FOR most of us there are seasons and places which have such a peculiar charm that their remembrance makes us long for them like a little child, and these appeals often chronicle the simple fact that the veil of material sense has been somewhat withdrawn at times, so that we have looked beyond the seeming, and caught a glimpse of glorious verities of being, which have shone thereafter like stars in the firmament of memory. Were we always equally sensitive to the suggestions of the unseen, we should undoubtedly find that no season of the year and no point of view could fail to bring us these gladdening revelations of beauty and of Truth. Our perception of the good and beautiful is determined by our own clarity of vision, and this is illustrated in the fact that while to some the days which herald approaching winter seem dreary and depressing, to others they have a charm that is altogether unique and incomparable, and no time of the year is more stimulating, suggestive, and delightful. The subdued browns and purples of the woods; the delicious blues of the distant hills; the sunsets seen through the traceries of the naked trees; the deeply carpeted paths that echo our steps with whispered laughter; the winelike tonic of the air, that hints both of the summer's garnered riches and the winter's biting frost; the wondrous hush of things that tells of the twilight of the year,—surely nature could not frame a sweeter nocturne than this, and as the listening lover of it all stands beneath the pine-trees with every impulse molded into quietness, he is glad to be alone, lest some human commonplace break in upon and mar uplifted thought. Yes, for the keen-visioned and the spiritually aspiring the autumnal days are indeed holy,—filled with suggestions that bid us
. . . look and listen, gathering whence [we ] may
Triumph, and thoughts no bondage can restrain.
And yet, for the multitude who find in the falling leaf and the gathering cold reminders of their hastening doom, these are indeed "melancholy days," and the explanation is found in the pitiful fact that for centuries most men have been led to think of themselves as belonging to and part of a material order, and hence that their history can but conform to that round of birth, growth, maturity, and decay which is so familiar and so universal that its impression upon both conscious and unconscious mentality is deeper, perhaps, and more seemingly ineradicable than any other factor of human belief. There results that expectation of decrepitude and final defeat which is known as human destiny, and which is permitted to rule with a rod of iron over vast areas of thought and experience. Nothing could be more clear and more inspiring, however, than the teaching of Christ Jesus respecting the life of man, namely, that it is immediately from and of God, and hence eternal; that its fitting symbol and expression is an ever-harmonious and buoyant youth, and that its rightful rule should be manifest in our triumph here and now over everything that makes for decay and death. The supreme purpose and end of his heavenly mission, as well as the supreme privilege and opportunity of our human experience, was disclosed when he said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
