THE UTILITY OF FLOWERS. 19 
to extend the range of innocent recreation and virtuous 
enjoyment; useless to brighten and strengthen the chain 
of sympathy which binds man to man; or useless to excite 
a fresher or more frequent glow of grateful admiration in 
the human breast, towards the giver of all good.” 
“Flowers,” says a writer, “flowers of all created things, 
the most innocently simple, the most superbly complex, 
playthings for childhood, ornaments of the grave, and com- 
panions of the cold corpse! Flowers, beloved by the 
idiot, and studied by the thinking man of science! Flow- 
ers, that unceasingly expand to heaven their grateful, and 
to man their cheerful looks ; soothers of human sorrow ; 
fit emblems of the victor’s triumph and the young bride’s 
blushes! Welcome to the crowded ball, and grateful upon 
the solitary grave! Flowers are in the volume of nature, 
what the expression ‘God is love’ is in the volume of reva- 
lation! What a desolate place would be a world without 
a flower; it would bea face without a smile—a feast with- 
out a welcome. Are not flowers the stars of earth, and 
are not our stars, the flowers of heaven? One cannot 
look closely at the structure of a flower without loving it ; 
they are the emblems and manifestations of God’s love to 
the creation, and they are means and ministrations of 
man’s love to his fellow creatures, for they first awaken in 
his mind a sense of the beautiful and good. The very in- 
utility of flowers, is their excellence and great beauty, for 
they lead us to thoughts of generosity and moral beauty, 
detached from, and superior to all selfishness, so that they 
are sweet lessons in nature’s book of instruction, teaching 
man that he liveth not by bread alone, but that he hath an- 
other than animal life.” 
Who, that was blessed with parents that indulged them- 
selves, and children with a flower garden, can forget the 
happy, innocent hours spent in its cultivation! O! who 
can forget those days, when to announce the appearance 
