The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1914-10-15
The Lesson of the Leaves.

Their Monument Is in the Living Tree
Which Their Lives Sustained-lhey Do
Not Live for Themselves.
TRev. Edwin Pond Parker in HartfordCourantl
"We all do fade as leaf" The leaf
fades and falls and passes away, as hav-
ing fulfilled its functions and its mission:
We saw, the other day, with mingled
feelings of wonder and pleasure.
healthy and majestic oak not less than
300 years old. Year by year its lnnum-
cradle leaves have Uttered the ground
and then Disappeared; year by year new
leaves innumerable have crowned IL with
their verdure. BY each successive gen.
GRAFTON OF leaves the tree that produced
them has been nourished, enlarged and
strengthened. 1t is the law OF nature,
it is necessary that the leaves should an
nually fall and give place to new ones IN
due season, or else the tree itself must
perish. But the falling leaves have
done and finished the work appointed
them. Therefore one would say it Is hit
ting that ere they fall and are swept
away by the wind they should put on all
imaginable choice colors, and, bathed in
mellow light, bid US adieu in certain
splendor of departure. The tree is the
symbol of humanity which survives all
seasons. The leaf is the symbol OF the
Individual life, ever passing in its brief
season, and perpetually replaced. The
race of man is like the oak. The gene
rations of men are like its leaves. This
wonderful parable of autumn presents to
us, therefore, another and more import
ant truth than that of decay and death.
namely, that life comes by death and
that decays precede new growth and
greater progress; as Charles Kingsley
sang:
Old decays but foster new creations,
Dust and ashes feed the golden corn.
Mr.. Beecher said, cat the bottom of
every leaf-stem is cradle and in it is an
infant-germ; and the winds will rock it
and the birds will sing to it all summer
long, and next summer it will unfold. !"
So the leaf begins early the preparation
of its successor, and IN so doing fultllls
its mission.
Brown leaves that with aerial grace
Slip from the branch like birds awning
Each leaving in the appointed place
Its bud of future spring.
So nature creates new and larger life
through perpetual individual changes and
decays. And so, some prophets say and
some poets sing, shall divine Power and
Love tout Of the ever-changing, the un-
changing make" But at that point,
and as to the immortality of the indi-
vidual, the analogies of nature are not
entirely satisfactory, not even that of
the seed sown, which St. Paul makes use
of. One must find satisfaction and COM
fort elsewhere in respect of that. Gods
conscious creatures are of another cate
CORY than the leaves, and if we may be-
lieve that the life he gives them changes
but never dies, puts off its mortal form
only to reappear in some new form, that
belief must rest on other foundations
than those expressed in such lines as the
following:
Ye dead leaves, dropping soft and slow,
Ye moses green and lichens fair,
Go to your graves as will go,
For God is also here.
The chief lesson of the leaf is that of
individual service. Its life has been one
of receiving and giving. 1t falls when
its mission is completed. 1t gives its all,
even itself, that the tree which produced
it may survive and flourish. What else
in nature teaches more clearly or tender
Nv the vital relation OF the individual to
be too humble or fragile to contribute
somewhat to the welfare of that whole;
that no individual life can perform its
true task without some such contribu-
ton, and that, lovingly performed, leach
lowly duty adds to the inner strength
and outer beauty?"
Mr.. Ruskln, in the fifth volume of
Modern Painters. has an exhaustive
.A,,l,, tbo Loaf np1 no tsE.varv
leaf has an infant bud to take care of,
laid tenderly, as in a cradle, just where
the leaf-stalk forms a safe niche between
it and the main stem. This child-bud is
fondly guarded ali the summer, but its
protecting leaf dies in autumn; and then
the boy-bud is put out to rough winter
schooling, by which he is prepared for
personal entrance into public life in the
spring."
Marvellous, indeed, this brooding and
building business of the leaf, and in see
ing it fade and fall one may we'll remem-
Der how through sunshine and storm it
has guarded under the shade of its faith
full shields the bud that is to bear its
hope through winters shieldless sleep
and cold.
And Mr.. Ruskin calls attention to an
other interesting fact. The leaves are
not so many isolated individuals. They
live, as it were, in communities. There
is a reconcilement of interests among
them in respect of what sun or shade or
rain is to be had. They do not push each
TO his own liking, interfering as if sell
fishly concerned and contentious in their
work, but their order IS one Of soft and
subdued concessions. They live in clus-
tiers and "every leaf-cluster presents the
general aspect of little family" entire
" at unity among themselves, intent on
getting their living without infringe
ment Of the family rules or invasion of
the rights and privileges # their neigh
bors. This fellowship of the foliage in its
clustered life, this neighborly relation and
respect of its manifold clusters or groups,
this harmonious because cooperative sys-
TEN on which the leaf-builders proceed
in their work, seems abundantly sugges-
tive. If here and there an unruly leaf
cluster is seen to be recklessly striving
for peace, and pushes itself at the cost
and in defiance of others, its premature
decay shows the folly of its vain conten-
ton: and Ruskin observes that under
all oppression of external accidents each
leaf-cluster follows law laid down in
its own heart and all the members of it,
in sickness or health, in strength or Ian
guor, combine to carry out this law; re-
ceiving life that they may communicate
it, and loneliness that they may.reflect it.
IL H.