Centre Democrat. [volume] (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1848-1989, 1880-06-10
A Plea for Flowers In Decoration.
MORALS TO BE DRAWN FROM DAINTY PREACH
ERs OF WOODLAND AND GARDEN.
From London News MAY 10

MORALS TO BE DRAWN FROM DAINTY PREACH.
ERs OF WOODLAND AND GARDEN.
From London News, May 10.
The instinct for associating the in.
cidents of our existence with plants
and keeping up in nature a perpetual
calendar of pure thoughts and rever-
ent memories can be easily and abund-
antly illustrated. Any library will be
found to have perfect literature on
the subject in its modern aspect, while,
if we trace the worship of flowers back
into antiquity, we find it sending its
roots and branches from language to
language and climate to climate, and
finally stretching back to the time when
men were all of one family, when there
was but one garden in tho v-oSld and :
single altar sufficed to bear the floral
offerings of all the human race. Since
then, wherever he has gone, man has
planted gardens and cultivated flow
ers, selecting them as the types of all
that is most lovable in human nature
or most sacred in the Divine. The
lessons and morals that have been
drawn from these dainty preachers of
the woodland and the meadow are
beyond number, and their influence
upon character is incalcnlable. This
is no idle sentiment, but n solid prac-
teal fact; as old Gerard says, cit
would be an unseemly thing for him
that doth look upon and handle fair
and beautiful things, and who fre-
quenteth and is conversant in fair and
beautiful places, to have his mind not
fair also" AT christeEings, weddings
and funerals, flowers are alike con-
spicuous, and though We do not strew
the parsely and pile up the amaranth,
our cemeteries are made beautiful
with the cypress, the yew and the rose
1t is not perhaps commonly known
how this the sweetest of blossoms came
to be flower of the grave; but the
explanation is that the ancien.s loved
the flower so well that in their wills
they often bequeathed legacies for the
purpose of planting roses about them
when they were dead, and from them
and from hower.loving Rome the Gus
tom came to England, and in Camden,
Aubrey, Evelyn and other writer's of
the olden time the churchyard roses
are frequently mentioned. In Wales
the pretty fashion still prevails, and
where pastor or one who has de-
served well of bis neighhors for liber-
ality dies they plant red roses about
his grave, and the white rose always
graces the last resting place of maidens
and of children. Rosemary is the
emblem of regret, the bay of resurrec-
tion and these, in country places, the
mourners often carry still, while at
the corpse's head they plant the cy-
press or other evergreen as typical of
eternal life and strew the coffin with
flowers iu memory of Paradise, which
was filled with them. With infant
life white flowers are universally as
sociated, and whether at the font or
the bier the symbols Of innocence are
seldom wanting. What wedding, again,
could there be without fowers1 Has
not Nature ordained, for the express
benefit Of brides and to show that
marriage is never out Of season, that
the orange flower shall blossom from
January to Decemberf And, in the
face of this stupendous fact, what
maiden would 90 to the altar without
her wreath and nsegayf But it is
not only in the m.se important events
Of life-births, deaths and marriages
that the old, halfreverent use Of flow.
ers is still conspicuous, for, though we
may deck our tables "for ornament"
only, we are still really perpetuating
n graceful pagan rite. Whenever we