FLOWERS. 
Flowers, of all created things, are the most innocent and simple, 
and most superbly complex; playthings for children, ornaments for 
the grave, and the companion of the cold corpse in the coffin. 
Flowers, beloved by the wandering idiot, and studied by the deep 
thinking man of science ! Flowers, that of all perishing things are 
the most perishing; yet of all earthly things, are the most heavenly ! 
Flowers, that unceasingly expand to Heaven their grateful, and to 
man their cheerful looks; partners of human joy, soothers of human 
sorrow; fit emblems of the victor’s triumphs, of the young bride’s 
blushes; welcome to crowded halls, and graceful upon solitary 
graves ! Flowers are, in the volume of nature, what the expression 
“ God is love,” is in the volume of Revelation. 
What a dreary, desolate place would be a face without a smile— 
a feast without a welcome ! Are not flowers the Stars of Earth, and 
are not Stars the flowers of Heaven ? One cannot look closely at 
the structure of a flower without loving it. They are emblems and 
manifestations of God’s love to creation, and they are the means 
and ministrations of man’s love to his fellow-creatures, for they first 
awaken in his mind a sense of the beautiful and the good. The 
very inutility of flowers is their excellence and great beauty: for 
they lead us to thoughts of generosity and moral beauty, detached 
from, and superior to, all selfishness, so that they are pretty lessons 
in nature’s book of instruction, teaching man that he liveth not 
by bread, or from bread alone, and that he hath another than an 
animal life. 
