134 MAY. 



and higher sense, they were the favourite symbols 

 of the beauty and the fragility of life. Man is com- 

 pared to the flower of the field ; and if is added, 

 " the grass withereth, the flower fadeth." But of all 

 the poetry ever drawn from flowers, none is so 

 beautiful, none is so sublime, none is so imbued with 

 that very spirit in which they were made, as that of 

 Christ. "And why take ye thought for raiment? 

 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; 

 they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say 

 unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was 

 not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God 

 so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and 

 to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much 

 more clothe you, O ye of little faith ?" The senti- 

 ment built upon this, entire dependence on the good- 

 ness of the Creator, is one of the lights of our exist- 

 ence, and could only have been uttered by Christ; but 

 we have here also the expression of the very spirit of 

 beauty in which flowers were created ; a spirit so 

 boundless and overflowing that it delights to enliven 

 and adorn with these riant creatures of sunshine 

 the solitary places of the earth ; to scatter them by 

 myriads over the very desert " where no man is ; 

 on the wilderness where there is no man ;" sending 

 rain, " to satisfy the desolate and waste ground, and 

 to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth." 

 In our confined notions, we are often led to wonder 

 why 



Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 

 And waste its fragrance on the desert air ; 



