CHAPTER V. 



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FTER Rome Pagan became Rome Christian, the 

 priests of the Church of Christ recognised the 

 importance of utiHsing the connexion which 

 existed between plants and the old pagan 

 worship, and bringing the floral world into active 

 co-operation with the Christian Church by the 

 institution of a floral symbolism which should be 

 associated not only with the names of saints, but 

 also with the Festivals of the Church. 



But it was more especially upon the Virgin Mary that the 

 earl}' Church bestowed their floral symbolism. Mr. Hepworth Dixon, 

 writing of those quiet days of the Virgin's life, passed purely and 

 tenderly among the flowers of Nazareth, says — " Hearing that 

 the best years of her youth and womanhood were spent, before she 

 yet knew grief, on this sunny hill and side slope, her feet being for 

 ever among the Daisies, Poppies, and Anemones, which grow 

 everywhere about, we have made her the patroness of all our 

 flowers. The Virgin is our Rose of Sharon — our Lily of the 

 Valley. The poetry no less than the piety of Europe has inscribed 

 to her the whole bloom and colouring of the fields and hedges." 



The choicest flowers were wrested from the classic Juno, 

 Venus, and Diana, and from the Scandinavian Bertha and Freyja, 

 and bestowed upon the Madonna, whilst floral ofterings of every 

 sort were laid upon her shrines. 



Her husband, Joseph, has allotted to him a white Campanula, 

 which in Bologna is known as the little Staff' of St. Joseph. In 

 Tuscany the name of St. Joseph's staff" is given to the Oleander : a 

 legend recounts that the good Joseph possessed originally only an 

 ordinary staff", but that when the angel announced to him that he 

 was destined to be the husband of the Virgin Mary, he became so 

 radiant with jo}^ that his very staff^ flowered in his hand. 



Before our Saviour's birth, the Virgin Mary, strongly desiring 

 to refresh herself with some luscious cherries that were hanging in 



