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wilful blindness, he could scarce fail to decipher 
them—truths of sublime and mysterious import. It 
is a proof, a sad proof of man’s degeneracy, that he 
reads not in each plant a lesson of God’s kindness. 
Did not the same Almighty hand which 
“ took the golden compassés, prepared 
In God’s eternal store, to circumscribe 
Tins universe and ail created things,” 
for man’s sole gratification create the flowers that 
decorate the earth? 
Regard the vegetable world as an object of gra¬ 
tification, and it was for man alone that it was 
created. The beasts, indeed, browse upon the 
herbage, but it is not theirs to estimate the 
skilful structure of one blade of grass; the birds 
hide their nests amid the foliage, unaware of the 
beauty of its tints; the insects, while sipping the 
sweets ot flowers, are incapable of delighting in the 
rich fragrance exhaled around. To man alone it is 
given fully to enjoy these lovely works of Almighty 
Goodness, which charm his every sense. 
But we may also find in them a memorial of 
God’s infinité power. He that created the heavens 
