812 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
glory of flowers. They beautify the path of Time, and 
are emblems of eternity. If we rejoice now in the 
changes of the seasons, and find in life so many flowery 
consolations, how much more perfect will be our joy 
when this mortal shall put on immortality, and faith, 
and hope, and love shall adorn the brow of the spirit as 
a threefold chaplet of imperishable beauty, in that happy 
Eden, which has oftentimes been spoken of as the land 
of flowers! Let us use the world, and all its gifts, as 
means to an end, and that end a happy one. We must 
recognize all things about us as Relative, though the 
absolute is our final goal; and every touch of adorning 
grace upon the tapestry of nature will hint to us that the 
moral is wedded to the physical, only that the first may 
ultimately triumph. These perishable flowers sweeten 
the garden of the body, but imperishable ones are bloom¬ 
ing in the garden of the soul. To behold the lilies of 
the field is good for us while we continue in our sen¬ 
suous probation; but when that is at an end, we shall 
behold the face of the Good Preceptor—“ We shall be 
like Him, and see Him as He is/” 
