The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1896-11-04

oFEhe Woods-Eow Like the Leaf is our
r.lfe-From Youth to Age.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 25.-The season
of the year adds much appoSiteness to
Dr.. Talmage's sermon, which we send
out today. His subject is THE Pa,
geantry Of the Woods" and his text
Isaiah Xiv, 6, "We all do fade as a
leaf"
It is 50 hard for us to understand re-
ligious truth that God constantly reit-
crates. As the schoolmaster takes
blackboard and puts upon it figures
and diagrams, so that the scholar may
not only get his lesson through the
ear, but also through the eye, so God
takes all the truths OF his Bible and
draws them out in diagram on the
natural world. Champollion, the
famous Frenchm&n, went down into
Egypt to study the hieroglyphlcs on
monuments and temples. After moca
labor ha deciphered them ana an
nounced to the learned world the re-
suit of his investigations. The wis
dom, goodness and power OF Goo are
written in hieroglyphlcs all over the
earth and all over the heaven. God
grant that we may have understand
ing enough to decipher them. There
are scriptural passages, like my text,
which need to be studied in the very
presence Of the natural world.
Habakkuk says, Thou makest my
feet like kinds feet,n a passage which
means nothing save to the man that
knows that the feet OF the red deer or
hind, are peculiarly constructed, SO
that they can walk among slippery
rocks without falling. Knowing that
fact, we understand that when Habak-
kuk says. "Thou makest my feet like
kinds feet" he sets forth that the
Christian can walk amid the most
dangerous and slippery places with
out falling. In lamentations we
read that s'the daughter of my people
is cruel, like the ostriches Of the will
derness," 8 passage that has no mean,
ing save to the man who knows that
the ostrich leaves its egg in the sand
to be Matched out by the sun, and that
the young ostrich goes forth unattend'
ed BY any maternal kindness. Know
ing this, the passage is significant,
The daughter of my people is cruel.
like the ostriches Of the wilderness. J"
Those know but little Of the mean
ing of the natural world who have
looked at it through the eyes Of others
and from book or canvass taken their
impression. There are some faces so
mobile that photographers cannot take
them, and the face of nature has such
8 flush and sparkle and life that no
human description can gather them.
No one knows the pathos of birds
voice unless he has sat at summer ev-
ening tide at the edge of a wood and
listened to the cry Of the whippoor-
will.
There is today more glory in one
branch of sumac than painter could
put on 8 whole forest of naples. God
hath struck into the autumnal leaf a
glance that none see but those who
come face to face-the mountain look
ing upon the man. and the man look
ing upon the mountain.
For several autumns have made a
tour to the far west, and one autumn,
about this time, saw that which shall
never forget. I have seen theasasS
tumna1 sketches Of Cropsey,snd 9th
er skillful pencils, but thatWeek I saw
a pageant 3, 900 milestone Let artist
stand back wbeR God stretches his
canyasl A-grander spectacle was
>aeyes kiadled before mortal eyes.
Along By the rivers, and up and down
the sides of the great hills, and by the
banks of the lakes there was an inde-
scribable mingling Of gold and orange
and crimson ard saffron, now sober
ing into drab ana maroon, now fam
ing into solferino and scarlet. Here
and there the trees looked
as if just their tips had blossomed into
fire. In the morning light the forests
seemed as if they had been trans6gured
and in the evening hour they looked
as # the sunset had burst and dropped
upon the leaves. In more sequestered
spots, when the frosts had been him
dered in their work, we saw the first
kindling of the flames of color IN a
lowly sprig; then they rushed up from
branch to branch until the glory OF
the Lord submerged the forest. Here
you would ind a tree just making up
It's mind to change, and there one
looked as if, wounded at every pore, 1t
stood bathed in carnage. Along the
banks of Lake Huron there were hills
over which there seemed pouring cat
araets of fire, tossed up and down and
every whittier By the rocks. Through
some Of the ravines we saw occasion
ally foaming stream, as though 1t
were rushing to put out the confagra-
ton. If at one end Of the woods q
commanding tree would set up its
crimson banner, the whole forest pre-
pared to follow If Gods urn of col
ors were not infinite, one swamp that
saw along the Maumee would have
exhausted it forever. It seemed as if
the sea of divine glory had dashed its
surf to the tiptop of the Alleghanies,
and then it had come dripping down
to lowest leaf and deepest cavern.
Most persons preaching from this
text find only in it a vein of sadness.
I find that have two strings to this
gospel harp-a string OF sadness and
string of JOY infinite.
'sWe all do fade as a Leaf
First-Like the foliage, we fade
gradually. The leaves which week
before last felt the frost have day by
day been charging in tint and will fc1
many days vet cling to the bough
waiting for the fist of the wind tc
strike them. Suppose you that the
pictured leaf that you hold in your
hand took on its color in an hour, or
in a day, or in week? No; deeper
and deeper the flush, till all the veins
Of its life now seem opened and bleed,
ing away. After awhile, leaf after
leaf, they fall. Now those on the
outer branches, then those most hid.
den, until the last spark of the gleam.
ing forge shall have been quenched.