shall we put the wildweed flower that
simply blows?
And is there any moral shut within the bosom of the rose?
But any man that walks the mead, in bud, or blade, or
bloom, may find,
According as his humours lead, a meaning suited to his mind."

Let us listen to-day to the preaching of Nature, and learn a lesson
from the grass which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven.
Let us consider the lilies, and make them our teachers. The first
lesson which these silent preachers would have us learn is the
unfailing care of God for His creatures. He never neglects to clothe
the ground with grass, or to nourish the lilies, which neither toil nor
spin. Yet we who both toil and spin, and haste to rise up early, and
so late take rest, are often distrustful and full of doubt. Brethren,
let us work our work, but not put our trust in it. It is God's right
Hand and His mighty Arm which must help us. Let us strive to do our
best, and leave the result to God. Let us dwell in the land, and be
doing good, and verily we shall be fed. And next, we learn from the
grass and the flowers how short our time is. Every meadow, every
grassy hillock in the churchyard, seems to say to us, "as for man, his
days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For
the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall
know it no more. All flesh is grass, and all the goodness thereof as
the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth;
because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it; surely the people is
grass." Yes, surely this thought should be a check to our pride, and
our schemes, and our worldliness, that we must one day lay them all
aside, like a worn-out garment, and that the pleasant grass, which our
careless foot is pressing, shall grow green upon our grave. Let us
hearken to the warning of a quaint old epitaph which I have seen in a
Yorkshire Churchyard:--

"Earth walketh on the earth,
Glittering like gold;
Earth goeth to the earth
Sooner than it would.

Earth buildeth on the earth
Palaces and towers,
Earth sayeth to the earth--
All shall be ours."

I read the other day that lately a workman, employed in some
excavations at Rome, found a funeral urn containing the ashes of one of
the Caesars. The workman knew nothing of the matter, but seeing that
the ashes were very white, he sent them to his wife to bleach linen
with. And this