The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1896-11-07

cause other leaves are to follow them.
After n lifetime of preaching, doctor
ing, selling, sewing, or digging, let us
cheerfully give way for those who
come on TO do the preaching, doctor
ing, selling, sewing and digging. God
grant that their life may be brighter
than ours has beenl As we get older,
do not let us te affronted if young
men and women crowd us a little.
We will have had our day and we
must let them have theirs. When
our voices get cracked, let us not
snarl at those who can warble. When
our knees are stiffened. let us have
patience with those who go fleet as the
deer. Because our leaf is faded, do not
let us despise the unfrosted Autumn
must not envy the spring. Old men
muse be patient with boys. Dr. Guth'
rie stood up in Scotland and said
You need not think I am old because
my hair is white; never was so young
as / am now" l look back on my
childhood days and remember when,
in winter nights, in the sittingroom,
the children played, the blithest and
the gayest of all the company were
father and mother Although reach
ing forescore years of age, they never
got old.
Do not be disturbed as you see good
and great men die. People worry when
some important parsonage passes oil
the stage and say, Ills place will
never be taken.' But neither the
church nor the state will suffer for it.
There will be others to take the places.
When God takes one man away He has
another right back of him. God is sc
rich in resources that He could spare
5000 Summerfields and Saurins if there
were so many. There will be other
leaves as green, as exquisitely veined,
as gracefully etched, as well pointed.
However prominent the place we fill,
our death will not jar the world. One
falling leaf does not shake the Adiron-
daclxs. A ship is not well manned un-
less there be an extra supply of hands
some working on deck, some sound
asleep in their hammocks God has
manned this world very well. There
will be other seamen on deck when
you and are down in the cabin, sound
asleep in the hammocks.
Again: AS with the leaves, we fade
and fall amid myriads of others. One
cannot count the number of plumes
which these frosts are plucking from
the hills. They will strew all the
streams; they will drift into the cav
erns; they will soften the wild beasts
lair and fill the eagles eyrie. All the
aisles of the forest will be covered
with their carpet, and the steps of the
hills glow with a wealth of color and
shape that will defy the looms of Ak
minister What urn could hold the
ashes of all these dead leaves? Who
could count the hosts that burn on
this funeral pyre of the mountains?
So we die in concert. The clock that
strikes the hour of our going will
sound the going of many thousands.
Keeping step with the feet of those
who carry us out will be the tramp OF
hundreds doing the same errand. Be-
tween SO and 20 people every day lie
down in Greenwood. That place has
200, 600 of the dead. l said to the man
at the gate, Then if there are so many
here, you must have the largest GENE.
terry" He said there were two Roman
Catholic cemeteries in the city, each OF
which had more than this. We are
all dying. London and Pekin
are not the great cities of the
world. The grave is the great
city. 1t hath mightier population,
longer str eets, brighter lights, thicker
darlknesses Caesar is there, and all his
subjects. Nero is there, and all his
victims. City of kings and paupersl 1t
has swallowed up in it's immigrations
Thebes, and Tyre and Babylon, and
will swallow all our cities. Yet, City
of Silence. No voice. No hoof. No
wheel. No clash No shifting of ham
mer. No clack of flying loom. No
jar No whisper. Great City of Silencel
OF all its million million hands, not
one of them is lifted. Ofall its million
million eyes, not one of them sparkles-
OF all its million million hearts not
one pulsates. The living are in small
minority.
If, in the movement of time, some
great question between the living and
the dead should be put, and God called
up all the dead and the living to decide
it, as we lifted our hands, and from all
the resting places of the dead they
lifted their hands, the dead would out
vote us. Why, the multitude of the
dying and the dead are as these au-
tumnal leaves drifting under our feet
to-day. We march on toward eternity,
not by companies of 100. or regiments
of 200, or brigades of 10, 600, but $780,.
OOO, 900 abreast! Marching onI March
ing onl
Again: As with variety of appear
ance the leaves depart, so do we. You
have noticed that some trees, at the
first touch of the frost, lose all their
beauty; they stand withered, and un-
comely, and ragged, waiting for the
northeast storm to drive them into the
mire. The sun shining at MONDAY
gilds them with no beauty. Ragged
leaves! Dead leavesl No one stands
to study them. They are gathered in
no vase. They are hung on no wall.
So death smites many. There is no
beauty in their departure. One sharp
frost of sickness, ,or one blast off the cold
waters, and they are gone. No tinge
of hope. No prophecy of Heaven
Their spring was all abloom with
bright prospects; their summer thick
foliaged with opportunities; but Octo-
ber came, and their glory went.
Frosted! In early autumn the frosts
come, but do not seem to damage veg
citation. They are light frosts. But
some morning you look out of the win
dow and say: There was black frost
last night" and you know that from
that day everything will wither. So
men seem to get along without re-
ligion. amid the annoyances and vexa-
tions of life that nip them slightly here
and nip them there. But after awhile
death comes. 1t is n black frost, and
all is ended.
Oh, what whitening and scattering
death makes among those not prepared
to meet It'll They leave everything
pleasant behind them-their house,
their families, their friends, their
books, their pictures, and step out OF
the sunshine into the shadow. They
quit the presence of bird, and bloom,
and wave, to go unbeckoned and un.
welcomed. The bower in which they
stood, and sang, and wove chaplets,
and made themselves merry, has gone
down under an awful equinoctial. No
bell can toll one-half the dolefulness