54 USE AND APPLICATION OF FLOWERS. 
and power, manifested in the adornment, splendor, and 
formation, of even the simplest flower of the field. I 
would not arrogate for man an exclusive right, or make 
him generally the sole consideration of the beneficence 
of Providence ; but there are influences, which his 
reason can alone perceive, incitements to good thoughts 
and worthy actions. 
Flowers, in all ages, have been made the representa- 
tives of innocence and purity. We decorate the bride, 
and strew her path with flowers : we present the unde- 
filed blossoms, as a similitude of her beauty and un- 
tainted mind; trusting that her destiny through life will 
be like theirs, grateful and pleasing to all. We scatter 
them over the shell, the bier, and the earth, when we 
consign our mortal blossoms to the dust, as emblems of 
transient joy, fading pleasures, withered hopes ; yet rest 
in sure and certain trust that each in due season will 
be renewed again. All the writers of antiquity make 
mention of their uses and application in heathen and 
pagan ceremonies, whether of the temple, the banquet, 
or the tomb — the rites, the pleasures, or the sorrows of 
man; and in concord with the usages of the period, 
the author of the “Book of Wisdom” says, “Let us 
crown ourselves with rose-buds and flowers before they 
wither.” All orders of creation, “ every form of creep- 
ing things and abominable beasts,” have been, perhaps, 
at one time or another, by some nation or sect, either 
the objects of direct worship, or emblems of an invisible 
sanctity ; but though individuals of the vegetable world 
may have veiled the mysteries, and been rendered sacred 
to particular deities and purposes, yet in very few in- 
stances, we believe, were they made the representatives 
of a deified object, or been bowed down to with divine 
honors. The worship of the one true Being could never 
have been polluted by any symbol suggested by the open 
flowers and lily-work of the temple. 
The love of flowers seems a naturally implanted pas- 
sion, without any alloy or debasing object as a motive : 
the cottage has its pink, its rose, its polyanthus ; the 
villa, its geranium, its dahlia, and its clematis: we 
cherish them in youth, we admire them in declining 
