THE 



GARDENER. 



FEBRUARY 1869. 



THE ROSE. 



{Continued from page 11.) 

 CHAPTER VII. AEKANGEMENT. 



VERY gardener must be an infidel — I am, and I glory in 

 tlie fact — on the subject of infidelity. The proofs and the 

 precepts of natural and revealed religion are brought so 

 frequently and impressively before him, that he cannot 

 believe in unbelief. He takes a seed, a bulb, a cutting (who made 

 them*?); he places them in the soil which is most congenial (who 

 made it f) ; the seed germinates, the bulb spindles, the cutting strikes ; 

 he tends and waters (but who sends the former and the latter rain ?) ; 

 and the flower comes forth in glory. Does he say, with the proud 

 Assyrian, " By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my 

 wisdom"? Does he not stand the rather, with a reverent wonder, to 

 consider the Lilies (the Auratum, it may be, the glowing Amaryllid, 

 or the lovely Eucharis, in robes pure and white as a martyr's), until 

 the very soul within him rises heavenward, and Manus Turn fecerunt 

 is his psalm of praise 1 



And the truths of Revelation, the histories and the prophecies of the 

 Older Testament, the miracles and parables of the New, are taught as 

 constantly and as clearly to the gardener in his daily life. In our 

 gardens always 



" There is a book, who runs may read, 

 Which heavenly truth imparts ; " 



ever reminding us of that Eden wherein were all things pleasant to 



D 



