National Republican., 1883-11-26
THE NIUTABILITY OF EARTH.

REV. j. WAINWRIGHT RAYS COMMENT ON
ISAIAH AT ST. LUKE's p. f. CHURCH.
From that poetcal text of Isaiah, sixty
fourth chapter and sixth verso, "We all do
fade as leaf" DR.. Ray preached sermon
full of beautiful imagery and tender thought.
Said he: "There are three books which God
has written-the book of nature, the book of
conscience, and the Bible-and these three
in an important sense agree in one.
Let us to-day, in the light of conscience
and the Bible, turn over few leaves, sere
and yellow, and getting less and less, in the
book of nature, even as the prophets and the
Saviour illustrated their preaching by the
same-'this elder Scripture, writ by Gods
own hand
l. This fading away is universal. eve all
do fade" There are trees that fade so slowly
they are called "evergreens," but even such
do fade.
So there are men of our time. perhaps more
than in the times of our fathers, who are
favored with remarkable constitutions
Those who started life with them are weighed
down with infirmities, so that the grass
hopper would be a burden, or they have
almost all gone years since to their long
home.
But these that are left are as robust to ap-
pearance as ever. They boast, it may be,
that, like Moses, their eye is not dimmed
nor their natural force abated. They scarcely
know what sickness is, and so playful are
they that they even hint "that death has for
gotten themW
But we look again, and where are they =?
Their seats are vacant i'll the house of God.
They come not, as aforetime, to the market
or place of business concourse, or of idle
leisure, where old men do congregate to talk
broken and fond over the past and to sigh
over the present
2, In the fading of the leaf we see the
gradual nature OF our decay. In all this
process of decay and death in nature how
silently and gradually does the work go on.
Nature comes forth with her cOlOrs and PEN
Gil at eventide and morning and paints here
and there on upper and under side of each
leaf, unseen and unheard, her myriad and
magic hues. In her laboratory no foot fall
nor sound is heard, nor light seen, till by
her constant, gradual touches, she has pro-
duced her changes, so as no chemist could
make them, and then, mid the voices and
sighs of the dying forest, the shower OF
leaves coNes futtering, like wounded birds,
to their low, long home.
So men fade away, little by little till they
fall Youth gldes onward into manhood,
manhood into age and age itself becomes
'the oldest inhabitanp by an unseen and un-
suspected process, Time steals over our
houses and our homes as silently rs ii does
on the leaf aud in the tree top and forests
fading the black hair into the silver and the
gray, dimmng the eyes and changing their
focus making the limb that was so elastic to
be limp and limping blucking beauty from
the face Of the young and vigor from the
arm of the strong.
Brethren, the single point would make
from all this idea of the gradual fading is
that we are all in danger of being taken by
surprise in the matter of our death.
Thus senseless are most men as to the
progress of their decay, as well as to the make
up Of their characters -senseless well nigh as
the very leaves Just before they fall.
3. We read lesson as to the brevity of life
What is more ephemeral than Leaf? But
yesterday it was in its fresh beauty-to-day
Is driven by the winds. "Am leaf,r asks
one in the Scriptures, "that God should chase
MeT We have all seen the Verdant tree, in