How thankful we should be, as we grow into the Autumn, for those kind words which assure us that life’s beginning, not life’s end, is then really near; that it is but the bud of immortal youth that is pushing off those withered leaves of mortality; for those who have given the year of their life to God; or, at least (such is His mercy in Christ Jesus), the earnest gleaning of its late months. For else, how sad to watch the sun setting, the only sun we know of, and to hope for no long day beyond. Think of what a wise heathen said of old age. Cicero wrote a treatise, a wonderfully beautiful treatise, in praise of it. But all this was but playing with his own sadness, in his old age; pleading the cause of a client, in whose cause he did not believe. For, after all, he writes his real thought to his friend Atticus. “_Old age_,” he says, “_has embittered me--my life is spent_.” Sad, yet true from his point of view. Sad--all spent; and no good hope of a “treasure in the heavens _that faileth not_.” How even one of the little ones in our village schools could have cheered up sad Cicero!
Now see what Christianity can do, and has done. Think of waiting Simeon:
“Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, According to Thy word: For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.”
Hear aged Paul, the great champion Apostle, leaning now on his sword, and exhorting the younger warriors who are leading on that war, that he soon must leave. What peace, nay, what exultation, flashes through his waiting!
And a picture arises before us of another aged, very aged man, ending the Bible and his life with the solemn rapturous words of glowing expectation--
“He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”
There is another aspect of Autumn days, dreary and sad as they apply to the worldling. But to the obedient faithful child of God, their sadness, we have seen, is gentle, peaceful sadness, a tender hush more than counterbalanced by the promise of we know not yet, _what_ exceeding ecstasy and glow of life, while we speak of it as _the life everlasting_. Aye,
“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth,”
and there must be a hush over Autumn days, because death must be sad, even when it is beautiful. But how sweet and glorious, amid the fall and decay of the loveliness and beauty around us, to be able to rest our heart quietly upon a land beyond earth’s horizon; and to look forward brightly and happily across these changes, “to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and _that fadeth not away_.”