274 DIVINELY-GIVEN MODELS. 



the vegetable world. There were fruits, the almond and pome- 

 granate, with flowers too numerous for specific mention, as- 

 signed as forms for imitation in the moulding of sacred uten- 

 sils and decoration of garments designed for use and ornament 

 within the holy precincts of the Tabernacle. Through subse- 

 quent times have the same all-perfect types continued to be 

 repeated in materials and for purposes of every degree, from 

 plate on the altar to delf on the deal table, from priestly and 

 royal vestments to prints of cheapest fabric; and still are 

 they suggestive, as they ever will be, of novel adaptations, 

 exhaustless as the magazine of material furnished by created 

 things for the use, mental and manual, of creative art. 



We cannot, therefore, look on it as one of the worst signs 

 of the times that decoration in dress, in furniture, in books, in 

 all things, is now, perhaps, more than ever, made an object. 

 On book-covers, especially, those chrysalidan cases of our 

 winged thoughts, is there not a peculiar fitness in the gilding? 

 In the gay decoration, too, of the works of Nature, we may 

 find not only gratification for the eye, but lessons for the heart. 

 In the bestowal of the most superb adornments, and that in 

 richest proportion, on the smallest, and what we are used to 

 consider the meanest, of animated creatures, do we not receive 

 at once a lesson of humility and of confidence ? of humility, 

 seeing that, with the mines of Golconda at our disposal, we 

 could not surpass in splendour the clothing of a Buprestis or a 

 diamond-beetle ; of confidence, in the care of Him who clothes 



