ANNIVERSARY PUBLICATIONS. 



THIRD ANNUAL FLOWER SERMON. 



BY THE REVEREND CAMERON MANN. 



Consider the lilies of the field * * * even Solomon in all his glory 

 was not arrayed like one of these.— St. Matthew, vi, 28, 29. 



When our Lord thus spoke, He was not pointing to any 

 single species or order of plants, but indicated all that 

 tapestry, woven in tulips and crowfoots and anemones, 

 " innumerable of stains and splendid dyes," which stretched 

 out from His feet to the farthest eyesight as He sat 

 teaching on the mount. 



"Shoshannim," the shining ones, was the title under 

 which the common speech of Galilee grouped them all, 

 and which our English Bible, following the Latin version 

 and the Greek original, aptly renders by lilies, " the plants 

 and flowers of light." 



What the text invites us to, and what I, speaking, as 

 directed this morning, upon " the wisdom and goodness of 

 God as shown in the growth of flowers," shall try to elicit 

 some spiritual lesson from, is the whole blossoming of the 

 year, from the pink flush of the trailing arbutus, breathing 

 faint fragrance by drifts of belated snow, to those final 

 gleams sent by the weird witch-hazels through the swirl of 



falling leaves. 



What a wealth of loveliness it is which marches across 

 the landscape in the annual procession of the flowers! 

 What glad audacities and subtle harmonies of color, what 

 racy mouldings and delicate carvings of form, — vivid 

 splendors of scarlet and gold, sweet solemnities of azure and 

 purple, restful interludes of brown and green, — blossoms 

 rising in spikes like crocketed spires or diffuse as a swarm 

 of butterflies; corollas plicated, convoluted, contorted, 



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