Autumn Leaves Its Lesson…

Somewhere we have read a sentence which says “God is in the . . . march of the seasons . . .” At the season of harvest it seems to be so.

The changing of seasons is an always awesome sight. And awesome would it also be if one of them failed to follow in order. But blessedly the Creator and Administrator of heaven and earth has not left such things to chance: “He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, . . . And . . . he hath given a law unto all things, by which they move in their times and their seasons; . . . and any man who hath seen any or the least of these hath seen God moving in his majesty and power.”

As to autumn, Lin Yutang gave us these sentences many seasons ago: “. . .I like spring,” he said, “but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colors richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow . . . . Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content.” Such are some thoughts on the mellowing mood of autumn−a season that leaves its lesson−the lesson that before the harvest there are the plowing, and the planting, the period of preparation. There are always cause and consequence, and the ever-present importance of improving, of repenting, and of performing the work that each season suggests.

“Cause and effect,” said Emerson, “means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed. . . . There is a third silent party to all our bargains. The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfillment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss . . . . Every stroke shall be repaid.”

And so it is−and so is the autumn season, with its law of harvest, of cause and consequence, of return for the plowing and the planting, for the preparation−and autumn suggests that youth should look to itself while yet there is time to prepare, for the “seed and fruit, cannot be severed.”