214 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



plants live is, however, to adorn the surface of our beau- 

 tiful earth, and thus to make manifest to us, in their very 

 existence, and in all their thousand wonders, the Almighty 

 Creator of heaven and earth. It is in this aspect only 

 that plants, the types of nature, acquire their highest sig- 

 nificance. They become then, not our friends and sup- 

 porters only, but our kindly teachers also. Whether we 

 look down upon soft mosses that creep over the rugged 

 rock, and humble lichens weeping with slow oozing, or gaze 

 up at the giant tree of the forest, every where our mind 

 is lifted up, in awe and wonder, to that Intelligence which 

 watches over the destinies of the universe, and gives us 

 here already a faint glimpse of the great plan of crea- 

 tion and its great author. 



Clearly, however, as we all feel the impressions which 

 the vegetable world, and especially the consciousness of 

 their still, unceasing life and labor produces upon our 

 mind, it is extremely difficult to explain the causes, or 

 even to determine and express them in words, clearly 

 and distinctly. The mere farmer, it is true, sees nothing 

 but tons of hay in a flowery meadow, and so many bushels 

 of wheat in a glorious field of golden grain the majestic 

 forests represent to him but so many cords of w r ood, and 

 the broad branched elm, in all its lovely beauty, shades 

 his land, and is a nuisance. On the other hand, we know 

 that it is not the refined mind and the most fastidious 

 taste that enjoy the beauties of the vegetable world most 

 and best. The humble men of St. Kilda, we are told, 

 who went to pay their duty to their lord in the " far 

 southern" island of Skye, could hardly proceed on their 



