Autumn days! I think they would be very sad indeed if we could only see decay in them, and if God had not put a little safe bud and germ of hope into every bulb and upon every branch--a promise of future life amid universal death: just as He put that green promise-bud into the heart of Adam and Eve, when such a dreadful death had gathered about the present and the future for them--declaring, to their seemingly victorious foe, of the woman’s seed, that “It shall bruise thy head.” A tiny dear little germ of a bud, and oh, how many hundred Summers and Winters passed before it developed into the glorious perfect flower! And so now there is yet a sadness, but only a cheery, gentle, tender sadness, about Autumn days to the heart that is waiting for God. And it seems to me wonderful that He should have given us one of His own minstrels to sit on the twigs as they grow bare and lonely-looking, and to express to us just the feeling that Autumn calls up within the heart, and that we yearn to have set to music for us. The little Robin waits his time; he does not cease, indeed, to trill his note in Spring, although we do not notice him then amid our blackbirds and thrushes and blackcaps and nightingales; for he is very humble-hearted, and content to be set aside when we can do without him. But Autumn days come, and the nightingale has fled, and the blackcap is far away, and the lark and the thrush and the blackbird are silent;--then the robin draws near. Close to our houses he comes, with his cheery warm breast, and kind bright eye, and his message from God. And then he interprets the Autumn to us, in those broken, tenderly-glad thrills of song, that, simple though they be, can sometimes disturb the heart with beauty that it cannot fathom, but that agitates and shakes it even to the sudden brimming of the eyes with tears. “Yes, it _is_ sad,” he says, “to see the flowers dying, and the leaves falling, and the harvest over. It _is_ sad--not a little sad--still, cheer up, cheer up; have a good heart. God has told me, and my little warm heart knows, that it is not _all_ sad. I know it is not. I can’t tell why. But it can’t be all sad; for God sent me to sing in the Autumn days. He taught me my song, and I know that there is a great deal in it about peace and joy. And it must be right; for though my nest is choked up, and my little ones are flown, and my mate has left me, I can’t help singing it. Cheer up. It is sad, but not all sad. Peace and joy--joy and peace.” “The morning mist is cleared away, Yet still the face of heaven is grey, Nor yet th’ autumnal breeze has stirred the grove, Faded, yet full, a paler green Skirts soberly the tranquil scene, The red-breast warbles round this leafy cove.