Connecticut western news., 1896-10-29
THE FORESTS GLORY
REV. DR. TALMAGE DRAWS lNSPiRA-
 TON FROM THE WOODS.

Leaves-Man Without Religion Dies Without Tinge of Hope-Perishes With No Hope of Resurrection.
 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 Pag- eantry of the Woods" and his text Isaiah lxiv, 6, "We all do fade as a leaf.''
 It is so hard for us to understand re- igious truth that God constantly reit- crates. As the schoolmaster takes a 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 Frenchman, went down into Egypt to study the hieroglyphics on monuments and tenn ples. After much labor he deciphered them and announced to the learned world the result of his investigations. | The wisdom. goodness and power of God are written in hieroglyphics all over the earth and all over the heaven. God grant that we may have under standing enough to deoipher 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 hind's feet" 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 Habakkuk says, "Thou makest my feet like hind's feet, !" he sets forth that the Christian can walk amid the most dangerous and slip pery places without falling. In Lamen- tations we read that "the daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostriches of the wilderness" passage that has no meaning save to the man who knows that the ostrich leaves it's egg in the sand to be matched out by the sun, and that the young ostrich goes forth unat- tended by any maternal kindness. Knowing this, the passage is significant, ''The daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostriches of the wilderness. "
 Glory of the Forest.
 Those know but little of the meaning of the natural world who have looked from book or canvas taken their impress sion. There are some faces SO mobile that photographers cannot take them, and the face of nature has such flush and sparkle and life that no human de- scription can gather them. No one knows the pathos of birds voice un- less he has sat at summer evening tide at the edge of a wood and listened to the cry of the whippoorwilL
 There is today more glory in one branch of sumach than a painter could put on Q whole forest of naples. God hath struck into the autumnal leaf glance that none see but those who come face to face-the mountain look ing upon the man, and the man looking upon the mountain.
 For several autumns I have had tour to the far west, and one autumn, about this time, saw that which shall never forget have seen the autumnal sketch es of Oropsey and other skillful pencils, but that week saw a pageant 2,000 miles long. Let artists stand back when God stretches his canvas. A grander spectacle was never kindled before mor- tai 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 indescribable mingling of gold and orange and crimson and saffron, now sobering into drab and maroon, now flaming 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 transfgured, and in the evening hour they looked as if the sunset had burst and dropped upon the leaves. In more sequestered spots, where the frosts had been hindered in their work. we saw the first kindling of the flames of color in lowly sprig. Then they rushed up from branch to branch, until the glory of the Lord submerged the forest. Here you would find 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
 
 hills over which there seemed pouring cataracts of fire. tossed up and down and every whither by the rocks. Through some of the ravines we saw occasionally foaming stream, as though it were rushing to put out the confagration. If at one end of the woods a commanding tree would set up it's crimson banner, the whole forest prepare to follow. If Gods urn of colors were not infinite, one swamp that I saw along the Mau- mee would have exhausted it forever. It seemed as if the sea of divine glory had dashed it's surf to the tiptop of the Alleghanies, and then it had come drip ping down to lowest leaf and deepest cavern.
 We Fade Gradually.
 Most persons preaching from this text find only in it vein of sadness. find that have two strings to this gospel harp-a string of sadness and string of joy infinite.
 i've all do fade as leaf."
 First, like the foliage, we fade grad ually. The leaves which week before last felt the frost have day by day been changing in tint and will for many days yet cling to the bough, waiting for the fist of the wind to strike them. Sup pose you that the pictured leaf that you hold in your hand took on its color in an hour, or in day. or in 8 weekr No Deeper and deeper the flush till all the veins of it's life now seem opened and bleeding away. After awhile leaf after leaf they Tall, now those on the outer branches, then those most hidden, until the last spark of the gleaming forge shall have been quenched.
 So gradually we pass away. From day to day we hardly see the change But the frosts have touched us The work of decay is going on. now slight cold, now season of overfatigue. now fever, now 8 stitch in the side, now a neuralgia thrust, now rheumatic twinge, now fall. Little by little,