66 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1880. 



If anywhere appropriate ; — upon onr tables, and in tliis Hall 

 dedicated to the advancement of Horticulture, they are but mere- 

 tricious ornaments. Be it our choice, rather, that nice sense of 

 fitness which revels in the proper collocation of colors ; in the 

 gradual shading or strong contrast of tints so cunningly contrived, 

 during the season just past, upon many a Thursday, in bouquet or 

 vase, in basket or stand. Hang your harps upon the willows, if 

 it so please you ! But when you would display catkins in the 

 Hall of Flora, leave the harps in suspense ! 



One of the ablest men that Worcester County ever produced, 

 in an address before the Worcester Agricultural Society, long 

 years ago, specified the sub-division of small towns (why not 

 large, as well ?) into countless religious societies, as a serious 

 cause of their decline in prosperity and thrift. United, — they 

 could keep in repair the roads, usually hilly and therefore costly 

 to maintain, which led to and from the meeting-house: besides 

 being able to make their worldly ends meet. Split into discord- 

 ant and warring factions, their burdens multiplied as the strength 

 to bear tiiem became dissipated ; so tliat, at length, man grew 

 querulous from perceiving that his sieve would not fill, and God 

 might well complain that He was robbed of the devotion of a 

 whole heart. Worship grew languid, and Religion, under the 

 mask of Theology, ceased to exert a wholesome influence. The 

 warning of David Henshaw fell, like the Scriptural seed, upon 

 stonv ground. Sects continued to throw off' swarms, and endured 

 a starveling existence at the cost of the Towns which, from that 

 day, have steadily receded in population and wealth. Yet the 

 harvest multiplies: the laborers tramp around, with that barrel 

 of old sermons, to fresh fields and pastures new, the response 

 falling upon our ears, like a knell, in a monotone undying and 

 never-ending, — The Heathen are at your own doors ! Your 

 Secretary had not supposed that there could be any strife be- 

 tween the disciples of Christianity and the devotees of Flora. 

 Yet, what else save ignorance, which surely cannot be predicated 

 of any one in this Commonwealth of Meeting-houses, could in- 

 duce a prominent member of this Society to exclaim, — in re- 

 sponse to a suggestion that the habit of cavilling at the awards 

 of Committees would lead her to dispute the Final Judgment ? 



