648 



moved. Now if we withdraw the plant from this position, which it 

 hardly endures, and supply it with the earth, and maintain about it 

 the temperature that it delights in, withdrawing from it at the same 

 time all rivals which, in such conditions nature would have thrust 

 upon it, we shall indeed obtain a magnificently developed example of 

 the plant, colossal in size, and splendid in organization, but we shall 

 utterly loose in it that moral ideal which is dependent on its right 

 fulfilment of its appointed functions. It was intended and created by 

 the Deity for the covering of those lonely spots where no other plant 

 could live ; it has been thereto endowed with courage, and strength, 

 and capacities of endurance unequalled ; its character and glory are 

 not therefore in the gluttonous and idle feeling of its own over luxu- 

 riance, at the expense of other creatures utterly destroyed and 

 rooted out for its good alone, but in its right doing of its hard duty, 

 and forward climbing into those spots of forlorn hope where it alone 

 can bear witness to the kindness and presence of the Spirit that cut- 

 teth out rivers among the rocks, as it covers the valleys with corn : 

 and there, in its vanward place, and only there where nothing is with- 

 drawn for it, nor hurt by it, and where nothing can take part of its 

 honour, nor usurp its throne, are its strength, and fairness, and price, 

 and goodness in the sight of God, to be truly esteemed. 



" The first time that I saw the Sondanella alpina, before spoken of, 

 it was growing of magnificent size, on a sunny Alpine pasture, among 

 bleating of sheep, and lowing of cattle, associated with a profusion of 

 Geum montanum, and Ranunculus pyrenseus. 1 noticed it only be- 

 cause new to me, nor perceived any peculiar beauty in its cloven 

 flower. Some days after I found it alone, among the rack of the 

 higher clouds, and howling of glacier winds, and, as I described it, 

 piercing through an edge of avalanche, which in its retiring half left 

 the new ground brown and lifeless, and as if burned by recent fire ; 

 the plant was poor and feeble, and seemingly exhausted with its 

 efforts, but it was then that I comprehended its ideal character, and 

 saw its noble function and order of glory among the constellations of 

 the earth. 



" The Ranunculus glacialis might perhaps by cultivation be blanch- 

 ed from its wan and corpse-like paleness to purer white, and won to 

 more branched and lofty development of its ragged leaves. But the 

 ideal of the plant is to be found only in the last, loose stones of the 

 moraine, alone there ; wet with the cold unkindly drip of the glacier 

 water, and trembling as the loose and steep dust to which it clings 

 yields ever and anon, and shudders and crumbles away from about 

 its root."— p. 100. 



