220 THE FLORIST. 



ON FLORAL TASTES, AND THEIR RESULTS. 



The religious is the noblest style of man. To hold communion with 

 our Creator, and to refer every thing we do to his will and pleasure, 

 is to make the closest approximation to present happiness, and to 

 promote most eflfectually the highest ends of our whole being. If 

 we state that the love and the culture of flowers tend to this most 

 desirable accomplishment, we believe we take up an impregnable 

 position ; for we have already seen that these beauties of nature are 

 evidently intended to attract our notice and win our regard. They 

 constitute, indeed, the illustrations of the great volume of natural 

 religion, which no revelation is intended to close, but rather to ex- 

 plain and confirm its contents. They consequently have an import- 

 ant bearing on man's spiritual and religious nature, and can only be 

 neglected as means of the highest instruction by the ignorant and 

 fanatical. 



The divorce between natural and revealed religion was unknown 

 to the di\*ine Founder of Christianity and his immediate followers, 

 although it has been proclaimed and acted upon too much in suc- 

 ceeding times. There is a glory of the sun, and of the moon, and 

 of the stars, although they have different degrees of brightness ; and 

 there is divine teaching in a flower as a terrestrial instrument, al- 

 though its accents are less commanding and authoritative than those 

 of celestial ones. There is an alluring and persuasive force in the 

 various objects of the floral world, demanding assent to the great 

 truths which their construction and uses more than obscurely hint at. 

 We are thus surrounded by monitors to correct our errors, and by 

 stimulants to arouse us to duty ; and although, through our natural 

 obduracy, the impressions they make may be slight, they exert an 

 influence notwithstanding. Even to the passive spirit they imper- 

 ceptibly convey valuable instruction, more perhaps than we are in 

 the habit of supposing to be the case ; how efl'ective, then, must be 

 the doctrines they teach to the heart which is ready to hsten to them 

 with filial reverence as to the counsels of a father and a friend ! 



In the biographies of many pious persons allusion is made to the 

 aid they have gained in their arduous course by meditations among 

 the beauties of nature. Such cases are too numerous to allow of our 

 mentioning names, and we will merely refer to the constant reference 

 to rural scenes and floral associations in the Holy Scriptures. From 

 the time when " the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley" 

 supplied emblems to Solomon, to the modern writer who makes *' the 

 herb called Heartsease" the symbol of a contented and humble spirit, 

 there has been a constant succession of prophets and di%-ines and pri- 

 vate Christians, who have been refined and encouraged and elevated by 

 these simple means. We feel sure we are uttering the experience of 

 many of our readers when we say, that a humble flower can teach 

 faith and submission and childlike confidence ; and that through all 



