“And then return, by walls of peach, And pear-trees bending to our reach, And rose-beds with the roses gone, To bright-laid breakfast.” Autumn days. Such thoughts as these may interpret to us the strange oppressive sadness that comes over us, as we watch them stealing on; also, why it is that this is such a tender, sweet sadness, and not a dark, deadly gloom--the shade of a solemn grove, not the blackness of a vault. Death is indeed a valley of shadow still. But the rays of the Sun of Righteousness have penetrated even there--and the hideous darkness is softened to a tender twilight hush. Oh, “Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” And now the Autumn days are very calm and restful to think upon, and there is a deep peace in the Autumn of life, for which we are well content to exchange the flush and glee of Spring, and the glory and glow of Summer. Our snowdrops and our primroses are all over, our lilac and laburnum, roses and lilies, all died long ago; even the fruit is plucked, except for the gleam of a stray red apple that burns upon the nearly leafless bough; and the corn is all carried, and we are wandering over life’s once waving fields, collecting just the last gleanings for our Master. Our larks are silent in the fallows, our thrushes and blackbirds voiceless in the groves; the rich flood of the nightingale’s thrilling song has long been lost to our hearts. The withered leaves sail down about us, the mists sleep on the hills, the dew lies thick in the valleys. But we are very happy and peaceful; even here there is a stray flower or two, and the Autumn crocus droops on the garden beds; and the berries are bright in the hedges, under the feathery tufts of the “traveller’s joy.” And our heart is well satisfied with the robin’s song of trust and content, that has taken the place of--if richer and fuller--yet less spiritual and more distracting strains. There is an intense waiting calm; but, oh, such thoughts of Life!--life everlasting, life indeed--push their way through the yet unfallen leaves of this frail existence, and that small cheery melody is, we well know, the prelude to the full symphonies that shall burst from Angel choirs. How beautiful a time, thus thought of, is life’s Autumn time! I love to read of such a calm season in the life of a good man--a calm only broken by flashes of exultation, that come, like the aurora borealis, into the twilight sky. There is a sadness, no doubt--there _must_ be--in the coming shade of death which deepens on the path. But the bud of life in the very heart of death; of this we are more and more conscious, the closer we draw near to the withered branches. And, like the fabled scent of the Spice Islands, even over the darkening seas are wafted to us sweet odours from the Promised Land. * * * * *