SERMON XVI. ON AUTUMN. GENESIS, XXIV. 63. "And Isaac went out to meditate in the field, at the even tide. HOWEVER much the necessities and the duties of life call upon us for activity, there are other principles of our being which lead us to meditation. divine inspiration which hath The same given us understanding, hath provided also the scenes in which it ought to be employed; and the perfection of our nature con sists, not in the separation, but in the union of contemplation and of action. "To "there " is a season;" and, if there are times when the Day-spring summons us to activity, there are times also, when, like the patriarch in the text, we are invited to" meditate in the field, at the even"tide. In the generality of men, however, there is some secret unwillingness to be employed in the labour of meditation ; -there is a kind of gloom that is very early associated with it in the minds of the young; and when manhood arrives, the prosperous are too gay, and the active too busy, to listen to the voice that suggests it. It is thus, that, even in good minds, some of the most beneficial propensities of their nature are insensibly obliterated ;-that all the inviting and propitious seasons of thought and of soli tude are neglected ;-and that their attention turns unconsciously from the very scenes where the benevolence of Nature has provided for them the amplest sources of tranquillity and of repose. I wish, at present, to present some views in opposition to this prevailing weakness;-to show you, that if there are seasons when the inspiration of the Almighty calls us to meditation, it is to lead us to wisdom and to happiness;—that there is an established train of thought, which such seasons necessarily awaken ;-and that in the even-tide, as well as in the sunshine of life, the same great ends are pursued, by which He that made us wisheth that we should not only be wise here, but become wise unto salvation. 1. There is an even-tide in the day, -an hour when the sun retires, and the shadows fall, and when Nature assumes the appearances of soberness and silence. It is an hour from which everywhere the thoughtless fly, as peopled only in their imagination with images of gloom ;-it is the hour, on the other hand, which, in every age, the wise have loved, as bringing with it sentiments and affections more valuable than all the splendours of the day. Its first impression is to still all the turbulence of thought or passion which the day may have brought forth. We fol low, with our eye, the descending sun,we listen to the decaying sounds of labour and of toil, and, when all the fields are silent around us, we feel a kindred stillness to breathe upon our souls, and to calm them from the agitations of society. From this first impression, there is a second which naturally follows it; in the day we are with living men,-in the eventide we begin to live with Nature ;-we see the world withdrawn from us,—the shades of night darken over the habitations of men, and we feel ourselves alone. It is an hour, fitted, as it would seem, by Him who made us, to still, but with gentle hand, the throb of every unruly passion, and the ardour of every impure desire; and, while it veils for a time the world that misleads us, to awaken in our hearts those legitimate affections which the heat of the day may have dissolved. There is yet a farther scene it presents to us.While the world withdraws from us, and while the shades of the evening darken upon our dwellings, the splendours of the firmament come forward to our view. In the moments when earth is overshadowed, Heaven opens to our eyes the radiance of a sublimer being; our hearts follow the successive splendours of the scene; and while we forget, for a time, the obscurity of earthly concerns, |