. The act of Providence which conferred the one, bids you accept the other. Be no longer an alien from the Commonwealth of Israel, which is now the great Republic of God's people, whose citizenship is in Heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ proclaims liberty to the captives "in Satan's bondage held." Put on therefore the whole armor of God, that you may war a good warfare, and come off conqueror and more than a conqueror, through Him that hath loved us. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life. The conflict may be long and obstinate; but the victory is certain, and the reward is infinite. Our glorious Leader looks back on the long line of struggling combatants, and proclaims, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne!"

BY REV. EDMUND NEVILLE, D.D.,

RECTOR OF ST. THOMAS' CHURCH, NEW-YORK,

AUTUMNAL LESSONS;

OR, THE LEAF AN EMBLEM OF MAN.

"We all do fade as a leaf."-ISAIAH Ixiv. 6,

THE temples, tombs, and other monuments of Egypt are covered with figurative writing, in which the symbols employed bear some resemblance to the objects they represent.

In like manner, the works of God may be regarded as sacred and emblematical characters, much more important to understand, and much easier to decipher than the hieroglyphical language of antiquity. The setting sun, the waning moon, the distant stars, the stormy clouds, the unbroken sky, have all their peculiar and instructive meaning. The instincts and habits of the brute creation, the wonders of the deep, the changes of the seasons, and the various phenomena of vegetable life, are eloquently expressive of some spiritual lesson or moral truth.

Look abroad, for instance, at the change which so lately has taken place in the face of nature-a change from the graceful and luxuriant forms of the summer season, to the increasing desolation and decay of autumn. Stripped of their foliage, instead of refreshing shade, the trees present nothing to us now but naked branches, while the ground, so recently adorned with flowers, is disfigured and overspread with mouldering leaves. This change, we are admonished in the text, bears a resemblance to that experienced by ourselves" we all do fade as a leaf," so that one of the most familiar objects, one which passes through

*Preached in St. Philip's Church, Philadelphia, Nov. 28, 1845.

all its stages before our eyes, is an emblem of man. Take the withered thing then into your hands, my brethren, and remember how differently these leaves appear now from what they did formerly.

1. Dried up, and broken into fragments, their structure is destroyed, and their beauty marred; but they were, within our recollection, green and flourishing. We delighted in their shade, we admired their forms, and were amazed by the wisdom displayed in their construction. But is the difference between man, as he appears in youth and old age, less remarkable? The hand of time has not more completely obliterated from this withered leaf every trace of its former elegance, than it has taken away from the man of four score years, every vestige of youthful beauty. It has unnerved his arm, dimmed his eye, palsied his step, and furrowed his countenance; but in other days he was like the leaf in its greenness, graceful, sprightly, and animated. Which of the works of God can compare with man? He is not only in physical structure more astonishing, but he has a soul—a spiritual, immaterial, and immortal being. Other things were made by the hand of God, but it was moulded in the image of God, and by the breath of God.

Other things were shaped into material modifications of grace and beauty, but it was garnished with the excellences of its maker, and made lustrously reflective of the divine perfections; and though sin has injured it has not destroyed its excellence, for as when wandering among the ruins of ancient grandeur your eye rests now on the richly sculptured frieze, and now on the living marble, so in the intellectual and moral powers of the human soul may still be traced some faint lines of its original greatness.

But if this leaf be an emblem of man in respect to its former beauty, so likewise on account of its progressive growth. It was concealed, in the first place, within a little bud; by the genial influence of spring, it was enabled to escape from this imprisonment, and after passing through its various stages, to attain maturity. In the same way man first makes his appearance as a babe, and shielded by the same kind providence that preserves the leaf, he proceeds from infancy to childhood, from childhood to youth, and from youth to manhood.

2. But the object we are considering is frail as well as beautiful. Its slender stalk and flimsy covering afford scarcely more protection than the spider's web or an insect's wing. This leaf has been the sport of casualties ever since its first expansion-the plaything of the wind and storm-a few sunny days its only rest -until now, when unable any longer to retain its hold, it has fallen to the ground and withered. But is our own frailty, my hearers, any less affecting? Are we not born so helpless as to be equally unable to express our wants or make known our suffer

ings? Is not our life suspended then, as it were, by a single thread, which the many hands of disease too often snap, and which not even maternal care can always preserve? But if we escape destruction in the bud, still "in the midst of life we are in death,❞—keen winds and chilling frosts are as fatal sometimes to man in his strength as to the leaf in its verdure, carrying him suddenly to an untimely grave, and depriving him at once of life and beauty. Thus "man" not only "cometh up, but is cut down like a flower." And even should he reach the appointed limit of human existence, he must pass through many strange and painful vicissitudes. He must be exposed, like this leaf, to all sorts of weather-the sunshine of joy, and the gloom of grief-the light of pleasure, and the darkness of pain-the serenity of contentment and the storms of affliction. Nothing can be more unstable than our present condition. Even in the neighborhood where we dwell there are continual changes. Returning to it after a short absence, the persons with whom we are so familiar are no longer seen. Other faces meet us in the street, other forms in the church. We find the family circle broken up, and our dearest friends scattered over the face of the earth. In the meanwhile, we ourselves have been the sport of circumstances, and in prosecuting the business of life, have experienced the mutability of its affairs. Prosperity and adversity, dangers and escapes, friendships and enmities, feasts and funerals have made up the medley catalogue of our experience.

Many of my hearers move at present in scenes widely different from those in which they passed their earlier days; the home of their childhood, endeared to them by so many tender recollections, has been left behind-the guardians of their infancy have been taken away-the companions of their youth have disappeared, and they have been changing ever since their abodes, their acquaintances, and their occupations. There are those here, perhaps, who have joined in the dance, and wept at the grave; who have shrouded the dead, and laughed with the living; who have reveled with the rich and starved with the poor. Thus the positions in which we may be thrown are so inconsistent; the scenes in which we act so diverse; the employments in which we engage so opposite, that we may well hold up to you this faded leaf and say, that it was never more the tempest tossed thing, which could not rest, than is man the creature of change and circumstance.

3. But, again, the leaf is not only a beautiful and a frail, but a perishable object. "We all do fade as a leaf." As the trees renew their foliage every year, so the world every generation its inhabitants; and if it were not that one generation springs up before another passes away and so gives to the world the appearance of being always full, it would be more observable.

If it were possible for the tree of life, like the tree of nature,

to be nearly stripped of its leaves, they who remained would be more forcibly reminded of their own mortality; but because as fast as one man falls another rises, we overlook the general decay that is going on. But where, I would ask, are the millions who, in their respective ages, filled the places which others occupy? Where are the inhabitants of those powerful kingdoms, those magnificent cities, which have left nothing but their names to record? Thy merchants, oh Tyre! Thy princes, oh Babel! Thy people, oh Nineveh-which were "like the sands upon the seashore for multitude?" Where are those enterprising men who brought to these shores civil and religious freedom, and laid the foundation of our fame and greatness? Where, but with the leaves of other autumns, reduced to ashes, and returned to dust? But, indeed, the perpetually changing aspect of society before our eyes is still more affecting. The invasion by death of our domestic circles, the frequent funerals in our streets, bearing to the grave our friends, our relatives, and fellow-citizens, and above all, the burial place itself-crowded, as it is, with the memorials of those whom we once knew-knew, when they were as busy and as active as ourselves-knew, to have been as sanguine and as industrious as we are-these say to us, in language that cannot be mistaken, "We all do fade as a leaf."

And it does aggravate the force of this comparison, when we discover the beginnings of decay within ourselves, when we find that a change is taken place in us, resembling that which takes place every autumn in the leaves. To young persons, indeed, this remark may seem inapplicable, but they should reflect that, as many circumstances occasion the fading of the leaf besides time, so, many accidents may occasion the decay of strength besides age that as sudden changes of temperature will often bring the leaf to the ground long before the frost of autumn, so, unforeseen casualties will often bring a man to the grave long before he becomes old. They should consider that, although not as yet conscious of any decline within themselves, they are at any rate approaching every day nearer to the time when that decline begins. But, in such as are no longer young, it has already commenced. They know, though perhaps it is little apparent to others, that they have experienced a change: that they are neither so hardy in body, so vigorous in mind, nor so retentive in memory as they once were they are beginning to fade. And others are still more unequivocally admonished of the truth of the text, for when the sap of life flows sluggishly and the eyes grow dim, when the ears become heavy and the taste obtuse, when the shriveled features and the emaciated limbs tell of the absorption of the juices of existence, then, surely, we may point to this withered leaf and say, "Thus we all do fade."

There is much need, my brethren, that we be habitually reminded of these things, for, in truth, we live in almost constant