LATER YEARS OF A PLANT. 217 



save to give it forth again as day would once more 

 brightly rise. Oh, well has it been said that each cup 

 of a flower is a pulpit, and each leaf a book from which 

 we may learn the wisdom, goodness and power of Him 

 who has so lavishly scattered his handiwork over the face 

 of the earth. Few, also, can look up to a stately tree, 

 reared in its colossal leafy grandeur, its head in the clouds, 

 its roots in the firm earth, so full of life and vigor, with- 

 out feeling himself lifted up with its gigantic branches 

 to higher thoughts and purer feelings. We all can feel 

 with the exiled Syrian, who went to the Jardin des Plantes 

 and there "clasped his country's tree and wept." And 

 as the scalding tears trickled down the rugged cheek, he 

 was once more a wanderer in the desert, and once more 

 he breathed, across the dreary sand, the perfume from the 

 thicket bordering on his promised land ; again he saw, 

 afar off, the palm-tree, cresting over the lonely, still wa- 

 ters, and heard the pleasant tinkle of the distant camel's 

 bell until his tears were dried, hope again revived, and 

 fresh and glad emotions rose within his swelling breast. 

 Oh, there are wondrous lessons in plants! Eloquently 

 quotes a modern writer thus of the words that trees speak 

 to us : " Do not trees talk with their leafy lungs 1 Do 

 they not at sunrise, when the wind is low and the birds 

 are carolling their songs, play sweet music'? Who has 

 ever heard the soft whisper of young leaves in spring, 

 on a sunny morning, that did not feel as if rainbow beams 

 of gladness were running through his heart 1 ? and then, 

 when the morning glory, like a nun before God's holy 

 altar, discloses her beauteous face and the moss-roses open 

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