THIRD ANNUAL FLOWER SERMON. 27 



Christi. But in all its forms, in drama, in epic, in lyric, in 

 novel, in essay, it is most evidently the utterance of men 

 who were bred in the religion of Jesus Christ, who are famil- 

 iar with creed and prayer and sacrament, who have "with 

 holy bell been knoll'd to church," and whose common 

 speech is saturated with Bible imagery and diction. And 

 it is, I verily believe, to this Christian sentiment so domi- 

 nant in our classics that we owe their fondness for grass and 

 trees and flowers, their sympathy with the gentler aspects 

 of nature, their readiness 



To learn not only by a comet's rush 



But a rose's birth, not by the grandeur God — 



But the comfort, Christ. 



There are sermons in sea and sky and mountain range : 

 for everything preaches to one who will listen; and so 

 there are sermons in flowers, and this sermon is oftenest set 

 to lovely music, is a hymn of praise and joy. And for the 

 beginning of reverent attention to it we must go back to 

 the One who spoke its text: " Consider the lilies of the 

 field." 



What is it we may learn from such considering, what is 

 the great lesson of the lilies? You all know Tennyson's 



lines — 



Flower in the crannied wall, 



I pluck you out of the crannies, 



I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 



Little flower, but if I could understand 



What you are, root and all, and all in all, 



I should know what God and man is. 



This is perfectly true ; but the same is true of the stone 

 in the wall where the flower grows, or of the slug crawling 

 over its leaf. One fact does, in the last analysis, mean all 

 other facts; one flower requires the universe. But so does 

 one pebble, one worm ; no matter on what bit of reality we 

 take our stand, we stare off into infinity. What, therefore, 

 is a teaching of all things cannot be the distinctive teaching 

 of the flowers. 



