Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1904-11-07

Why, when you placed that picture
alongside OF the last photograph OF
your father and mother you found that
you looked Just as old as they were
when they died. Yes. like the leaf. an
average man dies gradually. He be
gins TO die first at the extremities. His
hair whitens. His skin wrinkles. His
hand trembles. The once steady beat
of the heart becomes unsteady. The
windows Of his eyesight are bedimmed.
He has a pain at the base of the brain
because the circulation is poor God
gives to almost every man thousands
of warnings instead of one warning
that he is fading away as the leaf, as
the autumnal leaf.
Is not the figure of the leaf diving
gradually the symbol of the average
mans death1 Of course some leaves
do meet a violent and a quick death,
as nearly all wild beasts in their ma
tive haunts end their lives by a sud
den tragedy. \ mischievOus squirrel
may climb tree and jerk a leaf from
its mornings and toss it to the ground.
1
pruning hook to lay bare a branch.
The keen ak may slaughter the leaves
as ruthlessIy as the farmers scythe
mOws down the golden grain in order
that the woodman passing the night in
the forest may have a soft couch to
sleep upon at the foot of some giant
oak. The sullen blizzard, sulking be-
hind an arctic iceberg, may decide to
make a spring journey back to the
place where it had tried in vain to bat
ter down the doors of a summer cot
tage during the past winter months
and in one night destroy all the sprout-
ing leaves. A forest fire may allow
the flames to feed upon the tender foil
age which has been exposed by nature
for a few weeks to be cOlOred by the
light of the sun. Some men in their
youth or in strong middle age in full
health may be struck down by some
accident or contagious disease as quick
~ as a soldier upon battlefield may
have a bullet pierce his heart and in
stantly drop dead. And some men may
instantly exterminate their lives by the
evil effects of sin.
Man Dies as the Leaf.
But, after all, most leaves do not die
q sudden death. They live on through
the spring. They live on through the
summer They live until the cold of
oncoming winter makes dormant the
wonderful forces which give life to the
tree. They die as gradually as the
summer days slip into the fall days;
as gradually as the ebbing tide, each
wave Of which is a little lower down
the beach than the preceding wave; as
gradually as the twilight slowly grows
DINNER: as gradually as the echoes in
the mountain ravine become softer and
softer. Man dies as the leaf, gradual
". 1t is sickness after sickness. 1t
is fewer walks, less work, less physical
energy. 1t is a gradual benumbment
of the mental and physical faculties.
You know you are not as strong as
you used to be- What is the matter?
We are all fading away as the leaf, as
the autumnal leaf.
But this autumn day, as the leaves
are everywhere falling from the trees,
know God has a purpose in their
death as well as in their life One rea-
son why God every fall strips the trees
Of their leaves is that the next year
the forests may be robed with another
covering of green. And one reason
why God makes one generation of hu-
man beings pass away from earth Is
that another generation may be born
and live and have the opportunity to
do the work which is necessary for
eternal life beyond the grave, as past
generations have done and as we must
DO.
Did you ever stop to consider from
an earthly standpoint the blessings of
death as well as the blessings of life?
Every year in order to make the fruit
trees and vineyards bear we'll the
farmer with his pruning hook has to
go among them and ruthlessly destroy
hundreds of buds in order that the
other buds may have enough nourish-
ment to grow and do their work. In
order that the human race may be
streng and physically well God has to
keep his pruning hook busy or else
this old earth would soon be over
! populated, and there would not be
room for man to live by the side of
man. 80 great are the possibilities
or growth said the old sage, Benta-
MN Franklin, that the productiveness
OF the vegetable and animal life is in
conceivable and almost without limit. .
BY the Malthusian doctrine we learn
that if death did not destroy one gan.
Grafton almost as soon as it was born
the world would soon be an impossible
place for human residence. Bv that
| Malthusian doctrine if there was No
death the human race would douhle
itself every twenty-five years. In the
| United States there are today owe,
| 100000 people In twenty-five wears
from now there would be 10000 600
In fifty years from now there would
be 2S0,O00,0O0 people. In seventy-iye
years from now there would be 5GO,.
(, 600. 900 and in q hundred years 11oo