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and their message, and in gladness have they fulfilled and declared it; for earth owes its fragrant beauty to the offerings of flowers; and its fruits, and the food which nourishes the millions of beings in the air and upon the land, have all sprung from flowers, as if the fruits of creation should first be sanctified by the incense of floral innocence before committed to our hands. Is it not true that God

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"Might have made enough,-enough
For every want of ours,-

For medicine, luxury, and for toil,—

And yet have made no flowers"?

APPLICATION OF PREVIOUS REMARKS.

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N our remarks upon flowers we have chosen such botanical interests as are closely connected with the flowers of the Holy Land. Far greater beauties and mysteries in the vegetable and particularly the floral world, than any hitherto noticed, might be brought into an interesting light; but there are some particular marks of design and beauty impressed upon the plants of the Orient which we shall notice. In addition to what we have said, it

may be remarked that the plants and flowers of any soil are unerring little witnesses to its former character. Fruits and flowers are records of former fertility and of the nature of former soils. If you present a handful of soil to an agricultural chemist, after careful analysis he will, without any knowledge of the country whence it was taken, tell you the character of the plants that could not grow in it, as well as the names of some that could. But, notwithstanding the superior wisdom of the modern chemist, plants are far more wonderful chemists, and surpass in their analytical power all

that can be achieved by human skill. There is some relationship between a phosphorus match and a bunch of wheat in the ear. So intimate and so important is this relationship that wheat will not flourish where the soil contains no phosphorus. (Phosphorus is then under a form different from that in the match, but as truly in the soil as in the match.) But so small is the quantity, and so wonderfully diffused, that for a long time skilful chemists were not able, even with delicate tests, to extract it from the soil. Yet every grain of wheat and every fragile stem of straw contains it, and so unmistakably that all chemists were forced to acknowledge that certain plants, in their power to gather it from the earth around, had far surpassed them. There is also some relation between a cornstalk and a bright little crystal of quartz. Nature knows how to dissolve the material of that little crystal and scatter it through the soil in the form of what is called silica; and, if it were not there, the best seeds of corn would produce no crops, and the best · cultivation of that soil would be but toil and time wasted. So, then, plants and fruits will tell us what the soil contains as truly as the most skilful chemists. We sometimes wonder why a land which once bore in profusion certain fruits and plants now seems so unfriendly, and that plants which once grew in it luxuriantly have exchanged places with others, or perhaps have disappeared entirely. But, could these little plants speak, they would immediately tell why it is that so small a quantity of phosphorus or silica in the soil was necessary to their existence. Our eyes form but a small part of our bodies; but their loss would occasion injury to the rest of the body, - perhaps

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death; and a country where we must lose our sight would soon be deserted. The silica in a wheat-straw forms but a trifling part of its whole; yet if the soil be deprived of that small part the wheat refuses to grow, though every other ingredient be present and ready to furnish the plant to the utmost of its demands. Now, why is the plant so delicate in its choice? and why does it require this trifling amount? Because, as in the loss of the human eye the whole body is affected, so the loss of that ingredient is followed by certain injury to the most important parts of the grain itself. that silica, the dissolved crystal, forms the strength of those slender columns-the straws-on which the grain is sustained; and, without sufficient support for the heavy weight, it must fall when the first wind blows upon the ripening grain. Now, is it not economy to refuse to scatter growths whose fruits before they are ripe must fall and rot upon the earth? This would be the consequence if that little portion of silica were wanting; and for this reason the plant refuses to grow. These traits of life are interesting in themselves; but they have as much to do with Scripture as with botany. The flowers and fruits of the Holy Land, and particularly those referred to in the sacred writings, declare with unerring force this truth,— that the soils of the East have undergone a change, and that plants now grow in those lands of which the ancients knew nothing, and flowers and fruits once flourished there which have long since ceased to have a place or name. Some have doubted whether the Scriptures were properly understood in those places where some fruits not now in existence are referred to. Others

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