32 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



and maintain for the poor those precious gifts of 

 pure air, pure light, and pure water, which God 

 designs for us all. 



It is gratifying to notice an increase of practical 

 effort in this benevolent endeavour, in the building 

 of better homes, in the increase of allotments near 

 to our cities and towns, and in the encouragement of 

 cottage-gardening. 



I may mention here, that for some years I tried 

 satisfactorily to promote among the children of my 

 parish that love of flowers which we find in them 

 all, not only by giving prizes for their collections 

 of wild-flowers at our annual show, but by taking 

 them walks on Sunday evenings, and helping them 

 to collect and arrange their posies, teaching them 

 names, habits, and uses, and showing them the 

 coloured likenesses and the histories, which are 

 provided in a cheap form by the Society for Pro- 

 moting Christian Knowledge, and in other illustrated 

 manuals. 



A happy result of these wanderings by the brook- 

 side, in the valleys, and the woods, gladdened my 

 heart and my eyes, when waiting for a train at 

 one of our great Northern Stations, I met among 

 those employed therein one of my old village pupils, 

 and he invited me to visit his home. We came 

 to the end of a long street, in which every dwelling 



