214 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
endear himself to his fellow-men, flowers are strewn in 
his path and honours heaped upon him—not as in the 
West, when death has sealed up the fountains of grati¬ 
tude-—but while living , that the heart, while it beats, 
may know it beats not in vain.^ And when, after a life 
sanctified in act and thought by the poetic breath and 
symbolic beauty of flowers, death at last imprints an icy 
kiss upon him, he goes up to the sweet gardens of 
Nandana to revel amongst the spiritual flowers or joys 
which blossom there. 
But these things are of the past, and though fit for 
the age of mystery and Paganism, are painfully unfit for 
the age of Christianity and progress. Beautiful as 
things of the past, noble memorials of an age of mystery 
and a race of giants, they would have died out long ago, 
had the Christian masters of the world been Christians 
in their life and character. Debauchery, pillage, slavery, 
exaction, and bloodshed, have marked their steps; and 
the children of the sun have seen little yet of that spirit 
of love which forms the first feature of the Christian's 
preaching, f 
* According to the Paranas, flower-strewing is an honour due 
to the benefactors of the people. 
+ The above was written ten years before the outbreak of the 
Indian mutiny, and might reasonably be altered, since Britain has 
shown herself the true friend of India, and her best of benefactors, 
during seasons of famine and pestilence. 
