Interior view of Elijah Kellogg’s Church at Harpswell, Maine.
THE BEAUTY OF THE AUTUMN
[From a sermon to Bowdoin Students, October, 1889.]
Autumn is a most beautiful and joyous season of the year; more so even than spring. The winds are low, and rich with a solemn music. The days are clear and bright and have an element of assurance that pertains not to the changeful skies of April. The air is bracing and salubrious. The drapery of nature is gorgeous with the blended beauty of infinite hues. The crimson and scarlet of the oaks, the bright yellow of the birch, the bluish green of the willows contrasted with the brown and orange of the soil and rocks, are all radiant in the sunlight and the keen frosty air. The rich yellow of the corn bursting from the husk, the loaded stalks swaying heavily in the October wind, all combine to form a picture more beautiful, far more satisfactory, than spring presents. Spring is the season of hope, yet it is hope deferred. Many unforeseen casualties may destroy the crop before it is ripe for the sickle. But harvest is hope realized. It is the time of taking possession.
Thus it is with the servant of God. The autumn of his life is more glorious than its spring. That was hope; this is reality. Then a long road beset with perils lay before him; now they have been passed. Notwithstanding his trials, life has been sweet. It has not been altogether toil. He has beheld with open sense this glorious world and appreciated what the Creator has done for the happiness of his creatures. The song of birds, the breath of flowers, the majesty of seas, and the grandeur of mountains and of forests, the hope of spring, the beauty of summer, and the sweet companionship of kindred hearts, have all been his. But now he is to possess the source of all that so delighted him. He is to grasp that unseen hand that led him when he knew it not, and held the tangled thread of his daily life. He is to exchange the stream for the fountain, the sunbeam for the sun itself. The journey has not been without much of profit and pleasure, and the heart of the wayfarer has been cheered by messages from loved ones, but he would rather be at home. He who made the flower is lovelier than the flower. He who gave the grace doth the grace exceed. To sow the seed and watch its growth has been a hopeful labor, but it is better to bind the sheaves. Rich are the fading splendors of the autumn and gorgeous the dyes in which the Almighty has decked the departing year. Sweet the murmur of autumnal winds among the falling leaves mingling with the deeper cadence of the streams. But a brighter glory illumines the autumn of life that has been spent with God and for God. What language shall describe, what figures worthily set forth, the maturity of a soul that in these days of secular knowledge and Gospel privilege has gathered to itself, with a sanctified avarice, all that God has taught in the mighty utterances of nature and the clearer revelation of His word, that has laid art and science under contribution and grappled to every opportunity of intellectual and spiritual growth, that by trial has been refined, and by blessings quickened to a higher measure of gratitude and love.
Permit one united to you by the college tie to which time only adds intensity and depth, who has travelled over the path your feet are now pressing, who has reached that period of life when the tissue of the dream robe has fallen and when dreams unchilled by truth no longer minister that maddening fuel to the feverish blood, permit one to inquire if you are laying the foundations for such a maturity as has been described. You are living in a day that affords opportunity and likewise compels responsibility. Inspired by such sentiments, using aright your splendid opportunities and holding yourself true to your great responsibilities, may you resemble trees planted by living waters. May you be enrolled among the inhabitants of the city that hath foundations built by God on the banks of that river
“Whose sapphire crested waves in glory roll