AUSPICIOUS HOPE 



'Auspicious hope! in thy sweet garden grow 

 Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe. " ' 



Campbell. 



AND why should not hope be the great gardener since 

 without hope there would be no gardens! It is 

 perhaps a trite saying that the wish is father to the 

 thought, but in it lies partly hidden the germ of a great 

 gardening truth. We hope for those things for which we 

 wish, I grant you, but can we truly be said to hope for 

 bounties which lie far beyond the horizon of probable fulfil- 

 ment? Wishes may be as boundless as the imagination but 

 hope is ever defined as being a desire coupled with a prospect 

 of realisation. Of all created things man himself is the least 

 rehable and with man we may look for exceptions, failures 

 and disappointments; but the law of Nature, if we look with 

 care, is seen to be as the law of the Medes and Persians which I 

 altereth not. When science happens upon what appears to 

 be an exception to a natural law, no time is wasted in looking 

 for a broken rule. No such thing ever existed. All of the 

 energy of research is bent to discover what hither- to unknown 



I05 



