learnt to be thankful for any medium that led my eye to the brighter 
world above; for, in truth, all sublunary things were exceedingly dark 
around me. 
It was impossible, at least to me, to avoid identifying the jessamine 
with her who owned that narrow spot, and who was peacefully journey¬ 
ing on, to take up her last earthly abode in one still narrower. Disease 
had blanched her cheek to the whiteness of the flower, and bowed her 
frame like its declining branches ; while the nature of her malady for¬ 
bade the continuance of her once favourite occupation of training and 
propping the jessamine. 
Often have I gone out from the presence of the dear sufferer, to 
meditate upon the amazing power of Divine grace which she abundantly 
possessed; a rich treasure, in an earthen vessel so deplorably marred 
as to make it doubly apparent that all the excellence of that power 
was of God. 
Chapters on Flowers. 
NE blossom’s left to tell of sunny hours; 
But one sad relic of the host of flowers, 
Which, short time since, thick scattered o’er the tree, 
Shone as the sunlit drops upon the sea. 
How beautiful, how beautiful were set 
Those stars in Summer’s golden coronet! 
Then Bose and Woodbine shed their fragrance round 
And in a glorious wreath the window bound; 
But Autumn now hath swept their beauty low ; 
Woodbine and Bose alike have ceased to blow : 
Thy tresses, Jasmine, trail along the ground, 
And on them but one lingering flower is found— 
How dear, how doubly dear, to see thee bloom 
Amid this scene of fading and of gloom; 
To tell that, in the hours of doubt and care, 
Still, if we seek, we find some blossom there,— 
Some hope to cheer us in our darkened way, 
Some star to shed around a softening ray. 
