Perhaps the _mother_ is pausing in the midst of renewed anguish for the departure of her gifted, her only child, and sits enumerating all his perfections, the greatest of which, and that which sanctified all other virtues, and hid the very shadowings of error, was his deep, constant love for her. Oh, how the maternal heart, smitten by the heaviest of griefs, bathes itself in the fountain of filial love; and when, at last, the over-wrought frame yields to the undermining sorrow, the mourner comforts herself with the reflection of the afflicted monarch of Israel, "I shall go unto him, he shall not come again unto me." These reflections, with all of blighted hopes which parent, lover, friend and patriot have indulged, the falling leaves of autumn suggest; but the evergreen tells us of the survival of affections, of friends, of beauty, and, perhaps, of attainments, and teaches us that while we bend, and may bend in bitter anguish--anguish long indulged beneath the rod of affliction--it is good for us also to kiss the rod--for it has the power of budding anew in the hand of Him who wields it; and the same might which made it the instrument of His afflictive dealings can make it also the means of after joy and peace. Perhaps, upon the leaves that we examine, the sybil, with rearward glance, has recorded some event for joyous reflection. Have we not been made participants of high gratifications--domestic, social, public associations of instructive and pleasant operation? Have not new affections warmed the heart, or old ones sent out new tendrils to cling with a stronger hold upon us? Perhaps we have had the acquisition of wealth without the augmentation of desires, so that we can make ourselves happy by judicious distribution. Perhaps, above all, and over all, we are better, by the passage of the year, better by newly acquired, and especially newly exercised virtues--virtues that bless others, and, through them, bless ourselves. If so, surely we have grounds for pleasant reflections on the close of the year, and may hope that we have not lived in vain.