293. Pageantry of the Woods

Pageantry of the Woods

Isa_64:6 : ’93We all do fade as a leaf.’94

It is so hard for us to understand religious truth that God constantly reiterates. 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 hieroglyphics on monuments and temples. 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 understanding enough to decipher them! There are Scriptural passages, like my text, which need to be studied in the very presence of the natural world. Habakkuk says, ’93Thou makest my feet like hinds’92 feet,’94 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, ’93Thou makest my feet like hinds’92 feet,’94 he sets forth that the Christian can walk amid the most dangerous and slippery places without falling.

Those know but little of the meaning of the natural world, who have looked at it through the eyes of others, and from book or canvas taken their impression. There are some faces so mobile that photographers cannot take them; and the face of Nature has such a flush and sparkle and life that no human description can gather them. No one knows the pathos of a bird’92s voice unless he sometime sat at summer evening-tide at the edge of a wood, and listened to the cry of the whip-poor-will. This accounts for the fact that nearly all the real poets of the world were born in the country.

There is today more glory in one branch of sumach than a painter could put on a whole forest of maples. God hath struck into the autumnal leaf a glance that none see but those who come face to face’97the mountain looking upon the man, and the man looking upon the mountain.

For several autumns I have made a tour to the Far West, and one autumn I saw that which I shall never forget. I have seen the autumnal sketches of Cropsey and other skilful painters, but that week I saw a pageant two thousand miles long. Let artists stand back when God stretches his canvas! A grander spectacle was never kindled before mortal 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 transfigured, 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 a lowly sprig; then they rushed up from branch to branch, until the glory of the Lord submerged the forest. Here you would find a tree just making up its mind to change, and there one looked as if, wounded at every pore, it stood bathed in carnage. Along the banks of Lake Huron, there were 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 a foaming stream, as though it were rushing to put out the conflagration. If at one end of the woods, a commanding tree would set up its crimson banner, the whole forest prepared to follow. If God’92s urn of colors were not infinite, one swamp that I saw along the Maumee would have exhausted it forever. It seemed as if the sea of divine glory had dashed its surf to the tiptop of the Alleghanies, and then it had come dripping down to lowest leaf and deepest cavern.

Most persons preaching from this text find only in it a vein of sadness. I find that I have two strings to this Gospel harp, a string of sadness and a string of joy infinite. ’93We all do fade as a leaf.’94

First, like the foliage, we fade gradually. The leaves which have already felt the frost, day by day, change in tint, yet for many days cling to the bough, waiting for the fist of the wind to strike them. Suppose you that the pictured leaf which you hold in your hand took on color in an hour or in a day or in a week? No. Deeper and deeper the flush, till all the veins of its life now seem opened and bleeding away. After a while, leaf after leaf, they fall. 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 a slight cold; now a season of over-fatigue; now a fever; now a stitch in the side; now a neuralgic thrust; now a rheumatic twinge; now a fall. Little by little; pain by pain; less steady of limb; sight not so clear; ear not so alert. After a while we take staff; then, after much resistance, we come to spectacles. Instead of bounding into the vehicle, we are willing to be helped in. At last the octogenarian falls. Forty years of decaying. No sudden change; no fierce cannonading of the batteries of life; but a fading away’97slowly’97gradually. As the leaf! As the leaf!

Again, like the leaf we fade, to make room for others. Next year’92s forests will be as grandly foliaged as this. There are other generations of oak leaves to take the place of those which this autumn perish. Next May, the cradle of the wind will rock the young buds. The woods will be all a-hum with the chorus of leafy voices. If the tree in front of your house, like Elijah, takes a chariot of fire, its mantle will fall upon Elisha. If, in the blast of the autumnal batteries, so many ranks fall, there are reserve forces to take their place to defend the fortress of the hills. The beaters of gold leaf will have more gold leaf to beat. The crown that drops today from the head of the oak will be picked up and handed down for other kings to wear. Let the blasts come. They only make room for other life.

So, when we go, others take our spheres. We do not grudge the future generations their places. We will have had our good time. Let them come on and have their good time. There is no sighing among these leaves today, because other leaves are to follow them. After a lifetime of preaching, doctoring, selling, sewing, or digging, let us cheerfully give way for those who come on to do the preaching, doctoring, selling, sewing, and digging. God grant that their life may be brighter than ours has been! As we get older, do not let us be 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 fading, do not let us despise the unfrosted. Autumn must not envy the spring; old men must be patient with the boys. Dr. Guthrie stood up in Scotland and said, ’93You need not think I am old because my hair is white; I never was so young as I am now.’94 I look back to my childhood days, and remember when, in winter nights, in the sitting-room, the children played, the blithest and the gayest of all the company were father and mother. Although reaching fourscore years of age, they never got old.

Do not be disturbed as you see good and great men die. People worry when some important personage passes off the stage, and say, ’93His place will never be filled.’94 But neither the Church nor the State will suffer for it. There will be others to take their places. When God takes one man away, he has another right back of him. God is so rich in resources that he could spare five thousand Summer-fields 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 Adirondacks. A ship is not well manned unless there be an extra supply of hands’97some 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 I 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 the frosts pluck from the hills. They strew all the streams; they drift into caverns; they soften the wild beast’92s lair, and fill the eagle’92s 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 Axminster. 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. Between fifty and seventy people every day lie down in Greenwood cemetery. That place has over two hundred thousand of the dead. I said to the man at the gate, ’93Then if there are so many here, you must have the largest cemetery.’94 He said there were two Catholic cemeteries in Brooklyn, 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. It hath mightier population, longer streets, brighter lights, thicker darknesses. C’e6sar is there, and all his subjects; Nero is there, and all his victims. City of kings and paupers! It has swallowed up in its immigration Thebes and Tyre and Babylon, and will yet swallow all our cities. Great City of Silence. No voice; no hoof; no wheel; no clash; no smiting of hammer; no clack of flying loom; no jar; no whisper. Great City of Silence! Of all its million million hands, not one of them is lifted; of all its million million eyes, not one of them sparkles; of all its million million hearts, not one pulsates. The living are in the 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 outvote us. Why, the multitude of the dying and the dead are as the autumnal leaves drifting under our feet. We march on toward eternity, not by companies of a hundred, or regiments of a thousand, or brigades of ten thousand, but sixteen hundred millions abreast! Marching on! Marching on!

Again, as with variety of appearance 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 uncomely and ragged, waiting for the northeast storm to drive their leaves into the mire. The sun shining at noonday gilds them with no beauty. Ragged leaves! Dead leaves! 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 October came, and their glory went. Frosted! In early autumn the frosts come; but do not seem to damage vegetation. They are light frosts. But some morning you look out of the window and say, ’93There was a black frost last night,’94 and you know that from that day everything will wither. So men seem to get along without religion, amid the annoyances and vexations of life that nip them slightly here and nip them there. But after a while death comes. It is a black frost, and all is ended. Oh, what withering and scattering death makes among those not prepared to meet it! 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 unwelcomed. 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 of their condition. Frosted!

But thank God that is not the way people always die. Tell me, on what day of all the year the leaves of the woodbine are as bright as they are today? So Christian character is never so attractive as in the dying hour. Such go into the grave, not as a dog, by frown and harsh voice, driven into a kennel; but they pass away calmly, brightly, sweetly, grandly! As the leaf! As the leaf!

Why go to the deathbed of distinguished men, when there is hardly a house on this street from which a Christian has not departed? When your baby died, there were enough angels in the room to have chanted a coronation. When your father died, you sat watching, and after awhile felt of his wrist, and then put your hand under his arm to see if there were any warmth left, and placed the mirror to the mouth to see if there were any sign of breathing; and when all was over, you thought how grandly he slept’97a giant resting after a battle. Oh! there are many Christian deathbeds. The chariots of God, come to take his children home, are speeding every-whither. This one halts at the gate of the almshouse; that one at the gate of princes. The shout of captives breaking their chains comes on the mountain air. The heavens ring again and again with the coronation. The twelve gates of heaven are crowded with the ascending righteous. I see the accumulated glories of a thousand Christian death-beds’97an autumnal forest illumined by an autumnal sunset! They died not in shame, but in triumph! As the leaf! As the leaf!

Lastly, as the leaves fade and fall only to rise, so do we. All this golden shower of the woods is making the ground richer, and in the juice and sap and life of the tree the leaves will come up again. Next May the south wind will blow the resurrection trumpet, and they will rise. So we fall in the dust only to rise again. ’93The hour is coming when all who are in their graves shall hear his voice and come forth.’94 It would be a horrible consideration to think that our bodies were always to lie in the ground. However beautiful the flowers you plant there, we do not want to make our everlasting residence in such a place.

I have with these eyes seen so many of the glories of the natural world, that I do not want to think that when I close them in death I shall never open them again. It is sad enough to have a hand or foot amputated. In a hospital, after a soldier had had his hand taken off, he said, ’93Good-by, dear old hand, you have done me a great deal of good service,’94 and burst into tears. It is a more awful thing to think of having the whole body amputated from the soul forever. I must have my body again, to see with, to hear with, to walk with. With this hand I must clasp the hand of my loved ones when I have passed clean over Jordan, and with it wave the triumphs of my King. Aha! we shall rise again’97we shall rise again. As the leaf! As the leaf!

Crossing the Atlantic, the ship may founder, and our bodies be eaten by the sharks; but God tameth leviathan, and we shall come again. In awful explosion of factory boiler our bodies may be shattered into a hundred fragments in the air; but God watches the disaster, and we shall come again. He will drag the deep, and ransack the tomb, and upturn the wilderness, and torture the mountain, but he will find us, and fetch us out and up to judgment and to victory. We shall come up with perfect eye, with perfect hand, with perfect foot, and with perfect body. All our weaknesses left behind.

We fall, but we rise; we die, but we live again! We moulder away, but we come to higher unfolding! As the leaf! As the leaf!

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage