STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
selves able to show native flowers and shrubs and fruits 
rendered equal to the imported kinds by our own culture. 
We might compare these wild plants to the neglected 
children of our poorest classes. In the degradation arising 
from their uncared for state they become as moral weeds in 
the great garden of life, neglected and passed by, left to run 
wild, and shunned. But remove these children to a more 
genial atmosphere; let them be taught the value of their 
souls, for which so great a price was paid by their Redeemer ; 
let them be clothed and fed and cared for, made to feel that 
they are not despised in the eyes of their fellow men; then 
their useful qualities brought into action, and their vices 
and evil passions controlled, like the wild plants they will 
rise in value, and beauty, and usefulness, becoming precious 
trees bearing fruit to the glory of Almighty God—sought 
out and desired of all men. Who will cultivate aud iniprove 
this garden of human growth? Must it continue a wilder- 
ness, rank and injurious, full of deadly poisons and unripe, 
crude and bitter fruits, while within it, choked and hidden 
from view, are the germs of usefulness, beauty, and happi- 
ness that only require the better soil, the fostering care and 
gladdening sunshine of Christian love and kindness to make 
them what their Creator would have them all to be? Truly 
“the harvest is great, but the husbandmen are few.” 
Allusions to the grape-vine and vineyards are of fre- 
quent occurrence in Scripture. Many and beautiful are the 
passages where the ancient Church is symbolized by the 
poetical figure of the vine and the vineyard. How touching 
is the appeal made by the prophet to the rebellious and 
idolatrous people in the fifth chapter of the book of Isaiah: 
“ And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, 
judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What 
could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not 
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