STATE HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 145 



dies in their hearts that love that does not die, and as has been said 

 so beautifully by an English poet, 



" Your voiceless lips, O flowers, are living preachers, 

 Each cup a pulpit, and each leaf a book." 



As we have visited the different hospitals and charitable institu- 

 tions in cities we have seen what a mission flowers are capable of; 

 how pain and illness would be for the time nearly forgotten, the 

 drooping and wounded spirit, and saddened heart cheered by these 

 living sermons which come not from the voice of man, but from the 

 hearts of the lovely blossoms, which silently teach, them of that 

 fairer and better home, where flowers never fade. 



Strong evidence of the progress of refined culture is seen in the 

 beautifying of our cemeteries with plants and flowers; there is a 

 symbolism in the introduction of flowers here, which makes them 

 especially fit to adorn the last resting place of those^who have passed 

 through the gates and are solving the great mystery. 



" Death is a beautiful necessity, without it, there can be no new life." 



Whence is it the trees are dark and gray in their winter's sleep? 

 This is but a resurrection of what seemed to be their death. 



Men are sometimes startled by some sudden weakness, that por- 

 tends decay and they are dismayed at the sudden thought of death — 

 then how cheering is the hope of immortality; life is like a flower, 

 that only buds here, but blooms in another clime, for, 



"Spring will come to the mouldering urn, 

 And day will dawn on the night of the grave." 



The flowers forget not to bloom in the spring and decay in the 

 autumn. The golden days that herald the approach of autumn linger 

 long, apparently, to give a longer life; but the rustle of the dead 

 leaves have the fatal dry rattle of decay; these emblems of death 

 cling gallantly to the maple's trunk, and with gathering hectic flush 

 defy death. 



It is true, that every succeeding season of the year is as intrin- 

 sically important as the grand results they bring. 



The flowers are only the sheath of the seed, and the seed only 

 an ad'^ancing step towards other flowers, foliage and fruits. 



But we are sensibly reminded by the falling leaves and nature's 

 decay, that the life we are now living is as evanescent as the flowers 

 of the valley. 



There are few people who will accept Coleridge's dictum that 

 "In nature there is nothing whatever melancholy." 



The sad sobriety of William Cullen Bryant's poetic genius has 

 been touched into some of its most characteristic strains by the ap- 

 proach of autumn with its falling leaves. He it is who saiil, "the 

 melancholy days have come, the saddest of the year." 

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