1900.] ESSAYS. 43 



you would say, perhaps, J have ascribed all the virtues to the 

 flowers and none of the vices, while (lowers have some weak- 

 nesses — I won't say vices. They are very human. 



I had, some years ago, a catalogue from John Lewis Childs. 

 There were a number of bulbs advertised in the catalogue that 

 were strange to me, although I had been associated with floricul- 

 ture for a great many years. I sent for some of these new, 

 strange sorts and planted them very carefully according to 

 directions, and nursed them well for months, but every time I 

 looked at them, I saw nothing but weeds ; never a flower glad- 

 dened my eyes during that winter-time. I had been out into 

 the world and found a great many people who have brought to 

 my mind, incidentally, that box of strange bulbs ; I have seen 

 young men who dressed well and drove about in a buggy all day 

 long, while father looked after the store or walked after the 

 plow, and I said to myself "Nothing but leaves"; I have 

 known of nice young ladies who played and sang like angels 

 while mother was in the kitchen washing and scrubbing and 

 doing the work, and then I said "Nothing but leaves"; but 

 worse than that, I have known men in prayer meetings who 

 have given their "testimony" (as they call it) and prayed loud 

 and long and all the time I knew that at home they cursed and 

 growled, and of those men I have almost said as I listened to 

 their prayers, " Nothing but leaves."' I believe that flowers of 

 this sort are sent to us as a warning, to teach us that we should 

 always make our performances just as good as our promises ; 

 that we should give no hope to the world of anything we did 

 not mean to fulfil. There should be something in the nature of 

 harmonious growth through all our lives that the useful and 

 beauteous things should grow up side by side in the garden of the 

 soul ; and that life is a perfect life which tries to harmonize the 

 idealities and artistic elements of life into one perfect and har- 

 monious whole. 



Mr. Hadwen : It is not always that the members of this 

 society have the pleasure of being seated for an hour or more 

 in a flower-garden in the month of January, as we have here 

 this afternoon. 



