THE LOVE OF FLOWERS. 
311 
beauty ! Mowers are antetypes of the angelic, tokens 
of the perfect, the peaceful, and the just. Well might 
Keats, 
“ Who grow, 
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished, 
And fed with true-love tears instead of dew—” 
say, on the couch of death, that he iC felt the daisies 
already growing over him.” 
Mrs. Hemans believed that “ the fine passion for 
flowers is the only one which long sickness leaves un¬ 
touched with its chilling influence. Often, during this 
weary illness of mine, have I looked upon new books 
with indifference, when, if a friend has sent me a few 
flowers, my heart has leaped up to their dreamy hues and 
odours, with a sudden sense of renovated childhood, 
which seems to me one of the mysteries of our being.” 
The physical history of our world teaches us that 
flowers were created for spiritual, rather than material 
purposes. They were sent by God to give us constant 
revelations of the beautiful, and to keep us in the per¬ 
petual presence of innocence and virtue. There were no 
flowers among the wondrous vegetation of the world 
during the myriad ages preceding the creation of man. 
As there was no moral nature to be comforted, so in the 
workings of creative energy flowers had no place in 
the wild profusion of palms and cycads, and conifers and 
ferns. When the fulness of time had come, and man 
was to take his place in a world prepared for him, the 
world broke forth in full flowery beauty, and “ the Lord 
God planted a garden eastward in Eden.” The history 
of man has for prologue and epilogue the beauty and the 
