CHAPTER VII. 



ARRANGEMENT. 



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

 the 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 ?) ; 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 



