28 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
where their presence would be resented? While naturally 
associated with every thing that is bright and joyous, 
decorating the font at baptism, the Altar at Easter, 
and wreathing the brow of the bride, yetare their fra- 
grance and beauty alike welcome at the bedside of the 
sick, and on the grave of the departed. And are they 
not now here welcome in the House of God? As I have 
said, the love of flowers is natural to us all and there 
is something in their companionship, awakening the 
better impulses of our nature, and which must have been 
eminently consonant with the environment of our first 
parents — as they walked in the garden amid myriads of 
flowers smiling a glad welcome to their pure spirits. He 
who, as we are told, walked and talked with them there, and 
who is supposed to have been the Son of God in human 
form, anticipating His incarnation, in all probability dis- 
coursed of the wisdom and goodness of God, thus won- 
drously manifested in these beauteous specimens of His 
handiwork ; for, many centuries afterward, while stand- 
ing onthe mountain side, preaching to their descendants, 
He pointed to the flowers blooming at their feet, and earn- 
estly enjoined — + Consider the lilies of the field.”? 
Doubtless, this had formed the subject of many a dis- 
course with these pure and gifted beings, whose souls, 
created in the image of God, were illuminated to take in 
the lessons which the adornments of Eden in their wonder- 
ful variety and beauty presented to their vision. And alas! 
when by transgression they had forfeited all right to such 
association and teaching, what a contrast, when they passed 
out into a cheerless world, where briers and thorns abounded. 
Milton, in his poetic fervor, has thus given voice to the 
despondent Eve, 
** Must I leave thee Paradise, 
O Flowers, 
That never will in other climates grow, 
* * * which I bred up with tender hands, 
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names, 
Who now shall rear ye to the Sun, or rank your tribes? ”? 
