the childhood of heaven — had had a part of the creation of the world assigned to them, and that they made 
the flowers. — And yet who could so well know how to please them, as he who made themselves ? 
“ The return of May again brings over us a living scene of the loveliness and delightfulness, of flowers. 
Of all the minor creations of God, they seem to be most completely the effusions of his love, of beauty, 
grace, and joy. Of all the natural objects which surround us, they are the least connected with our absolute 
necessities. Vegetation might proceed, the earth might be clothed with a sober green ; all the processes of 
fructification might be perfected with being attended by the glory with which the flower is crowned ; but 
beauty and fragrance are poured abroad over the earth in blossoms of endless varieties, radient evidences of 
the boundless benevolence of the Deity. They are made solely to gladden the heart of man, for a light to 
his eyes, for a living inspiration of grace to his spirit, for a perpetual admiration. And accordingly they 
seize on our affections the first moment that we behold them. With what eagerness do very infants grasp 
at flowers! As they become older, they would live for ever amongst them. They bound about in the 
flowery meadows like young fawns; they gather all they come near; they collect heaps; they sit among 
them, and sort them, and sing over them, and caress them, till they perish in their grasp. 
This sweet May morning I In a thousand valleys far and wide 
The children are pulling Fresh flowers. 
On every side, I Wordsworth. 
We see them coming wearily into the towns and villages with their pinafores full, and with posies half 
as large as themselves. We trace them in shady lanes, in the grass of far-off fields, by the treasures they 
have gathered and left behind, lured on by others still brighter. As they grow up to maturity, they assume, 
in their eyes, new characters and beauties. Then they are strewn around them, the poetry of the earth. 
They become invested by a multitude of associations with innumerable spells of power over the human 
heart; they are to us memorials of the joys, sorrows, hopes, and triumphs of our forefathers; they are, to 
all nations, the emblems of youth in its loveliness and purity. 
The ancient Greeks, whose souls pre-eminently sympathized with the spirit of grace and beauty in 
everything, were enthusiastic in their love, and lavish in their use of flowers. They scattered them in the 
porticoes of their temples, they were offered on the altars of some of their deities; they were strewed in 
the conquerors path ; on all occasions of festivity and rejoicing they were strewn about, or worn in garlands. 
The guests at banquets were crowned with them. 
Garlands of every green and every scent I High as the handles heaped; to suit the thought 
From vales deflowered, or forest trees branch-rent, Of every guest, that each as he did please 
In baskets of bright osiered gold were brought, | Might fancy fit his brows, silk pillowed at his ease. 
Keats. 
The bowl was wreathed with them, and wherever they wished to throw beauty, and to express gladness, 
like sunshine they cast flowers. Something of the same spirit seems to have prevailed among the Hebrews. 
“Let us fill ourselves,” says Solomon, “with costly wine and ointments; and let no flower of the spring 
pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with rose-buds before they be withered.” But amongst that solemn 
and poetical people they were commonly regarded in another and higher sense; they were the favourite 
symbols of the beauty and the fragility of life. Man is compared to the flower of the field, and it is added, 
“the grass withereth, the flower fadeth.” But of all the poetry ever drawn from flowers, none is so beautiful, 
none is so sublime, none is so imbued with that very spirit in which they were made as that of Christ. 
“And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, 
neither do they spin; and yet, I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one 
of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into 
the oven, shall he not much more clothe you; O ye of little faith!” The sentiment built upon this, entire 
dependance on the goodness of the Creator, is one of the lights of our existence, and could only have been 
uttered by Christ ; but we have here also the expression of the very spirit of beauty in which flowers were 
created; a spirit so boundless and overflowing that it delights to enliven and adorn with these radiant creatures 
of sunshine the solitary places of the earth; to scatter them by myriads over the very desert “where no 
man is; on the wilderness where there is no man;” sending rain “to satisfy the desolate and waste ground, 
and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth / 5 
In our confined notions we are often led to wonder why 
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, | And waste its fragrance on the desert air? 
why beauty, and flowers, and fruit, should be scattered so exuberantly where there are none to enjoy them. 
But the thoughts of the Almighty are not as our thoughts. He sees them; he doubtlessly delights to 
behold the beauty of his handiworks, and rejoices in that tide of glory which he has caused to flow wide 
through the universe. We know not either, what spiritual eyes besides may behold them ; for pleasant is 
the belief that 
Myriads of spiritual creatures walk the earth. 
