ty of five thousand souls, before
the watchful eyes of its earnest, severe pastor. Matrimonial and sexual
circumstances especially were often the objects of my father's gravest
condemnation and rebuke. The way in which he spoke about these matters
showed me that they formed one of the most oppressive and difficult
parts of human conduct; and, in my youth and innocence, I felt a deep
pain and sorrow that man alone, among all creatures, should be doomed to
these separations of sex, whereby the right path was made so difficult
for him to find. I felt it a real necessity for the satisfaction of my
heart and mind to reconcile this difficulty, and yet could find no way
to do so. How could I at that age, and in my position? But my eldest
brother, who, like all my elder brothers, lived away from home, came to
stay with us for a time; and one day, when I expressed my delight at
seeing the purple threads of the hazel buds, he made me aware of a
similar sexual difference in plants. Now was my spirit at rest. I
recognised that what had so weighed upon me was an institution spread
over all nature, to which even the silent, beautiful race of flowers was
submitted. From that time humanity and nature, the life of the soul and
the life of the flower, were closely knit together in my mind; and I can
still see my hazel buds, like angels, opening for me the great God's
temple of Nature.

I now had what I needed: to the Church was added the Nature-Temple; to
the religious Christian life, the life of Nature; to the passionate
discord of human life the tranquil peace of the life of plants. From
that time it was as if I held the clue of Ariadne to guide me through
the labyrinth of life. An intimate communion with Nature for more than
thirty years (although, indeed, often interrupted, sometimes for long
intervals) has taught me that plants, especially trees, are a mirror, or
rather a symbol, of human life in its highest spiritual relations; and I
think one of the grandest and deepest fore-feelings that have ever
emanated from the human soul, is before us when we read, in the Holy
Scriptures, of a tree of knowledge of good and evil. The whole of Nature
teaches us to distinguish good from evil; even the world of crystals and
stones--though not so vividly, calmly, clearly, and manifestly as the
world of plants and flowers. I said my hazel buds gave me the clue of
Ariadne. Many things grew clear to me: for instance, the earliest life
and actions of