BOTANICAL REFLECTIONS.

BY NATHAN.

"Ye are the scriptures of the earth,
Sweet flowers fair and frail:

A sermon speaks in every bud

That wooes the summer gale."

YES, flowers are the bibles of Nature, on whose blushing pages we can learn lessons of divine truth. They are the hieroglyphics of inspiration, full of mysterious meaning. They constitute an evangelical picture-gallery, where Nature exhibits her native, untutored skill in the art of spiritual painting. They are the living untarnished symbols of the graces and virtues of our holy Religion. Great God gave to each

A language of its own;

And bade the simple blossom teach
Where'er its seeds are sown."

We have a feeling for flowers akin to the tenderness which parents have for their children. We can pet and caress them for hours with singular fondness, and have even caught ourselves talking to them. "Childish illusion," you will say. Well, perhaps it is. And yet a harmless illusion, which we are by no means willing to abandon. We have often more patience with our flowers than with our friends. We can bear with their drooping, lingering growth for months, nurse them with unabated devotion during a crippled, sickly existence, and with a soft hand smooth their dying pillow. He who could neglect or destroy a plant on account of its declining health, or heedlessly tramp upon a flower, need not think hard if we mistrust his friendship. Such an one betrays a degree of selfishness which would make him a very doubtful friend.

It has often seemed to us that the science of Botany, like some of its kindred sciences, measurably retarded the very object it professes to advance. Hitherto the treatment of plants, with few exceptions, has been too mechanical. In studying the conformation of flowers and their practical analysis, our text-books and professors in botany, give undue prominence to their mere mechanism. If the student of botany is able to analyze a flower, which often means nothing more than to tear it into shreds; if his memory is sufficiently faithful to retain the names and numbers of the several parts, he is at once put down as an adept in botany. This has given rise to a race of literary hypocrites, having the form of botany, but denying the power thereof. Endeavoring to awe the world into respect for their vast learning, by a long array of technical terms, which, like the long prayers of the Pharisees, is simply a sham.

We have always had an insuperable aversion to technical terminology in the study of botany. Apart from the inconvenience and inutility of applying foreign names to plants, it divests them of their home-associations. All our domestic flowers are historical monuments. They are like the costly cathedrals of ancient times. Each has a distinct history, every page of which is filled with family reminiscences. They are like suns in the firmament of home, around which revolve many fragrant memories. They shed a joyous radiance over the history of youth, and are often pleasant helps to pious meditation. We are passionately fond of the rose, and value it as a precious floral album, in which are the autographs and kind wishes of friends whom we are loath to forget. It contains the history of a few large rose-bushes around the old homestead, and tells some very pretty stories in which our boyish mirth acted a prominent part. Shakspeare says

"That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet."

But this is true only in fragrance, but not in fact. Perhaps this was all he meant by this assertion, as he made it with the view of proving a particular point.

We still admire and feel tenderly attached to the honeysuckle, as well for its intrinsic worth as its historic associations. Like the joy we experience when in a country far from friends and their happy society, we become acquainted with a near relative of a beloved one at home, so is the acquaintance with every new honeysuckle we meet. We recognize in each one a near relative to the old friend which spanned the old gate-way to our garden, underneath whose shady bower we oft would sit us down to watch the busy humming-bird loitering from flower to flower. It tells us of the hands which trimmed and trained it; hands ever busy to relieve the suffering and comfort the distressed. It speaks eloquently of the kindness of a pious mother, not lost but gone before. But it does this in the affectionate simplicity of its native household language, and not in the unpronouncable, heartless idiom of a foreign tongue. Hence we deprecate that spirit of retrogressive innovation which would rob our favorite flowers of names consecrated by the happy recollections of childhood. Tax the ingenuity of botanists as much as you please to invent classical names, our hearts cling with tenacious fondness to names which we were taught in the school of home, and we will call them by no other. Why darken counsel by words without knowledge?

We could never reconcile the prevailing method of analyzing flowers with the dictates of a sound taste. There is something revoltingly cruel in tearing to pieces these fairest specimens of Nature's handiwork simply to gratify our curiosity. We regard it as a species of botanical rationalism, which cannot believe a single

petal, unless it is first lacerated by the criticism of Reason and smell. We have no objection to a post-mortem examination, if the cause of botany requires it. But to commence the operation on a living flower, fresh and fragrant with the glow of beauteous life, is a murderous business. You will perhaps say that we assign to flowers a sensibility which they do not possess. Although they lack the properties of animal life and sensation, they are living organic embodiments of ideas. They are maternal expressions of the beautiful. And to lay violent hands on forms of living beauty is committing sacrilege and murder in the Temple of Nature.

By this time our readers doubtless will put us down as an Old Fogy in botany, far behind the times. Well, be it so. Our mind is conscientiously unbotanical, so far as the mechanism of flowers is concerned. If lectures, text-books, and fields can make a practical botanist, there is no reason why we should not be one. For we have passed through the whole ordeal of botanical drilling. Climbing mountings, traversing meadows, penetrating foreststhese were excursions in which we gave full proof of our floral prowess. During the hottest days of the hottest summers we ran, rough-and-tumble, after a professor noted for his pedestrian agility. We gathered as large a proportion of plants as any of our classmates. But here our dexterity was at an end. To pluck the petals and sever the heart-strings of flowers still fresh with life, required a species of vandalism which we never could acquire. We were therefore deficient in analyzing plants because the violent rupture of their parts grated so harshly upon our nerves as to confuse our calculating faculty, so that usually we were among the last to discover the classes, genera and species to which they belonged. On our return we would collect specimens which we were requested to analize at our leisure. But think you that we would calmly and deliberately pull the life out of a flower simply to gratify curiosity? As well might you expect us to pull the feathers out of a live bird to examine their pretty colors, or to make an incision into the larynx of a live canary, to get at the secret of its melodious voice. Within the premises of our room at least flowers were protected from the cruel vandalism of botanical science. There we would nurse, water and pet them, while they retained a spark of life. Their demise would always be attended with becoming solemnity. And no one could venture with safety to lay rude hands upon them. Perhaps some one will accuse us of disobedience to a superior. We are protestants in botany as well as in theology. In either case it is right to refuse the commission of a wrong act. In the competency of our professor we all had the utmost confidence. He was a man born and eminently fitted for his station. For it is with the botanist like with the poet, he is born and not made, as our own history doth most clearly prove. He was an enthusiast in his profession. None of your mechanical book-worms, who

never venture away from the pages of the text-book. He was a complete walking herbarium fast and daring, that would bid defiance to streams and mountains. He would prop himself up in some fence-corner or recline beneath some welcome, long-wishedfor shade-tree, and extemporise for hours on the nature and history of plants, interspersing his remarks with occasional passages from Goethe or Schiller. Thus he brought from the treasury of his capacious memory things new and old. What piles of plants he had collected! A perfect hay-stack of specimens, gathered and secured by his untiring diligence.

The good man still teems with the vigor of botanical lore. Long may he live to bloom in the realm of botany and letters. Should his eye meet these pages, he will please accept this faint allusion to his worth, as an humble tribute of gratitude from one who fondly cherishes his memory and dearly values the benefits of his instructions. May he pardon the botanical indocility of his devoted pupil and this indelicate assault upon the old and long-established customs of his favorite science.

Would he learn our progress in this branch of natural science? We have not analyzed a flower since we passed out of his hands. Yet we have examined and praised many a one, and promoted their cultivation. We consider their cause so sacred as to plead it from the sacred desk. Our interest in flowers, however, is mainly spiritual, which to our view is more creditable than a mere mental interest. We gave them a place in our heart while others convert their brains into a floral memorandum. It is well to do both. But if any is to have preference, we would most decidedly choose the former. We abhor abstractions as nature abhors a vacuum. Whether in theology, politics or botany, they are both unnatural and unreal. We view every flower as a concreate reality, a living tint, whose symmetry, structure and tinted beauty will not admit of a reduction to vulgar fractions. Therefore we examine flowers by synthesis and not by analysis.

ETERNITY.

THOU rollest on, oh! deep unmeasured sea,
Thy length and depth a mystery profound;
Days, weeks, years, centuries-in immensity
Pass on, nor leave a footstep, nor a sound.
Thou lightest up thy smooth, unwrinkled brow,
Beyond the limit of our utmost thought;
A shoreless space, where ages mutely bow
Like bubbles on thy bosom, and are not.
We hear a tramp of feet, we see a throng

Of generations flashing through the gloom;
They fade and others rise, and far along

Thy caverns yawn, and Nature finds her tomb
In the-but tho u, nor young, nor old, art evermore
One all-pervading space-a sea without a shore.

THE TREES OF THE BIBLE.

NO. X.-THE OLIVE TREE.

BY THE EDITOR.

THE Olive is a most interesting tree, and is very frequently referred to in the Holy Scriptures. It flourishes in the East, and especially in Syria, where the soil and climate are peculiarly adapted to its growth. Naturalists mention eighteen kinds of olives, but there are only two kinds mentioned by the sacred writers: the cultivated and the wild olive. Rom. 11, 17, 24. The most prominent difference between these two is, that the wild olive is considerably smaller than the cultivated, and its fruit, when it bears any, is far inferior.

The cultivated, fruit-bearing olive, is thus described: "It is of a moderate height, and thrives best in a sunny and warm soil. Its trunk is knotty, its bark is smooth, and of an ash color. Its wood is solid, and yellowish. Its leaves are oblong, and almost like those of the willow, of a dark green color on the upper side, and whitish below. In the month of June it puts forth white flowers, growing in bunches, each of one piece, and widening at the top, and dividing into four parts. After this flower, succeeds the fruit, which is oblong and plump, somewhat like a plumb in shape. It is first green, then pale; and when quite ripe, it becomes black. Within it is enclosed a hard stone, filled with oblong sceds."

The olive is referred to in scripture as a beautiful tree. God says of Israel, when he shall be restored from his despoiled condition, "his beauty shall be as the olive tree." In the parable of Jotham this tree receives the first honor: "The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us. But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honor God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees." Well and modestly said. It will be a happy time when all men learn to know their places so well, and are more anxious to fill well the sphere they occupy than look ambitiously higher.

The branches of olives have, from the earliest times, been the symbol of mercy, reconciliation and peace. The presentation of a twig of olive was the same as to say, Let there be no strife between us. Thus when the waters of the flood began to abate God gave the dove an olive leaf to bear back to the ark, to show Noah that His wrath was overpast.

The preservation of the olives was regarded as an evidence of the special favor of God. So shall it be a blessing of God in a pious family; "the children shall be like olive plants round the table"