70 USE AND APPLICATION OF FLOWERS. 



reason can alone perceive, incitements to good 

 thoughts and worthy actions. 



Flowers, in all ages, have been made the repre- 

 sentatives of innocence and purity. We decorate 

 the bride, and strew her path with flowers : we 

 present the undefiled blossoms, as a similitude of 

 her beauty and untainted mind ; trusting that her 

 destiny through life will be like theirs, grateful and 

 pleasing to all. We scatter them over the shell, the 

 bier, and the earth, when we consign our mortal 

 blossoms to the dust, as emblems of transient joy, 

 fading pleasures, withered hopes ; yet rest in sure 

 and certain trust that each in due season will be 

 renewed again. All the writers of antiquity make 

 mention of their uses and application in heathen and 

 pagan ceremonies, whether of the temple, the ban- 

 quet, or the tomb the rites, the pleasures, or the 

 sorrows of man ; and in concord with the usages of 

 the period, the author of the " Book of Wisdom " 

 says, " Let us crown ourselves with rose-buds and 

 flowers before they wither." All orders of creation, 

 " every form of creeping things and abominable 

 beasts," have been, perhaps, at one time or another, 

 by some nation or sect, either the objects of direct 

 worship, or emblem of an invisible sanctity; but 

 though individuals of the vegetable world may have 

 veiled the mysteries, and been rendered sacred to 

 particular deities and purposes, yet in very few in- 

 stances, we believe, were they made the representa- 



