6o A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



* Cease firing/ I hear it said ; ^ you are shooting 

 over your target, and wasting powder and ball. You 

 are talking of walls and hedges and banks— of 

 crescents and parallelograms, as though all your 

 readers had the wealth and the acres of Lord 

 Carabbas. You are sermonising above your con- 

 gregation — at all events, enjoining precepts which 

 they are unable to perform. You are writing for 

 the few, and not, as you promised, for the many.' 

 But this, I must plead, is as unjust an accusation 

 of exclusiveness as was brought against a clerical 

 neighbour and friend of mine, a good and gentle 

 pastor, by one of his flock, on this wise. He had 

 been preaching, he told me, a simple discourse on 

 the duties and privileges of a Churchman, and he 

 was leaving the porch after his people, when an 

 old man, not aware of his proximity, turned to 

 another veteran, as they hobbled out of the church 

 together, and said, ^Well, Tommy, my lad, thou sees 

 there's no salvation for nobbody but him and a few 

 partickler friends ! ' He had preached, nevertheless, 

 as I would fain write, without respecting persons, the 

 truth for all. If I have any special sympathy, it is 

 certainly with the poorer portion of our brotherhood ; 

 and as I have passed through all the grades of Rose- 

 growing, commencing with a dozen only (nay, I well 

 remember tke Rose which first won my allegiance, 



