33 State Horticultural Society. 



heavens emblazoned with a million worlds — they all speak to ns of 

 divine power, vmsearchable wisdom and everlasting love. They teach 

 lis to be dissatisfied with the supposed existence of some unknown and 

 impersonal force which could never be made the subject of love, worship 

 or prayer, and to fix our faith upon the God, who is all and in all, and 

 whose infinite and eternal mind creates and rules all things. 



Let us 



Go forth under the open sky, and list 

 To nature's teaching, 



noting a few of its manifold lessons. 



The blossoms, fruits and flowers teach all, who will take the time 

 to learn, a great lesson of trust in God. 



To me the meanest flower that blows can give 

 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 



These silent and beautiful preachers love the open air. On the 

 grassy hillsides and in the green valleys they modestly preach millions 

 of faultless sermons. Clothed in robes brighter than those that princes 

 wear, they have the earth for a pulpit and the blue sky for the ceiling of 

 their sanctuary. These bright children of the sun teach us that God, 

 who weaves their inimitable robes of beauty, will care for us also. Anx- 

 iety is the bane of human happiness. The world is full of the weary and 

 disapponted. When the hour is dark and disappointment sore, turn to 

 the first bursting bud or full-blown flower, and looking up into your face 

 with its smiling beauty, it will tell you more about the grand secret of 

 human happiness than all the philosophers of earth. And that secret 

 is this: "Be not anxious. If God so clothed the grass of the field, will 

 he not much more clothe you ? Trust and be strong ; trust and be cheer- 

 ful ; trust and wait." 



If tliou art worn and hard beset 



With sorrow that thou woulds't forget, 



If thou woulds't read a lesson, that will keep 



Thy heart from fainting, and thy soul from sleep, 



Go to the woods and hills; no tears 



Dim the sweet look that nature wears. 



The earth also teaches the frailty and mortality of man. 



Leaves have tlieir time to fall, 



And flowers to wither at the North wind's breath. 



The wavering grass, the nodding harvests, the fruit-laden orchards, 

 the mighty forests, spring up from the earth only to return to earth 

 again. Every living creature that shares with us in the great mystery 

 of life will soon and certainly die. We ourselves must soon take our 

 place with all the generations of the past. The whole earth is one vast 



