Have any of you been abroad in the fields during the past week? If so, you must have marked the waning year. The leaves are fading all around us, clothing the departing year with a wonderful beauty. As they fade away one by one, they preach to us, and say, You, too, O men, will soon fall to earth and wither.

Have you heard the sermon of the falling leaves? You say to yourselves, Winter will soon be here. You begin to store up your stocks of fuel to meet the coming cold. But do you not see those gray hairs upon your head? Are they not wintry tokens, too? Do you not note the trembling limbs, those loosened sinews, that furrowed brow? Do not these be token that your winter is hastening on?

Have you made no provision for eternity? Will you be driven away forever, where there shall be no hope? Have you laid up no stores of comfort for another world? O fools! and slow of heart! Even the birds of the air rebuke you.

" It was but the other day. I saw the swallows gathering, and away they flew across the sea to sunnier climates. They did not wait here until all their food was gone and they must famish. No, they took to themselves wings and followed the sun. Has all the wisdom entered into birds? And have men none left? Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons. And the dove, the swift, and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the Lord." Jeremiah 8, 7.

Will you wait in this poor world and linger among its dying joys until you die and perish forever? Oh, that you would take the wings of faith and fly where the sun of righteousness points out the way, and you will reach the land of everlasting summer. where fading flowers and withering leaves are never known.

If only they were wise, and would understand this and discern what their end will be. Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse 29. Show me, O Lord, my life's end, and the number of my days. Let me know how fleeting is my life. Psalm 39, verse 4. Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90, verse 12.