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.”—P rior. 
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- 
