6o A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. 



more conducive to the beauty and endurance of 

 the Rose. 



" Cease firing," I hear it said ; " you ar-e shoot- 

 ing over your target, and wasting powder and 

 ball. You are talking of walls and hedges and 

 banks — of crescents and parallelograms, as though 

 all your readers had the wealth and the acres of 

 Lord Carabbas. You are sermonizing above your 

 congregation — at all events, enjoining precepts 

 which they are unable to perform. You are writ- 

 ing for the few, and not, as you promised, for the 

 many." But this, I must plead, is as unjust an 

 accusation of exclusiveness as was brought against 

 a clerical neighbor and friend of mine, a good 

 and gentle pastor, by one of his flock, on this 

 wise. He had been preaching, he told me, a 

 simple discourse on the duties and privileges of a 

 Churchman, and he was leaving the church after 

 his people, when an old man, not aware of his 

 proximity, turned to another veteran, as they 

 hobbled out of the porch together, and said : 

 "Well, Tommy, my lad, thou sees there's no 

 salvation for nobbody but him and a few partickler 

 friends !" He had preached, nevertheless, as I 

 would fain write, without respecting persons, the 

 truth for all. If I have any special sympathy, it 

 is certainly with the poorer portion of our brother- 



