192 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
more or less, and the whole plant is stronger. It can now withstand a storm which 
before would have prostrated, or at least rudely marred it, and thus from day to 
day it lives a life of faith, — more, its beautiful and numerous monoecious racemes 
of greenish white flowers are the blessings beautifying the whole. The lesson to 
me is an impressive one, and ever new and helpful; the tendrils of faith are un- 
noticed by the world's casual observers, but the deHcate flowers — the blessings — 
meet a ready appreciation. 
This Gentian, Gentian crinita^ with its solitary four-cleft corolla, gathering 
as it were into its fringe-edged chalice, the reflection of the pure autumnal sky, 
and bluer still by its draughts of nightly frost, has a language quite different from 
the Echinocystis — "Hope blossoming within the heart" — a continuance, and 
Gentius, the ancient Illyrian King could not have chosen a better genus to perpet- 
uate his name. It is one of the few medicinal herbs which in the science of 
medicine, proves the survival of the fittest, for its history can be traced direct for 
2000 years, and it is as useful and beautiful to-day as then, whether crowned with 
its yellow flowers on the plains of Illyria or the cerulean blue of our own country. 
I turn to the Chrysanthemum roseum, and over it broods the legend of the Moorish 
lady with jeweled hand and gUttering necklace, clad in colors rare, threads of 
rose inwrought with gold. Under the dulcet tones of the guitar she sleeps and 
dreams of her lover, "who cometh not again," for she sees him die, and with a 
shriek she awakens to find the pledge of love sent home, two ringlets in a love- 
knot. As she swoons and dies, the red chrysanthemums upon her brow grow 
white as snow, and thus it is that the white chrysanthemum, whose odor, like 
that of many other flowers, is sweetest when crushed, is now an emblem of love 
that never dies. Nature holds out many a jewel for our adornment, her silent 
pictures fall into the tapestry of our Hfe's work, and the language of flowers often 
comes to us pregnant with inspiration. So when with faint heart and sluggish 
indifference, I dreamily wish for some inheritance, the Mistletoe, Fhoradendron 
florescens, meets me, unwrecked by fierce winds or scorching heats, maintaining 
its place, whether upon the topmost bough, pendant from some under-surface, or 
growing horizontally from the side of the tree, with its resolute cry "I surmount 
all difficulties." 
*' Thou must be true thyself. 
If thou the truth would teach ; — 
Thy soul must overflow, if thou 
Another's soul would reach. 
" Speak truly, and thy word 
Shall be a fruitful seed ; 
Live truly, and thy life shall be 
A great and noble deed." 
RocKFORD Seminary, III., April 17, 1883. 
