&quot; Where Nature Reigns &quot; 53 



grances of the fallen leaves of last year warmed by 

 the first spring fervours, the charm of bird song 

 and butterfly wavering, the blossoms that are seek 

 ing the light from earth s warming bosom, all 

 these call us up higher. The birds will die, as 

 human folk die ; the flowers in their present 

 beauty will vanish ; but &quot; what decays in flowers,&quot; 

 says Mountford, &quot; is not what you care for ; the 

 beauty in them that you love never perishes, and 

 every year it is fresh to look at. Oh, flowers are 

 words about a life more spiritual than is plainly 

 to be signified in this earth by things springing 

 out of it. Sometimes, in looking at a flower, my 

 mind is drawn into a mood that is like a firm 

 persuasion of immortality, it is so largely thought 

 ful and full of peace. Summer and winter, sun 

 shine and darkness, rolling seas and high moun 

 tains, there is that in me that is like them all. 

 If only flowers, or only trees, or only some one 

 class of objects in Nature were beautiful to us, 

 then their perishing might infect us with mortal 

 fears. But now all things are made beautiful to 

 us in their time, all things of God s making are. 

 And the feeling of this is fellow feeling with 

 God.&quot; 



And in this mood of responsiveness to the 

 divine life, expressing itself in these myriads of 

 beautiful shapes and sounds and breaths, we know 



