CHAPTER VII 



ARRANGEMENT 



Every gardener must be an infidel — I am, and 

 I glory in the fact — on the subject of infidelity. 

 The proofs and the precepts of natural and revealed 

 religion are brought so frequently and impressively 

 before him, that he cannot believe in unbelief. He 

 takes a seed, a bulb, a cutting (who made them ?) ; 

 he places them in the soil which is most congenial 

 (who made it?); the seed germinates, the bulb 

 spindles, the cutting strikes (whence the motive 

 power ?) ; he tends and waters (but who sends the 

 former and the latter rain ?) ; and the flower comes 

 forth in glory. Does he say, with the proud 

 Assyrian, * By the strength of my hand I have done 

 it, and by my wisdom ' ? Does he not stand the 

 rather, with a reverent wonder, to consider the 

 Lilies (the Auratum, it may be, the glowing 

 Amaryllid,' the Pancratium, the Arum, or the 

 lovely Eucharis, in robes pure and white as a 

 martyr's), until the very soul within him rises heaven- 



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