256 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER 
J ANUARY 5. 
women listened in a feverish state of excitement for every 
knock at the green door. Next day a knock came : but it 
was not Harry—Susan again opened to George Swayne. 
He had brought their flower-bells back; and, apparently, 
handsomer than ever. He was very much abashed, and 
stammered something ; and when he came in, he could find 
nothing to say. The handsome china vase, which he had 
substituted for the widow’s flower-pot, said something, how¬ 
ever, for him. The widow and her daughter greeted him 
with hearty smiles and thanks ; but he had something else 
to do than to return them—something of which he seemed 
to be exceedingly ashamed. At last be did it. ‘ I mean no 
otfence,’ he said, ‘but this is much more yours than mine.’ 
He laid upon the table twenty guineas. They refused the 
money with surprise ; Susan with eagerness. He told 
them his story; how the plant had saved him from the 
chance of being turned out of his home; how be was 
making money by the flower, and how fairly ho considered 
half the profits to be due to its real owner. Thereupon the 
three became fast friends, and began to quarrel. "While 
they were quarrelling there was a bouncing knock at the 
door. Mother and daughter hurried to the door; but Susan 
stood aside that Harry might go first into her mother’s arms. 
“ ‘ There’s a fine chime of bells,' said Harry, looking at 
his plant, after a few minutes. ‘ Why it looks no hand¬ 
somer in the West Indies.—But where ever did you get that 
splendid pot ? ’ 
“George was immediately introduced. The whole story 
was told, and Harry was made a referee upon the twenty- 
guinea question. 
“ ‘ God bless you, Mr. Swayne,’ said Harry, ‘ keep that 
money if we are to be friends. Give us your hand, my boy; 
and mother, let us have something to eat.’ They made a 
little festival on that evening in the widow’s house, and 
George thought more than ever of the chiming of the bells 
as Susan laid her needlework aside to bustle to and fro. 
Harry had tales to tell over his pipe ; ‘ and I tell you what, 
Swayne,’ said lie, ‘ I'm glad you are the better for my love 
of rooting. If I warn't a sailor myself I'd be a gardener. 
I’ve a small cargo of roots and seeds in my box that I 
brought home for mother to try what she can do with. My 
opinion is that you're the man to turn ’em to account; and so, 
mate, you shall have ’em. If you get a lucky penny out of any 
one among ’em, you’re welcome; forit’smorethanwecando.’ 
“ How these poor folk laboured to be liberal towards each 
other; how Harry amused himself on holidays before his 
next ship sailed with rake and spade about his friend’s 
nursery; how George Swayne spent summer and autumn 
evenings in the little parlour; how there was really and 
truly a chime rung from Stepney steeple to give joy to a 
little needle woman’s heart; how Susan Swayne became 
much rosier than Susan Ellis had been; how luxuriously 
George’s bees were fed upon new dainties; how Flint and 
Gristone conveyed the nursery-ground to Mr. Swayne in 
freehold to him and his heirs for ever, in consideration of 
the whole purchase-money which Swayne had accumulated ; 
how the old house was enlarged ; how a year or two after 
that, Susan Swayne, the lesser, dug with a small wooden 
spade side by side with giant Uncle Harry ; who was a man 
to find the centre of the earth under Swayne’s garden when 
he came home ever and anon from beyond the sea, always 
with roots and seeds, his home being Swayne’s nursery, and, 
finally, how happy and how populous a home the house in 
Swayne’s nursery grew to be—these are results connecting 
pleasant thoughts with the true story of the earliest cultiva¬ 
tion in this country of the flower known as the Fuchsia.” 
Few irremediable causes of premature decay actually 
\ exist in nature; the inconsiderate or wilful misuse of 
j the very means of preserving health proving not un- 
j frequently a cause of death. In these matters we partly 
} depend upon our own conduct, whether as individuals, 
or socially, or as a nation.* Modern science and phi- 
* Chlorine, the efficient disinfecting: agent of chloride of zinc, is the 
acting principle also in chloride of sodium, or sea-salt, the typical purifier. 
The spread of cholera in the East Indies must have been greatly favoured 
| by the laws which restrict the use of salt; possibly this may have been 
| one exciting cause. 
lanthropy can only point out similar means of safety to 
those originally enjoined on the Israelites, if to those 
precepts be added the duty of kindness to the poor, and 
that enlarged sphere of humanity which regards every 
man as our neighbour, there is absolutely nothing left 
to be added to what has been inculcated by the good 
physician. If men could but,be induced to live as they 
ought to live (instead of doing what they ought not, and 
leaving undone what they ought to do), there seem 
grounds for concluding that the average term of human 
life might be greatly increased, and the amount of 
human suffering lessened. On this point there is a 
marvellous agreement between the abstract speculations 
of cool calculating rationalists, and the transcendental 
opinions of the religious. 
We have already seen in the case of the Jews how 
beneficial has been the mere keeping clean the outside 
of the cup, so far as bodily health is concerned. In 
those worn-out Oriental countries, where a long course 
of misuse has rendered the banks of rivers, &c., deadly 
to the European constitution, a Hindoo or Mahometan 
population yet contrives to live with few hereditary 
ailments, retaining much patriarchal simplicity of man¬ 
ners, and most of the old ceremonial lustrations, though 
the spirituality which these once typified is rejected, 
and the moral and intellectual condition is deplorable 
enough. 
The members of the Society of Friends are noted for 
their longevity; their general prosperity; and their 
puritanic adherence to Bible rules of life. The same 
may be affirmed of ministers of religion as a body. 
The old monks (considering the times in which they 
lived) were distinguished from those about them by a 
greater attention to religious duties; and also by their 
greater intellectual attainments, their more successful 
cultivation of the soil, and their consequent health and 
wealth. Their fall was a consequence of their misuse 
of these earthly blessings. They waxed fat, and kicked; 
as we are all too apt to do. Here has ever been and still 
is the great danger. 
Contrasting the state of things in the North of Ire¬ 
land with the poor Bible-less South (where a settler 
recently said, “ If I could only make these men Maho¬ 
metans it would be a step gained”) we shall find 
physical destitution closely connected with religious 
destitution. This is not the place to enter on the old 
liberties of the Gallican, suffice it to say that the Bible 
is not forbidden in France. Cuvier was a Bible-society ; 
man. Well, in this country, and in France, people live 
one-fourth longer than in such places as dark Austria 
or sordid Russia. We have an unwilling evidence, in 
the profane sneers of the scoffer at the worldly success 
of saintly folk, that godliness is gain, even in this life. 
Contemporary historians have chronicled violences, 
wars, frauds, persecutions, and the like, because they 
have been extraordinary exceptions to the even current 
of events, and have arrested attention at the time. The 
normal tendency of what is right, virtuous, true, and of 
good report to work its own reward, in every age has 
been uunoted, except incidentally. Modern research 
