PURITY AND MODESTY. 231 
flowers none is so beautiful, none is so sublime, 
none isso imbued with that very spirit in which 
they were made, as that of our Lord. ‘ And 
why take ye thought for raiment? Consider 
the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil 
not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto 
you, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was 
not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if 
God so clothe the grass of the field, which to- 
day is, and to-morrow is east into the oven, 
shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little 
faith !? The sentiment built upon this entire 
dependence on the goodness of the Creator is 
one of the lights of our existence, and could 
only have been uttered by Christ; but we have 
here also the expression of the very spirit of 
beauty in which flowers were created-—a spirit 
so boundless and overflowing that it delights to 
enliven and adorn with these riant creatures of 
sunshine the solitary places of the earth; to 
scatter them by myriads over the very desert 
‘where no man is, on the wilderness where 
there is no man;’ sending rain ‘ to satisfy the 
desolate and waste ground, and to cause the 
bud of the tender herb to spring forth.’” 
It is generally admitted that the white lily is 
a native of Palestine, The Heathen nations 
consecrated it to Juno, contending by their fable 
that it sprang from the milk of that goddess ; 
as we read that Jupiter, being desirous of rais- 

















