The weekly Thibodaux sentinel and journal of the 8th Senatorial District. [volume] (Thibodaux, Lna. [i.e. La.]) 1875-1898, 1890-11-22
FALLING LEAVES.
(For the Sentinsl.)

room | can see asmall, thickly branch
ed tree, upon which the leaves have
been turning golden and brown tor
many weeks. They fall slowly, az
10th to leave the parent stem which
binds them to life in the vegetable
kingdom. After another frost the
leaves will fade more quickly and IL
cold wind will scatter them in showers
to carpet the turf beneath. Looking
ont, day after day upon the changing
Slorles OF the autuinnal world, one is
apt to moralize upon many things, and
fancy roves in many fields "wiere
rainbow tiuts and colors" dwell. We
may suppose this tree to represent a
human life ol,ce full of fond hopes and
bright prospects. AS the years go on
and the wise teacher, Experience. has
taught us wholesome lessons aud hard
ones, hopes are bliglted, prospects
wrecked, and the beautiful leaves of
fortune and happiness fall away from
rs, and some cyclone OF misfortune or
affiiction may sweep down myriads of
them. until just enough are left to
keep life from going out in despair.
Again, 1t is the tree Of memory, and
the leaves are the recollections of bit
ter and sweet, of grave and gay, which
have been treasured up as a legacy for
old age when anticipation is dead, and
one must look backward and not for
ward for his earthly joys. But the
leaves OF memory wither, too, and we
forget SO much we fain would remem-
Der. Mercifully, it is the painful and
the sOrrOwful one IS most prone to for
get. The old love best to dwell upon
what was pleasant and happy in their
past lives. The impressions retained
longest upon the brain seem to be of
bright scenes and happy faces. Cattle
rine Cole says: 'we may not write of
life until we are done with it." Oliver
Wendell Holmes says an authors most
successful work is apt to be the one in
which he relates his experience.
If from the Tree of memory falls much
that was sad and disappointing and
sinful, why should we gr:eve while we
have left rich treasures of what, has
been pure and lovely and good in our
livesf
As the leaves fall, we think of the
mysteries of nature and the mysteries
of thought and being. We remembe:
the love, and sympathy and kinship
binding us to our fellowmen, and then
we think of the sad mystery of "man's
inhumanity to man" which sometimes
asserts itself SO cruelty. "Charity,"
breaches the world-but where is the
charity when u man or a woman goes
''uyer the rapids" and is rushing to
destruction in the whirlpools of dissi-
patton and sin How MANY hands are
eagerly held Il to rescue the unfortu-
IA How many make n personal
sacrifice to redeem the soul of IL broth
er or sister in such a case | mean
not those connected by ties of blood,
whose hearts are So burdened for the
loved one gone astray, but Imean the
world at large-the universal brother
hood which should bind us to help IL
II of our W SPECIES who needs our
aid. The world may permit a man to
retrieve his past errors, to climb back
to the pedestal from which he has fall
len, but if a woman falls, she may not
rise again. Such is the unwritten code
OF society. Did God make the same
laws to govern the morals of Il nan
and a woman? If a man, claiming by
right of sex to be Of stronger ~cliarac-
ter, will and purpose, fall into tempta-
ton. is he more eXcusable than the
woman who yields to the same evil or
the anne vice? What says the Divine
Law And yet, society brushes a wo-
,,op xrln ri1ntn, ito ,,o, ,-
remorseiesSly as the fallen leaves are
trodden under foot by the hurrying
crowd. Ii God judged lis as hardly as
we judge each other, who could stand
before his faces
Some of the leaves are still green,
bat llo.d SD loosely to the stem that a
hard puff of wind viii carry them away
with their fellows. These are the
hopes which never came to Tuition
the purposes which We're never exc
cuted, swept out ofeXistence by provi-
dence or the lack of the necessary Gle.
ments for their fuililment. These are
like the ''closed gentiansr Of autumn
whose buds though swellingMith beau
ty can never reach maturity:
"A yelled smile is every soft corolla,
A sealed JOY that cannot come nor go;
Ahope dumb in chry sails, a patience,
A thought within a dream of snow,
Fall, autumn leaves-your missi on is
fulfilled, and you perish, but to live
again for your elements may 60 to
form lovelier objects in nature than
you have been.
Love would whisper
The souls of the flowers that never blew
Have their own Eden