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168 influence. It takes the form of an affection. The seed which we have sown, the blossom we have nursed, the tree of our own planting, under whose shadow we sit with delight, are to us as living and loving friends. In proportion to the care we have bestowed on them, is the warmth of our regard. They are gentle and persuasive teachers of His goodness, who causeth the sun to shine, and the dews to distil, who forgetteth not amid the ice and snows of winter, the tender, buried vine, and calleth forth the germ long hidden from the eye of man, to vernal splendor or autumnal fruitage.

A love of the beautiful things of Nature, has been sometimes assumed as a criterion of the health of the mind. Those who are under the habitual influence of evil tempers, do not approximate to the spirit and language of flowers. In vain do they reach forth their sweet, clustering blossoms,—envy, hatred, and malice are beyond the reach of such charmers, "charm they never so wisely." But he, who amid the care and weariness of life, finds daily an interval or a disposition to commune with the dew-fed children of Heaven, to devise their welfare, and shelter their purity, has not yet been injured by the fever of political strife, the palsy of the heart, or the eating gangrene of the inordinate desire of riches.

In many other countries, we see the love of flowers, a far more pervading and decided sentiment than in our own. "In Germany," says a female tourist, "garlands of flowers are continually used as tributes of