TO THE CLERGY. 77 



worth, and intended his garden to be " large " only 

 in comparison with his other possessions. 



It is this limited expenditure and unlimited in- 

 terest which a garden requires, combined with the 

 innocence of the amusement, that renders it so great 

 a blessing more even than to the cottager himself 

 to the country clergyman. We must leave to the 

 novelist to sketch the happy party which every sum- 

 mer's evening finds busied on many an English 

 vicarage-lawn, with their trowels and watering-pots, 

 and all the paraphernalia of amateur gardeners ; 

 though we may ask the utilitarian, if he would deign 

 to scan so simple a group, from the superintending 

 vicar to the water-carrying schoolboy, where he 

 would better find developed " the greatest happi- 

 ness of the greatest number" than among those very 

 objects and that very occupation where utility is not 

 only banished, but condemned. 



We would have our clergy know that there is no 

 readier way to a parishioner's heart next to visit- 

 ing his house, which, done in health and in sickness, 

 is the keystone of our blessed parochial system than 

 to visit his garden, suggesting and superintending 

 improvements, distributing seeds, and slips, and 

 flowers, and lending or giving such gardening books 

 as would be useful for his limited domain. And 

 many a poor scholar, in some obscure curacy, out of 

 the way of railroads and book-clubs, 



" In life's stillest shade reclining, 

 In desolation unrepining, 

 Without a hope on earth to find 

 A mirror in an answering mind," 



