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Trample not on a virgin flower; 
I am the maid of the midnight hour; 
I bear sweet sleep 
To those who weep. 
And lie on their eyelids dark and deep. 
— Anon. 
The Nightshade is a plant of rose-colored flowers, growing in damp 
and shady places. 
Dark Thoughts. 
/ To 0 anyone who, at times, is afflicted with dark, gloomy, melancholy 
A- thoughts, I would boldly say: 
Where is your faith ? 
Have patience, and be of good courage; comfort will come to you in 
its proper season. It is just a temptation that troubles you, and a vain 
fear that frights you. 
What, tell me, does that solicitude* about future accidents bring you, 
but only sorrow upon sorrow \ 
Think of what Christ says: “Sufficient for the day is the evil 
thereof.”* 
“It is a vain arid unprofitable thing,” says a very pious author, “to 
conceive either grief or joy for future things which perhaps will never 
happen. 
But it is incident to man to be deluded with such imaginations, and 
a sign of a soul that is as yet weak, to be so easily drawn away by the sug¬ 
gestions of the enemy. 
*Matt. vi. 
