60 
MORAL OF FLOWERS. 
Do they not also admonish us of the insta¬ 
bility of earthly grandeur and beauty, by their 
fragility and shortness of duration ? saying in 
the language of. the Psalmist:—As for man, 
his days are as grass, as a flower of the field, so 
he flourisheth ; for the wind passeth over it and 
it is gone ; and the place thereof shall know it 
no more.” They teach us the utter foolishness 
of that pride, which delighteth in personal 
adornments and gaudy trappings ; for be our 
dress ever so rich, the simplest flowers of the 
field, that neither toil nor spin, are arrayed 
much more sumptuously :— 
“Along the sunny hank or watery mead, 
Ten thousand stalks their various blossoms spread: 
Peaceful and lowly, in their native soil, 
They neither know to spin, nor care to toil, 
Yet, with confessed magnificene, deride 
. Our vile attire and impotence of pride.”— Prior. 
It is thus they admonish the prosperous, the 
proud, the uplifted in spirit ; but to the poor, 
the lowly, and the fallen, they are as sympa¬ 
thizing friends, whispering words of comfort 
and hope, sharing their sorrows, and thus ren- 
