e of the same family. They are
almost as lovely as the children that play with them--though their happy
human associates may be amongst

The sweetest things that ever grew
Beside a human door.

The Greeks called flowers the _Festival of the eye_: and so they are:
but they are something else, and something better.

A flower is not a flower alone,
A thousand sanctities invest it.

Flowers not only touch the heart; they also elevate the soul. They bind
us not entirely to earth; though they make earth delightful. They
attract our thoughts downward to the richly embroidered ground only to
raise them up again to heaven. If the stars are the scriptures of the
sky, the flowers are the scriptures of the earth. If the stars are a
more glorious revelation of the Creator's majesty and might, the flowers
are at least as sweet a revelation of his gentler attributes. It has
been observed that

An undevout astronomer is mad.

The same thing may be said of an irreverent floriculturist, and with
equal truth--perhaps indeed with greater. For the astronomer, in some
cases, may be hard and cold, from indulging in habits of thought too
exclusively mathematical. But the true lover of flowers has always
something gentle and genial in his nature. He never looks upon his
floral-family without a sweetened smile upon his face and a softened
feeling in his heart; unless his temperament be strangely changed and
his mind disordered. The poets, who, speaking generally, are
constitutionally religious, are always delighted readers of the
flower-illumined pages of the book of nature. One of these disciples of
Flora earnestly exclaims:

Were I, O God, in churchless lands remaining
Far from all voice of teachers and divines,
My soul would find in flowers of thy ordaining
Priests, sermons, shrines

The popular little preachers of the field and garden, with their lovely
faces, and angelic language--sending the while such ambrosial incense up
to heaven--insinuate the sweetest truths into the human heart. They lead
us to the delightful conclusion that beauty is in the list of
the _utilities_--that the Divine Artist himself is _a lover of
loveliness_--that he has communicated a taste for it to his creatures
and most lavishly provided for its gratification.

Not a flower
But shows some touch, in freckle, streak or stain,
Of His unrivalled pencil. He inspires
Their balmy odours, and impa