Virginia Free Press

There is an even-tide in human life—season when the eye becomes dim and the strength decays—when the winter of age begins to shed upon the human head its prophetic snows. It is the season of life, to which the Autumn is most analogous, and much it would profit you, my elder brethren, to mark the instruction which the season brings. The spring and summer of your days are gone, and with them not only joys they knew, but many the friends who gave them. You have entered upon the autumn of your being, and whatever may have been the profusion your spring, or the warm temperature of your summer, there is a season of stillness, of solitude, which the beneficence of heaven affords you, in which you may meditate upon the past and future, and prepare yourself for the mighty change which you may soon undergo.

It is now that you may understand the magnificent language of heaven—it mingles its voice with that of revelation—it summons you to those hours when the leaves fall and the winter is gathering, to that evening study which the mercy of heaven has provided in the book of salvation. And while the shadowy valley opens which leads to the abode of death it speaks of that love which can comfort and save, and which conducts to those green pastures and those still waters where there is an eternal spring for the children of God.