FLOWERS. 25 



Come, while the lark its sweet anthem is singing, 



And the breath of the morn is freshened by showers : 



The voice of the thrush through the woodland is ringing, 

 Come, little brother, let us gather some flowers. 



MONG the diversified products of 

 Creative Wisdom, there are perhaps 

 no more attractive objects than 

 flowers, and none to which the 

 mind turns with greater pleasure. 

 See how lovely and beautiful they 

 are in their multiplied forms and colors, and 

 how interesting and wonderful in their distri- 

 bution and uses. Some are decked in colors 

 so brilliant as to bid defiance to all imitation, 

 or marked with tints so delicate as to set at naught 

 the skill of the artist; while others, as emblems of 

 perfect purity, are arrayed in vestures of snowy white- 

 ness. 



Nature has scattered these beautiful objects with 

 an unsparing hand over every portion of the globe; 

 they smile in clusters among the decayed leaves of 

 the wood, and the pasture-fields are dotted all over 

 with their ever-varying hues. They rear their gay 

 heads to the sun in gaudy profusion in the ever- 

 glowing regions of the south, and peep out in modest 

 loveliness from beneath the Arctic snows. 



There is something happy in the thought that the 

 pleasure to be derived from flowers is open to the 

 youngest, and the poorest of mankind ; they are gifts 

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