How foolish, we can see and should readily acknowledge; how unpardonably shortsighted it would be of the Year to postpone its work of preparing, maturing, ripening its fruits until the dark, short, chill days towards its end. “It is the sweet pleasure time, this Spring; wait for Summer, I will then begin. Summer, with its thick leaves and hazy blue--who would begin at such a time as this to work? Autumn--let me enjoy the cool bracing air after Summer’s heat; soon, really, a start shall be made.” And so November--and all the year’s harvest, and all the year’s fruits to be begun, grown, matured, all the year’s work crowded into the last thin group of dwindling days. Desolate, indeed, would the year be then, and a wild wail of “Too late!” would sweep with a shiver over the dreary land; no sunshine now, no time, no opportunity, no inclination, no power. The sap would be sluggish, the impulse of growth gone by; and at last a stolid, hard frost of indifference and fixed sterility close the sad story of the year. Well, this may be fanciful--yet, brothers and sisters mine, that which is fanciful in the year of Nature, which always does God’s work faithfully, even while it enjoys His glad sun and refreshing rain, and smiles up to Him in flowers--that which is fanciful applied to the life of the Year, is gravely, heart-touchingly true of many and many a life of Man. Nature, “True to her trust, tree, herb, or reed, She renders for each scattered seed, And to her Lord with duteous heed Gives large increase: Thus year by year she works unfee’d, And will not cease.” But, many among us, how do _we_ look at this life, this brief life which God has given to each--a life which has so many close analogies with Nature’s year? For what is our short year given us? To trifle away? or to use in God’s service in preparing fruit for eternity--wheat that shall be gathered into God’s barn? The latter, you will own; and happy, if not your lips only, but your life gives this answer, too! But how many, owning the truth of this grave view of life with their words, deny it with their deeds! Yet a little longer--there is time enough. It is now the time for enjoyment--the time for work will come. Vain to answer, “But if indeed with reckless faith, We trust the flattering voice, Which whispers, ‘Take thy fill ere death, Indulge thee, and rejoice,’ “Too surely, every setting day, Some lost delight we mourn, The flowers all die along our way, Till we, too, die forlorn”;