170 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
and they have ever since divided all but the flowers 
between them. 
But let us not mourn: for from that hour when 
the spirit of Abel went wailing over the bowers of 
Eden, in the dim twilight of the early world, were 
the immortal gates of heaven thrown open ; and 
Time and Death looked aghast upon each other, 
as they heard those golden doors swing wide, and 
caught a glimpse of the first mortal that passed 
through the cold gates of Death to that bright 
abode of eternal sunshine, and those boundless 
gardens filled with never-dying flowers. From that 
moment they knew that their power extended not 
beyond the grave ; that but for a brief space the 
beauty of mortality should close, like a flower that 
folds itself up and sleeps, while all the land around 
is dark, then opens again beneath a new morning, 
which had never before dawned upon the world; 
whose golden beams would throw around it an 
immortal halo, and give neither Time nor Death 
again power over the drooping bud which those 
sun-rays had touched. It was then that Love 
alighted upon the earth, and proclaimed to all that 
the hearts which remained true and faithful to each 
other should be united again after death; that true 
love was immortal, and could never perish ; that on 
this cold, changeable earth, Happiness never arrived 
to its pure perfection; for here Love was ever in its 
