Sylvanus Stall

Suggestion:—Objects: Some autumn leaves or green leaves of different varieties.

I desire, however, to use these leaves to teach you not only this lesson, but also several others which they suggest.

If, during the summer, you go out into a forest and study the leaves, one of the first things which you will notice will be that the leaves which grow upon one kind of trees differ from the leaves which grow upon every other kind of trees. Indeed, if you pick up a leaf from the ground and examine it carefully you will find that the leaf is largely a picture of the tree upon which it grew. The shape of the leaf will correspond very largely with the shape of the tree from which it has fallen. If you study the leaf more carefully you will discover that the veins in the leaf will quite closely resemble the shape of the limbs of the tree. You would not be able to study the different leaves which you pick up without being impressed with the resemblance in many instances between the leaf and the tree upon which it grew.

Now, I think that we may learn a very profitable lesson from the leaves in this respect. I think that you will find, when you are able to study with a little closeness of observation, that the scholars of different Sunday-schools are different from each other, at least in some respects. Those who come from the school where good order is maintained, where there are consecrated, devoted teachers who give themselves carefully to the preparation of the lesson, secure the attention of their scholars, impress the truth deeply upon the minds, and hearts and consciences—you will find that the scholars of this school become attentive and orderly, and well behaved, and all the scholars in the school partake of the influences which are exerted over them from Sunday to Sunday. The scholars who attend a school where the superintendent does not keep good order, where the teachers are irregular and disinterested, and where everything is permitted to go along as by mere chance, these scholars will partake of the influence of the school, and will individually become like the school. So you see how important it is that each and every scholar should be attentive and thoughtful, and give the very largest amount of help possible to the superintendent and teachers to render the school orderly, and to encourage the teachers who desire to devote themselves to the teaching of Bible truth and the impressing of the spiritual lessons, so that those who are under their influence may be brought to a saving acquaintance with Christ.

What I have said with reference to the Sunday-school is also true with reference to the Church. There is an old saying, that "like priest, like people." When a pastor continues for a long period of years in the same pulpit, ministering to the same people, if he has their sympathy, co-operation and assistance the people will become very much like each other in their spiritual character, and all will become more and more like the pastor and his teachings. If he is godly, and consecrated, and upright, his people will become increasingly so. And you will find not only that each scholar becomes a miniature of the Sunday-school which he attends, but each Christian becomes a miniature of the congregation of which he is a member.

But the leaves teach us another lesson. The great trees which you see in the forest are the result of the united efforts and labors of the leaves. Each leaf is gifted with individual power, and together they all drink in the influence of the sunlight and the showers, and unitedly they build up the great oaks and elms and poplars, and all the trees of the fields and forest. The coal, which is now dug from the mines, was once a great tropical growth of forest trees which were afterwards buried by some great convulsion in nature, and now when we dig up the coal and burn it in our stoves we are simply releasing the buried sunshine which was accumulated and stored up by the individual leaves of the great forests of centuries ago.

As we look upon the leaves of the trees I think we must be impressed with the fact, that each one labors in his own appointed place. There is no conflict, there is no crowding of one, thinking to exalt himself above the others. There are no little parties of leaves joining together and trying to crowd themselves to the top of the tree, but each and all work faithfully and zealously in the place which God has appointed them.

They are not only faithful workers, but they are unselfish workers. No leaf can have the joy which belongs to another, or the glory of all the leaves. Each leaf has the reward of doing a little, and when its work is done it must drop to the ground and perish in the dust. The work which it has done and the tree which it has helped to build will be its monument and reward. If each leaf gives its life faithfully for the building up of the tree, no leaf can fall to the ground or be shaken from its place by the autumn wind and perish in despair.

If you will go into the forest at the autumn period of the year, or go into the orchard and examine where the leaves are about to drop off, you will find that at the base of the stem of each leaf, already there appears the budding of the leaf which is to be unfolded next spring, and even though the leaf withers and falls to the ground, leaving the barren limb alone to battle with the winter storms, yet there is the promise and the evidence that when the gentle breath of spring shall come and break open the icy sepulchres of the winter, these little buds will feel the genial warmth and unfold their green beauty in a radiant springtime of beautiful foliage. So one generation of men may die and pass away, to have their work continued and completed by those who are to come after them.

But these leaves also teach us of our mortality. For, as Isaiah says, "We all do fade as a leaf." We are all very apt to forget that we must die. And so each year, when the summer is over and the fruit is gathered, the leaves begin to wither, and the early frost tinges the forests of the closing year, like the sun oftentimes makes the clouds all crimson and glory at the close of the day. These things should teach us that as advancing years come, we also must fade and die. God spreads out before us this great panorama along the valleys and on the hillsides each autumn to teach us that as the leaves perish, so we must also fade and droop and die.

But there is one great encouragement, and that is, that although the leaves fall, the tree stands. The leaf perishes, but the tree abides, and year after year, sometimes for centuries, it goes on increasing in stature and in strength, abiding as the giant of the forest. So also, when at last each of us must die, that which we have built shall abide, and what we have received from others and to which we have added our efforts and our labors, others shall receive from us, and they also shall carry on the work in which we have been engaged. So each generation receives and carries on the work of those who have gone before. As the poet has well said,

The tree stands a monument of strength and beauty at the grave of all the dead leaves which lie buried at its feet. So what each boy and girl, each man and woman, shall have accomplished of good or evil, will remain after they have perished and passed away, to tell of their lives, and God will note the result. He who says that not even a sparrow can fall to the ground without His notice, and who tells us that the very hairs of our heads are all numbered, He will note our deeds, and He will be our reward.

If I were speaking now to older people I might call attention to the fact that the autumn leaves are more beautiful than the summer leaves. And so boys and girls, it seems to me, and it has always thus seemed to me, that there is something more beautiful in manhood and womanhood, during the later years of life, than during the earlier years. Always honor and respect the aged whose heads are gray, whose features are venerable and whose characters are Christ-like.