(XX) 
natural emotion and to cool a heart all afire with divine love. There, the peerless 
denizens of Flora’s realm, in pretty-mottled, dew-besprinkled vestments lustrous 
in the sheen of sunrise, their odorous cups perfuming all the air, were amiably 
fulfilling the destiny assigned them by Him who formed and fashioned them, 
and approved them “good.” With that intuition of sanctity which, better than 
other gift, can quickly discern the Creator in the creature and readily translate 
the meaning voices of resonant Nature, our saint felt temporarily, yet not dis¬ 
agreeably, diverted from the train of those ardent meditations which by their 
effects had compelled to the garden-visit. “Hush! ye noisy little darlings,” ex¬ 
claimed the saint; “I hear what ye say, I am doing what ye tell me to do; so, hold 
your tongues! ye distract me; or ween ye that no one loves and worships God, 
but your own lovely selves ?” But away, as though conscious of the tenor of the 
playful reproof, the flowers, nodding their tasselled crowns, swinging their breath¬ 
ing censers to and fro, seemed to call out with redoubled persistency, “Love God! 
Thank God! Praise God!”—as the saint returned to devotions. Thus must it 
ever be, proportionately to the nicer perceptiveness in the one that surveys those 
charming scenes of floral gracefulness. Each plant and flower, from the gigantic 
forest-King that braves the tempest, to the tiniest flower-stalk that trembles in 
the faintest zephyr, signally refers man to their common Maker—so potently 
reminding him of his close relations with God, that each in turn becomes a veri¬ 
table “Forget-Me-Not.” For as truly as the feathered songsters of grove and 
woodland, in their richly colored vests, carol forth the divine praise in clearest 
warblings, do the scarcely less animate creatures in earth’s teeming gardens, 
melodiously chant in their own way of the beauteous Majesty of their Divine 
Artist. “Flowers are the foot-prints of Angels,” treading in which one will as¬ 
suredly be led on High. 
And practically bearing on the individual himself, Flowers and Plants have 
priceless Lessons in store for all. They need light, air, humidity, and, for the 
most part, a grateful soil, for their healthy expansion; and they are singularly 
endowed with organs for utilizing these favoring conditions; duly profiting off 
Nature’s glare and Nature’s requisite intervals of shady rest; variously breathing, 
through outstretched leaf or craving sprout—inhaling, exhaling; absorbing moist¬ 
ened atoms and the proper juices of the mold; imbibing dews, the earlier and the 
later rains. Man, likewise, has corresponding needs for his material, mental, 
and supernatural development, and he is also admirably conditioned to avail 
himself of analogous means, within and around him, to those ends. The human 
spirit must dwell in the light of God’s countenance sealed upon it, or linger hope- 
