The Russellville Democrat. [volume] (Russellville, Ark.) 1875-1898, 1888-04-12

l LdultSs MAKE tf1b uDDSJ OIL etGn Otnefs 5
| excelencies. Above all, do not both get
mad at oncel Remember the VOWS, the
ring on the third finger Of the left hand
and the benediction OF the Gala lilies.
| 3. If you insist on asking me the ques-
ton: What are flowers good for? l an
swer: They are good to honor and COM
fort the obsequies. The worst cash ever
made into the side of our poor earth is the
cash of the grave. It is so deep, it is so
cruel, it is so incurable that it needs some
thing to cover it up. Flowers for the cas-
ket, flowers for the hearse, flowers for the
cemetery.
What contrast between n grave in q
country church-yard, with the fence broken
down and the tombstone aslant, and the
neighboring cattle browsing amid the
mullen stalks and the Canada thistle, and
a June morning in Greenwood, the wave
of roseate bloom rolling to the top of the
mounds, and then breaking into foaming
crests of white flowers all around the pill
lows of dust. 1t is the difference between
sleeping under rags and sleeping under
an embroidered blanket. We want Old
Mortality with his chisel TO go through the
grave-yards of Christendom, and while he
arries chisel in one hand we want Old
fortality TO have some flower seed in the
palm of the other hand.
"Oh," you say, ''the dead don't know
1t makes no difference to them" | think
you are mistaken. There are not so many
steamers and rail trains coming to any
living city as there are conveys coming
from Heaven to earth; and if there be in
Simultaneous and constant communication
between this world and the better world,
do you not suppose your departed friends
know what you do with their bodies2 Why
has God planted ''golden rod" and wild
flowers in the forest and on the prairie
where no human eye ever sees them? He
planted them there for invisible intel
LICENCES to look at and admire,
and when invisible intelligences
come to look at the wild how-
ers of the woods and the tablelands, will
they not make excursion and see the how-
ers which you have planted in affection
ate remembrance of them?
When | am dead | would like to have q
handful of violets-any one could pluck
them out of the grass, or some one could
lift from the edge of the pond water lily
nothing rarely expensive or insane dis
play, as sometimes at funeral rites where
the display takes the bread from the chill
dren's mouths and the clothes from their
bdOhot pub lIOlll SlOao
democracy of flowers. Rather than i'm
perial catafalque of Russian Gar, ask
some one whom / may have helped by
Gospel sermon or Christian deed to bring
a sprig of arbutus or d handful of China
astors.
1t was left for modern times to spell re-
spect for the departed and comfort for the
living in letters of floral Gospel. Pillows
of flowers meaning rest for the pilgrim
who has got to the end of his Journey.
Anchor of flowers, suggesting the Christ
ian hope which we have as an anchor to
the soul, sure and steadfast. Cross of
flowers, suggesting the tree on which our
sins were slain.
II had my way would coverup all the
dreamless sleepers, whether in golden
handled casket or pine box, whether a
kings mausoleum or potter's field, with
radiant and aromatic arborescence. The
Bible says, in the midst of the garden
there was q sepulcher. / wish that every
sepulcher might be in the midst of the
garden.
4. II you insist on asking me the ques-
ton: What are flowers good for? l an
swer for religious symbolism. Have you
ever studied scriptural fora? The Bible
is an aboretum, it is divine conservatory,
it is an herbarium of exquisite beauty.
II you want to illustrate the brevity of the
brightest human life, you will quote from
Job:
man cometh forth as a flower and is cut
down.
Or you will quote from the Psalmist:
AS the flower OF the field, so he perisheth; the
wind passeth over it, and it is gone.
Or you will quote from Isaiah:
All flesh is grass, and the goodness thereof
is as the flower of the field.
Or you will quote from James the apos-
tie:
AS the flower of the grass, so he passeth
away.
What graphic Bible symbolism
All the cut flowers of this Easter day
will soon be dead, whatever care you take
of them. Though morning and night you
baptize them in the name of the shower,
the baptism will not be TO them a saving
ordinance. They have been fatally
wounded with the knife that cut them.
They are bleeding their life away; they
are dying now. The fragrance in the air
is their departing and ascending spirits.
Oh yes! flowers are almost human. Bot
anists tell us that flowers breathe, they
take nourishment, they eat, they drink.
They are sensitive. They have their likes
and dislikes. They Sleep they wake. They
live in families They have their ancestors
and their descendants, the birth, their
cradle, their grave. The zephyr rocks the
one, and the storm digs the trench for the
other. The cowslip must leave its gold,
the lily must leave its silver, the rose must
leave its diamond necklace of morning
dew. Dust to dust. So we come up, we
prosper, we spread abroad, we die, as the
hower-as the flower!
Change and decay on all around 1 see;
Oh thou who ehangest not, abide with mel
Flowers also afford mighty symbolism
of Christ, who compared himself to the
ancient queen, the lily, and the modern
queen, the rose, when he said: ~ am the
r ose of Sharon, and the lily of the val
leys." Redolent like the one, humble like
the other. Like both, appropriate for the
sad who want sympathizers, and for the
rejoicing who want banqueters. lowering
over the marriage ceremony like we'd
ding bell, or folded like chaplet on the
pulseless heart of the dead.
Oh, Christi let the perfume of Thy name
be waited all around the earth-lily and
rose, lily and rose-until the wilderness
crimson into a garden, and the round
earth turn into one great bud or immortal
beauty laid against the warm heart of
God. Snatch down from the worlds ban
ner eagle and lion, and put on lily and
rose, lily and rose.
But, my friends, flowers have no grander
use than when on Easter morning we cele-
brate the termination Of Christ from the
catacombs. All the flowers Of to-day
spell resurrection. There is not a nook or
corner in all the building but is touched
with the incense. The women carried
spices TO the tomb of Christ, and they
dropped spices all around about the tomb,
and from those spices have grown all the
flowers OF Easter morn. The two white
robed angels that hurled the stone away
from the door Of the tomb, hurled it with
such violence down the hin that it crash
ed in the door Of the worlds sepulchre
and millions Of the stark and dead shall
come forth.