Music of the Wild 



ers have no perfume Avliate^'er and are not visited 

 by sweet-lovers. If color were only a signal to in- 

 sects, it might as well be all red or yellow. If 

 2:)etals ^^'ere solely an attraction to honey-gatherers, 

 ^\hy call bees and butterflies to bloom having no 

 s^^'eetness? It is as sure as can be that flowers are 

 not only for sweet-lovers, but for us, to give pleas- 

 ure, to glorify the landscape, to set a joy-song 

 singing in the soul. 



Flower forms are complicated, beautiful past 

 describing, and their colors varied to suit every de- 

 The gree of taste and circumstance of usage. The 

 Patent- Lord gave the blossoms decorating the earth, as a 

 Divinity niasterstroke, a finishing touch, the j^atent-right of 

 Divinity stamped u})on the face of His work. 

 Then surely it is an off"ense to Him ruthlesslj' to 

 tear uj) jjlants l)y the root, and to kill them for 

 the moment's gratification. Any one who wishes 

 to preserve a pro])er spirit of gratitude to God for 

 His gift of the flowers will cut a few carefully, 

 and leave the plant to bloom another j'car, or ma- 

 ture its seed. I think, further, that anj' person of 

 refined taste not only will leave a plant alive, and 

 a part of its l)loom to matin-e seed; but he also will 

 leave some of its flotccrs for the next traveler of 

 the road. The higln\ay stretches endlessly, and 

 hmnan souls more sensitive than you would dream 

 are upon it each hoiu'. There is not always a song 

 on every lip. The lines on some faces indicate wea- 



13G 



