SUMMER. 81 



round," many types of higher things are suggested by 

 ahnost all the occupations there, as well as by our plants 

 and flowers themselves ; some of these, being scriptural, 

 will recur to every one, but it is by no means an unprofit- 

 able task to find new analogies and types for ourselves, — 

 it must be a very dull, prosaic mind that does not almost 

 involuntarily do so. 



George Herbert says — "Our Saviour made plants and 



seeds to teach the people And I conceive our 



Saviour did this for reasons : first, that by familiar things 

 He might make His doctrines slip the more easily into 

 the hearts, even of the meanest ; secondly, that labouring 

 people, whom He chiefly considered, might have every- 

 where monuments of His doctrine — remembering in gardens 

 His mustard-seed and lilies, in the field His seed-corn and 

 tares, and so not be drowned altogether in the works of 

 their vocation, but sometimes lift up their minds to better 

 things, even in the midst of their pains." 



" For all that meets the bodily sense I deem 

 Symbolical — one mighty alphabet 

 For infant minds ; and we in the low world, 

 Placed with our backs to bright reality, 

 That we may learn with young unwounded ken 

 The substance from its shadow." 



Few people, it is true, can make such use of these sym- 

 bols as the poets have done to instruct others ; but the 

 power of discovering and enjoying these teachings from 

 God's book of nature adds greatly to the pleasure of oiir 

 work, and occupies the mind while the hands are employed 



