FIRST ANNUAL FLOWER SERMON. 105 



tiles, noxious insects, poisons, volcanoes, cyclones, sin. 

 For some of these are changed into good. As poisons into 

 medicines. And some exist as opportunities and stepping 

 stones to good. Even sin itself in its existence helps fur- 

 nish the sphere for the life and growth of the precious 

 forces of choice and free-will. And any way things that 

 we may deem unwise and bad in the world are overwhelm- 

 ingly outnumbered and overmastered by things we know 

 to be wise and good. " If I climb up into heaven thou art 

 there; if I go down to hell, thou art there also. If I take 

 the wings of the morning, and remain in the uttermost parts 

 of the sea; even there also shall thy hand" of wisdom 

 " lead me, and thy right hand " of goodness '* guide me." 

 Looking out upon the world and its three great kingdoms 

 that from childhood we have been accustomed to divide 

 things into, viz., the mineral, the vegetable, and the ani- 

 mal, only a little thought is necessary to discover the par- 

 amount importance and interest of the one named the vege- 

 table. Wood for fuel, and timber for houses and furniture ; 

 grains and roots and fruits for food, and flax and cotton for 

 clothing — these show at a glance how this kingdom pays 

 superabounding tribute for the support and comfort of man. 

 And considering that the stored up coal of the earth that 

 we call a mineral is of vegetable origin, and that grasses 

 and corn sustain the herbivorous animals that he takes for 

 food, and grass and mulberry leaves nourish the sheep and 

 goat and silkworm, whose products he takes for clothing, 

 and that a largo portion of the curative substances of the 

 materia medica is gathered from herbs and trees, we shall 

 conclude that it is the vegetable world which by God's ap- 

 pointment really furnishes well nigh everything for the life 

 and happiness of the natural man. And one understands 

 the phrase often uttered to me by the dwellers in the Far 

 West when I was among them — *' When I make this strike 

 or that: wheu I achieve this success, or that I am going to 

 get out of here and go back to God's country." Out, it 

 meant, from the treelessness there and the dry sand and the 



