Human life, man's natural existence, is most aptly represented by the figure before employed, the fading of a leaf. More than two thousand years ago did the inspired penman, the Prophet Isaiah, write these lines, and yet its truth is preached to us with unfailing regularity and solemnity in every recurring autumn. As we go out into the woods towards the close of each successive summer, we observe a gradual change in the appearance of the trees. We see the leaves, first one and then another, and then by degrees all of them alike, changing their green for a brown and yellow hue, at length, till, shriveling at the edges and loosening their hold to their native boughs, the wet and the cold and the wind cause them to fall to the ground with a sound so soft that it is almost silence and there, by the action of the elements, they soon decay and mingle with the earth, out of which they were first produced. Just so, my brethren, it is with ourselves. As soon as we begin to live, we begin to die. "Our hearts like muffled drums are beating funeral marches to the grave." If we succeed in adhering to the tree of life during the spring and summer of man's allotted years, autumn and winter of old age will certainly overtake us, and we shall sink away as surely and as silently as the descending leaves in fall, our spirits returning to God, who gave them, and our bodies mingling with the dust from which they were taken. We look over the annals of the world,--where are those mighty conquerors, a Hannibal, a Cæsar, an Alexander, a Napoleon, who once made whole nations tremble and kingdoms fall? Where are those brilliant statesmen, a Bismarck, a Webster, a Calhoun, and a Clay, upon whose lips admiring senates hung with wonder and delight? Where are the poets, the historians, the warriors, the divines, who, each in his day and generation, were the theme of general conversation, and were lauded with the tribute of a nation's praise? "Like the baseless fabric of a vision,"--gone. It is related of Xerxes, the powerful King of Persia, that when about to cross from Asia over to conquer Greece, he ordered a review to be made of all his forces on the shores of the Hellespont. A magnificent throne was erected upon a lofty peak. Seated on this pinnacle of gold, he gazed upon the unnumbered millions below him on ship and shore. No sight could have been more dazzling or more august. The hillsides were white with tents, the sea with ships. Gay banners floating in the sun, glittering with gold and silver, weakened the eye by their brightness and beauty; whatever unbounded wealth and intense love of display could produce or suggest was there, and in the midst of such transcendent glory and deepest homage, where multitudinous nobles were urging to kiss the hem of his garment and worshiped him as a god, the great king, Xerxes, wept. Amazed at such an act, expressive of feelings so contrary to those in which they were indulging, they reverently inquired the cause of his tears. "Alas," said he, "of all this vast multitude not one will be left upon the earth a hundred years hence." That was said more than two thousand years ago. How many generations have followed that, over which he wept and uttered this sad truth! We occupy their places now for a few days, and then we shall lie beside them. Of the congregation that is looking up into my face this morning, twenty, thirty, fifty years, where shall it be? The church bell will be rung out, I hope, from its steeple, but it shall be rung by other hands, and for other worshipers. This pulpit will be filled by another preacher and the pews by other listeners. As you would pass in your way home from its door, in your family and social circles, how you would miss the old and once familiar forms, yea, perhaps our very homes will be occupied by strangers. As the prophet says: "We all do fade as a leaf."