THE UTILITY OF FLOWERS. 19 



to extend tlie range of innocent recreation and virtuous 

 enjoyment ; useless to brighten and strengthen the chain 

 of sympathy which binds man to man ; or useless to excite 

 a fresher or more frequent glow of grateful admiration in 

 the human breast, towards the giver of all good." 



" Flowers," says a writer, " flowers of all created things^ 

 the most innocently simple, the most superbly complex, 

 playthings for childhood, ornaments of the grave, and com- 

 panions of the cold corpse ! Flow^ers, beloved by the 

 idiot, and studied by the thinking man of science ! Flow- 

 ers, that unceasingly expand to heaven their grateful, and 

 to man their cheerful looks ; soothers of human sorrow ; 

 fit emblems of the victor's triumph and the young bride's 

 blushes! Welcome to the crowded ball, and grateful upon 

 the solitary grave ! Flowers are in the volume of nature, 

 what the expression ' God is love' is in the volume of reva- 

 lation ! What a desolate place would be a world without 

 a flower ; it would be a face without a smile — a feast with- 

 out a welcome. Are not flowers the stars of earth, and 

 are not our stars, the flowers of heaven ? One cannot 

 look closely at the structure of a flower without loving it ; 

 they are the emblems and manifestations of God's love to 

 the creation, and they are means and ministrations of 

 man's love to his fellow creatures, for they first awaken in 

 his mind a sense of the beautiful and good. The very in- 

 utility of flowers, is their excellence and great beauty, for 

 they lead us to thoughts of generosity and moral beauty, 

 detached from, and superior to all selfishness, so that they 

 are sweet lessons in nature's book of instruction, teaching 

 man that he liveth not by bread alone, but that he hath an- 

 other than animal life." 



Who, that w^as blessed with parents that indulged them- 

 selves, and children with a flower garden, can forget the 

 happy, innocent hours spent in its cultivation ! O ! who 

 can forget those days, when to announce the apjiearance 



