THE SUNDEW. 35 



day on which the flower is ready to expand, it never 

 opens at all ; on the following day another bud 

 has reached the apex of the scape, like the last, to 

 unfold at the right moment or to perish, and give 

 way in turn to the succeeding bud. If we take up, 

 say the " British Flora " of Sir W. J. Hooker, and 

 read this fact as a mere botanical occurrence, it is 

 impossible not to gaze with interest on the phe- 

 nomenon; but if we make it "point a moral/' 

 how much significance it acquires. How many an 

 earnest, yet too weakly shrinking a mind, has been 

 wrecked, because some one amongst its fellows has 

 not been prompt to seize the fitting moment for ac- 

 tion or support. How many an opportunity has been 

 lost, never to be regained, which, if we had but com- 

 manded strength enough to embrace, might per- 

 chance have saved from hopeless ruin some heart as 

 upright as, though perchance less firm than, our own. 

 How many a life has been saddened nay, blighted, 

 by the recollection that greater promptitude on our 

 own parts might have saved some noble nature, 

 which it was " but that once " in our power to do ; 

 or how some momentary relaxation on our parts of 

 self-control has caused some over-sensitive, and it 

 may be, morbidly-conscientious spirit, to shrink into 

 itself, never again to unfold the aspirations or en- 

 quiries which, if fostered by the blessed sunshine of 

 a kind and tender spirit, at that moment, might 

 have led it unchangeably, to the better way ! Would 

 that all amongst us were Nature's pupils, and that 

 every student of nature treasured up his knowledge 

 of the secrets of the blossoming of the sundew in 



