FLOWERIXG SHRUBS. 



127 



work enjoined by the Almighty Creator when he placed man in the 

 Garden of Eden — which was most likely a large and fertile tract of 

 country already enriched with every tree, and herb, and flower, that 

 would prove useful for the support of life and enjoyment. Adam was 

 instructed by his Maker to till the ground and dress it and keep it. 



This employment was ordained for health and pleasure, not for toil 

 or weariness. This last condition arose when sin had marred the fair 

 beauty of God's world and the sin-smitten earth no longer yielded its 

 spontaneous fertility as in the day when sinless man first stood in 

 his innocence on the then unpolluted earth, a fearless being in the 

 presence of a holy God. 



The vine which might have formed a delightful portion of man's 

 food in the Edenic garden, must from henceforh yield its luscious grapes 

 only by care and labour. The wild vines must be pruned and trained 

 and kept free from noxious weeds and hurtful insects ; they were no 

 longer the fruit of the Lord's vineyard. Who can tell but that our wild 

 Canadian Frost and Fox Grapes may not be the degenerated seed of the 

 wild vines of that land of the east, into which Adam and Eve wete 

 banished. 



Travellers in Palestine still speak of the luxuriant Grape-vines 

 flinging their clusters of fruit and sweet-scented blossoms over the 

 terraced steeps of rocky ravines, filling the air with perfume ; but the 

 vines are all wild now and uncultivated. They want the careful hand 

 of the vine-dresser and husbandman to train them. Type of the wasted 

 inheritance of the ancient people, and of a degenerate priesthood. 



Has the Christian church no careless vine-dressers ; are there no 

 vines bringing forth wild grapes ; no briars and thorns that come up to 

 choke the Lord's vineyard, till it becomes an unfruitful wilderness ? 



Black Hawthorn — Pear Thorn — Cratcegus tomentosa, (L.) 



Canada has many species of Hawthorn ; but not the fragrant 

 flowermg May of the English hedgerows, associated in the minds of 

 Old Country people, with the pleasant Spring days and bowery lanes 

 of their childhood, when, as old Herrick tells us " Maids went maying." 

 But even now in Merrie England, the May-queen's reign is over, in, 

 spite of poets' songs. 



Lament ko^ the jNlAV-oaEEN. 



No Maiden now with glowing brou 



Shall rise with early dawn. 

 And l)ind her hair with chaplets rare 



Torn from the blossomed thorn. 



