70 PROSERPINA. 



running round about his plants. Under his branches 

 did all the beasts of the field bring forth their 

 young ; and under his shadow dwelt all great 

 nations." 



31. Now hear what follows. "The cedars in the 

 Garden of God could not hide him. The fir trees 

 were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees 

 were not like his branches : nor any tree in the 

 Garden of God was like unto him in beauty." 



So that you see, whenever a nation rises into 

 consistent, vital, and, through many generations, 

 enduring power, tJtere is still the Garden of God ; 

 still it is the water of life which feeds the roots of 

 it ; and still the succession of its people is imaged 

 by the perennial leafage of trees of Paradise. Could 

 this be said of Assyria, and shall it not be said of 

 England ? How much more, of lives such as ours 

 should be, — just, laborious, united in aim, beneficent 

 in fulfilment, — may the image be used of the leaves 

 of the trees of Eden ! Other symbols have been 

 given often to show the evanescence and slightness 

 of our lives — the foam upon the water, the grass 

 on the housetop, the vapour that vanishes away ; 

 yet none of these are images of true human life. 

 That life, when it is real, is not evanescent ; is 

 not slight; does not vanish away. Every noble life 

 leaves the fibre of it interwoven for ever in the work 



