76 THE CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 



our land by commerce. We msy generally, perhaps, 

 form some notion of the character and situation of the 

 inhabitants of a cottage, by looking at the little garden 

 in front of it. Where there is nothing of this sort, we 

 may be almost sure to meet with poverty in its worst 

 form, if not with ignorance and vice. It would be 

 delightful, therefore, to see every cottage with its 

 proper ornament of a few beds of flowers to gladden 

 the eye of the owner, and to bespeak his sense of the 

 beauties and wonders which the Divine Hand has so 

 richly liavished upon this part of the creation. 



Flowers are, indeed, among tlie most interesting of 

 those productions which display the exquisite skill and 

 boundless wisdom of the Infinite Mind. Their variety 

 astonishes, as much as their beauty captivates us. 

 Every country has its peculiar species. Some of these 

 love the burning suns of India ; some the barren desarts 

 of Africa ; and America and New Holland are as much 

 distinguished by flowers of singular and rare beauty 

 as by their animals, which difier greatly from those of 

 all the rest of the globe. Then, again, there are some 

 flowers which are the natives only of temperate cli- 

 mates, and a few are confined to the snowy regions of 

 the North. Each has also its own select situation 



