The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-05-03

aisle, and the dead music of a half cent
ury ago comes throbbing through
the air; and vanished faces reap
pear, and right hands are joined,
and manly voice promises: Twill for
better or for worse" and the wedding
march thunders salvo of joy st the de-
parting crowd; but a sigh on that an
niversary day scatters the scene. Under
the deep-fetched breath, the altar, the
flowers, the congratulating groups are
scattered, and there is nothing left but a
trembling hand holding faded rose
bud, which is put into the paper, and then
into the box, and the box carefully placed
in the bureau, and with a sharp, sudden
click of the lock the scene is over.
All, my friends, let not the prophecies
of the flowers on your wedding day be
false prophecies. Be blind to each others
faults. Make the most of each others
excelencies. Above all, do not both get
mad at once! Remember the vows, the
ring on the third finger of the left hand
and the benediction of the Gala lilies.
8. 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 obseauies. The worst cash ever
made into the side of our poor earth is the
cash of the grave. 1t is so deep, it is so
cruel, 1t 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 q 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
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
carries chisel in one hand we want Old
Mortality to have some flower seed in the
palm Of the other hand.
"Oh," you say, ''the dead don't know;
it makes no difference to them" I 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 bodies? 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
igences to look at and admire,
and when invisible intelligences
come to look at the wild flow
ers of the woods and the tablelands, will
they not make excursion and see the flow
ers which you have planted in affection
ate remembrance of them?
When l 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 ehil-
dren's mouths and the clothes from their
backs, but something from the great
democracy of flowers. Rather than i'm
perial catafalque Of Russian Gear, ask
some one whom may have helped by
Gospel sermon or Christian deed to bring
q sprig of arbutus or 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 cover up 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 sepulcher. / wish that every
sepulcher might be in the midst of the
garden.
4. If You insist on asking me the oues-
ton: What are flowers good for? an
swer for religious symbolism. Have YOU
ever studied scriptural flora? The Bible
Is an aboretuIn, it is a 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:
A man cometh forth as q 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
wall 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
i've 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 cnwcl;, x,,c.x