348 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Many people would do well to use less money for showy furniture and useless 

 bric-a-brac and fol-de-rol finery of every sort, and put the money thus saved in 

 seeds, plants and shrubbery for the beautifying of their homes, whose back yard 

 and front yard are as barren as a sea beach, while the parlor and dining-room are 

 so full of fancy frippery of all kinds, that it is almost perilous to attempt to enter 

 them . 



Besides, the exercise in the open air and sunshine of caring for her plants 

 would make the average society woman's cheeks less colorless, and her eyes less 

 dull, and her mind brighter, and her heart more t|j;ider and pure, and her whole 

 life more what a woman's life was intended to be— an honor to her Maker and a 

 blessing to mankind. 



A sacred burden is the life ye bear; 

 Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly; 

 Stand up and walk beneath it, steadfastly; 

 Fall not for sorrow, falter not for sin, 

 But onward, upward, till the goal ye win. 



I read in a paper not long since, that in a town of several thousand inhab- 

 itants, and containing 10 or 12 churches, not a lily could be found for Easter decora- 

 tion. 



If more women would imitate the life of that lately departed saint, Miss 

 Jennie Cassaday, the world would be the better for it. From an invalid's couch, 

 in her sister's home, she organized and for many years superintended the flower 

 mission of the W. C. T. U. By a distressing accident in her early girlhood, she 

 was a helpless invalid to the day of her death. But her great soul reached out 

 after sick and suffering humanity with a love and devotion almost divine. There 

 were none too poor, none too low, none too sinful or degraded to receive her loving: 

 care and sympathy. 



But she has been promoted. 



"Chaplets for her today, 



And garlands in her name ; 

 Let all the church' altars blaze 



Blood-red with fragrant flame. 

 Bring roses, royal red ; 



Bring lilies like the drift 

 Of norchern snows, and from green beds 



Pluck pansies for our gift. 

 Sift over her, oh sun, 



The gold of summer skies ; 

 Shine softly, stars, above the grave 



Where this dear sleeper lies ! 

 Sunshine and song and flowers, 



Green wood and waving tree, 

 Tbe ocean's murmur, summer winds, 



And all things glad and free. 

 May blooms and songs of June, 



And all the life and stir 

 Of happy, buoyant life and tune. 



Come with the thought of her 

 Who has them all today, 



Treading the sunlit f lopes # 



Of God's eternal day." 



The mission of flowers in hospitals and the homes of the poor cannot be 

 better expressed than in her own words. 



