much that
is ugly, but there is pleasure and beauty in it still, the traces of
its own loveliness before sin drew furrows in its face and saddened its
heart. A very Nain it is. We are now in Autumn, and the leaves are
turning fast. The dogwood leaves are bright carmine, and the maple
yellow as sulphur, the last flowers are out in the hedges, the pink
cranesbill and the blue oxtongue which will hang on till after
Christmas. The elder which was so white and fragrant in May, is
covered now with purple berries, and the ash is hung with scarlet
beads, so bright, so many, and so beautiful, that the swallows are
hovering round them all day impatient to begin, and improvident of the
future. Nature even in its decay is beautiful, and what was it in
spring? Remember the primroses out on every bank, and the anemones in
the wood, and the blue flush of wild hyacinths in the coppice! Verily,
we are in Nain, a pleasant and beautiful place. Alas! alas! my
brother! my sister! Behold there will be a dead man, a dead woman
carried out from it, to see it no more, and that will be one of us. Is
it sad? Yes, no doubt it is.

II. But though sad, the thought of it must not be put away. S. Paul
says, "We have the sentence of death in ourselves." We carry about in
us ever the doom--we are sentenced men--and the sword will fall on us
some day. The story is told of a Norwegian king that he promised to
give a young nobleman any reward he chose to ask for, because of
something he had done for him. Then the young man boldly asked for the
hand of the princess, the only child and heiress to the kingdom. The
king answered him, "Yes! I have promised. You shall have her hand,
and lose your head, the same day." Then a grand wedding was prepared.
And a stately procession moved to the church, of the bride in white,
and the bridegroom in his most gallant apparel, but as he went along,
he heard a sound of a file from the executioner's room, who was
sharpening his axe. And he stood before the altar with his bride, and
the priest joined their hands,--but all the while the executioner was
sharpening his axe. Then the bells of the city pealed, and the heralds
blew their trumpets, and the people shouted, and girls strewed flowers
in the path, and their way went by the executioner's lodging where he
was still engaged on his axe. Then there was a great feast, and wine
flowed, and the most dainty meats were put on table; it was a hot day,
and t