ho understood our Lord, when He said, "Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto
you, that Solomon in all his glory was not compared unto one of these."

And why should it not be so with you, townsfolk though you are? Every
Londoner has now, in the public parks and gardens, the privilege of
looking on plants and flowers, more rich, more curious, more varied than
meet the eye of any average countryman. Then when you next avail
yourselves of that real boon of our modern civilization, let me beg you
not to forget the lesson which I have been trying to teach you.

You may feel--you ought to feel--that those strange and stately
semitropic forms are indeed plants of God; the work of a creative Spirit
who delights to employ His Almighty power in producing ever fresh shapes
of beauty--seemingly unnecessary, seemingly superfluous, seemingly
created for the sake of their beauty alone--in order that the Lord may
delight Himself in His works. Let that sight make you admire and
reverence more, not less, the meanest weed beneath your feet. Remember
that the very weeds in your own garden are actually more highly
organized; have cost--if I may so say, with all reverence, but I can only
speak of the infinite in clumsy terms of the finite--the Creator more
thought, more pains, than the giant cedars of Lebanon, and the giant
cypresses of California. Remember that the smallest moss or lichen which
clings upon the wall, is full of wonders and beauties, as inexplicable as
unexpected; and that of every flower on your own window-sill the words of
Christ stand literally true--that Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed as one of these: and bow your hearts and souls before the
magnificent prodigality, the exquisite perfection of His work, who can
be, as often as He will, greatest in that which is least, because to His
infinity nothing is great, and nothing small; who hath created all
things, and for His pleasure they are, and were created; who rejoices for
ever in His own works, because He beholds for ever all that He makes, and
it is very good.

And then refresh your hearts as well as your brains--tired it may be, too
often, with the drudgery of some mechanical, or merely calculating,
occupation--refresh your hearts, I say, by lifting them up unto the Lord,
in truly spiritual, truly heavenly thoughts; which bring nobleness, and
trust, and peace, to the humblest and the mos