"Hope on, hope ever, tho' dead leaves be lying In mournful clusters 'neath your journeying feet, Tho' wintry winds through naked boughs are sighing, The flowers are dead, yet is their memory sweet Of summer winds and countless roses glowing 'Neath the warm kisses of the generous sun. Hope on, hope ever, why should tears be flowing? In every season is some victory won." SERMON L. THE PREACHING OF NATURE. (Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity.) S. MATT. vi. 28. "Consider the lilies of the field." This world is God's great Temple, and the voices of Nature are His preachers. The Holy Spirit speaks to us through these preachers like the wind breathing through the pipes of a great organ. To those who have ears to hear, the roar of the ocean, or the sound of the mighty rushing wind, are as an anthem of praise. The song of birds, the hum of insects, every voice in the world of Nature combine to take part in a hymn of thanksgiving, a great _Benedicite_, and to sing, "O all ye works of the Lord bless ye the Lord, praise Him, and magnify Him for ever." And yet, my brothers, there are many of us too blind and too deaf to see and hear these things. To one man this world is only a gigantic farm, to be divided, and ploughed, and tilled, that it may bring forth more fruit. To another the world is merely a great market, a warehouse filled with all kinds of goods, which may be bought and sold. To some the world is like a chess-board, where each man plays a selfish game, and tries to overreach his neighbour. To others the world is a mere play-ground, where they pass a frivolous, useless existence, sitting down to eat and drink, and rising up to play. To the selfish man the world is a vast slave plantation, where unhappy slaves are forced to toil and labour to supply the needs of cruel taskmasters. To the faithless man the world is nothing better than a graveyard, where lie buried dead friends, dead hopes, dead joys, without any promise of a resurrection. But to the Christian this world is a great and solemn Temple, where he can worship the Creator, and where ten thousand voices teach him to "look through Nature up to Nature's God." When he stands in the meadow grass, or under the shadows of the pine-wood, he can feel that surely God is in this place, and that the place wherever he stands is holy ground. "Oh, to what uses shall we put the wildweed flower that simply blows? And is there any moral shut within the bosom of the rose? But any man that walks the mead, in bud, or blade, or bloom, may find, According as his humours lead, a meaning suited to his mind."