The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-11-13
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
sv THE REV. FRANK DE WITT rALMAoE. D. ..

Los Angeles, Cal, November 6.-From the autumnal frosts. the stripping of for est verdure and the woods now carpeted with the falling leaves the preacher in this sermon draws a lesson on the short nes of human life. The text is Isaiah lxiv, 6, .'We all do fade as a leaf"
 Is there any time in all the year more delightful for a vacation in the country than the Indian summer?' Of course to the lover of nature the valleys and the mountains have their Vaccinations at ali seasons. Winter-cold, bleak, growl- ing, freezing winter has her months of glory. Then the trees, with their long, outstretched branches. are like the vestal virgins of old, robbed in spotless white. Then the stars, through the keen, biting January nights, gleam brighter than any other time of the year. Then the couh- try roads are echoing with the merry makings of the sleighbells, and the lights from the farmhouses are the beaeons to signal friends to enter the home where ''Welcome" is written over every door.
 Springtime in the country also has her months of glory. That is the time we hear the wooings of bird mating With bird That is the time when the winds are tossing the white blossoms every Wmther. That is the time of the seed paintings ana of the plowings, the time when the brooks are rippled with the trouts' fins, while summer has her glory of the haymakers and the harvestings and the vineyards and the orchards in which we all nave reveled year by year when off TOT the August vacations. But, though winter spring and summer may come to us' eacn with special forms of enjoyment the most rapturous time of all the year III which to spend a few weeks in the eouh- try is during the autumn, fer then the glory of October's pride is the fading leaf Never in artists studio were so many gorgeous colors mixed together as God pictures on his canvases of the au- tumn foliage.
 Here the trees look like a mighty river of blood" as though their ar teries had been opened by the MOSAIC rod which ircarnadined the river or Egypt. The leaves have blushed deep crimson, as did the water at the wedding feast at Cana when, at our Lords word' if was borne as new made wine to the governor at the feast. Under wonder trees if seems as though aged Jacobs sons were feasting and had hung up Joseph's coat of many colors upon the tree branches while they were waiting for the
  their younger brother away. There the green and the yellow, the red and the pur- nle the b;le and all the colors Of the rainbow, are found blending upon the same hillside. We can almost hear the flames cracking amid the underbrush; we can almost feel the hot air touching our cheeks. We look at the strange anu wonderful sight of the long grasses anu brushes. changed within a few weeks
 uyon see the birds flying away toward the sunny south, for as they fly we can al most see the pictures of the prairie hres of our youth when the birds and the beasts and the serpents fled in wlid ter TOT before he onward rush of the con suming contlagration
 Leaves of Indian Summer.
 oh the beauty of the autumnal foliage! The fading leaves of the Indian summer faseinate the eye and woo plauditory ex- clamations from all lips. As we go Iortn today to catalogue some of them we ilhu that there are big leaves and small leaves lone leaves and narrow leaves, rough leaves and smooth leaves, thick leaves and thin leaves. There are leaves tnat are yellow, and red, and brown, ana crimson, and green, and saifron' mere are leaves like those which the tired trav- elers twist into cups and dip into the cool waters and lift to their parched nps. There are leaves like the fresh emerald ones which the picnickers use for platters when the merrymakers are banqueting Tn the woods and leaves like those the field laborers wet when they place them In their straw hats to cool their aching brows. There are leaves which the little children gather and press straight be- tween the schoolbook pages There are leaves which the maidens collect to hll the jars and vases and to decorate the halls parlors and bedrooms of the home.
 There are leaves which the florist cuts to give an added beauty to the flowers ne is clustering together for assemblages of ioy and also for assemblages Of sorrow. There are leaves which have hidden the nests of the birds while they were rear ing their young-leaves upon the tree branches, leaves in the flower gardens, leaves which have been tossed by the winds into the dusty road. leaves over head. leaves under foot. There are a hum dred and forty and four thousand varie- ties of them and thousands upon thou sands. Lo, this autumn day there is host of falling leaves which no man can number. They have lived their short lives, they have faded beautifully and at last have fallen off and fluttered silently to