Floral biography; or, Chapters on flowers

Chapter I. The Snow-drop

Botany is doubtless a very delightful study ; but a botanical treatise is one of the last things that I should be found engaged in. Truth shall be told : my love of flow^ers — for each particular petal — is such, that no thirst after scientific knowledge could ever prevail with me to tear the beautiful objects in pieces. I love to see the bud bursting into maturity; I love to mark the deepening tints with which the beams of heaven paint the expanded flower ; nay, with a melancholy sort of pleasure, I love to watch that progress towards decay, so endearingly bespeaking a fellowship in man's transient glory, which, even at its height, is but as " the flower of grass." I love to gaze upon these vegetable gems — to marvel and adore, that such relics of paradise are yet permitted to brighten a path where the iniquity of rebellious sinners has sown the thorn and the thistle, under the blighting curse of an offended God. Next after the blessed bible, a flower-garden is to me the most eloquent of books — a volume teeming with instruction, consolation, and reproof,

But there is yet another, and somewhat fanciful view, that I delight to take of these fair things, my course has lain through a busy and a chequered path ; I have been subjected to many changes of place, and have encountered a great variety of characters, who have passed before me like visions of the night, leaving but the remembrance of what they were. I have frequently in my lonely rambles among the flowers, assimilated one and another of them to those unforgotten individuals, until they became almost identified ; and my garden bears a nomenclature which no eye but mine can decypher. Yet if the reader be pleased to accompany me into this parterre, I will exhibit a specimen or two of what I am tempted to call floral biography ; humbly trusting that He who commended to our consideration the growth of ihe lilies, will be with us, to impart that blessing without which our walks, and words, and thoughts, must be alike unprofitably — sinfully vain.

In glancing around the denuded garden, at this chilling season, we can scarsely fail to fix our regards upon the snow-drop, which bows its trembling head beneath the blast. Every body loves the delicate snow-drop ; I will not stop to repeat what has been often said and sung concerning it, but proceed to that of which it is a characteristic memento. Merely premising that in this, and every subsequent sketch, I shall adhere most strictly to simple, unadorned truth. The characters will be real, every incident a fact ; and nothing but the names withheld.

It was in dear Ireland, some years ago, that a pious clergyman, in reading a letter from a military correspondent, pronounced a name familiar to me — it was that of one who had been a beloved playmate in my earliest years, of whom I have long lost all trace, and who was there represented as having died rejoicing in the Lord. A few questions elicited the fact of his having entered the army ; that he had been stationed in Ireland ; had married an engaging young lady, and taken her to India ; and now, had died in the faith. 1 soon after learnt that the youthful widow was expected, whh her mother, to settle in that very town, where they had no connexions, nor could any one assign a reason for their choice.

Months passed away, and I could not ascertain that they were arrived; but .one Sunday, long afterwards on taking my accustomed place at church, I found a stranger beside me in the pew, whose deep weeds, pallid countenance, and bending figure, with the addition of a most distressing cough, increased the interest excited by the lowly humility of her deportment during prayers, and the earnestness of her attention to the preacher. After quitting the church, I asked a friend if he knew who she

was ; he rephed, ' The widow of Captain ,

concerning whom you have so often inquired.' The next day I went in quest of her, introduced myself as the early friend of her departed husband, and from that time it seemed as though her only earthly enjoyment was to be found in my little study.

Her story was this : she had married while both parties were in total ignorance of the gospel; their mutual attachment was excessive, on her part extravagant. She left the parental roof, and felt no grief at quitting it : she accompanied the regiment, and found every change agreeablCj for still it was her privilege to brighten the home of her beloved and affectionate husband : He was an amiable young man, moral and honourable ; and while quartered in that town, he had attended the preaching of the gospel, little imagining that the warnings addressed to unawakened sinners could affect one so upright as himself. Yet the word was not lost upon him : the good seed sunk into his heart ; and soon afterwards it sprang up, beginning to bear fruit to the glory of God.

Theresa's affection was of that kind which is content to do, and to be, whatever will best please its object. With the same willing and happy actfVk«esceiice that had before led her into the revelries of the ball-room, did she sit down to read with her husband the word of God, or kneel beside him in prayer. * The world,' she said, ' was pleasant to me while he loved it ; and when he forsook it, so did I : but with this awful difference, Frederick left the world, because he found its friendship was enmity with God : I turned from it because my world was centered in him.' Her husband saw this, and earnestly strove to lead her into acquaintance with herself, as the necessary prelude to her seeking the knowledge of the Lord : but in vain — his opinions were hers, in all matters, and therefore in religion ; but her heart was totally unchanged.

And here I would pause to impress upon my readers, particularly the younger portion of them, the necessity for self-examination — constant and close— on this momentous point. Too frequently is the force of human attachment, the power of human influence, mistaken for the effectual working of a divine energy in the soul. A favourite preacher will sometimes lead captive the imagination, or the paramount influence of a beloved object seemingly draw the affections, into that track whereon none can truly enter, much less consistently walk, but by the guidance of the Holy Spirit : and what a catalogue of woes, not always to end with the present state of existence, might be exhibited as resulting from this specious self-deception ! " We know," saith the apostle, " that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." The test, when rightly applied, is a sure one : but we cannot guard too vigilantly against that perversion of it to which our deceitful hearts are perpetually prompting us. To love Christ in his people, is an evidence of spiritual life : to love Christ for his people, is a delusion, by means of which the father of lies seals many to eternal death.

After a few removals, the regiment was ordered to India ; and with bitter anguish has my poor friend dwelt on the recollection of that year's events. The family of her husband being people of rank, and wealthy, his outfit was rendered, by his father's generosity, a very superior one. Val uable plate, and every thing that taste could devise for affluence to accomplish, was lavished on the young couple ; and as Theresa's fondness, in alliance with the pride that was her natural characteristic, pleaded for the display of all that could make her Frederick an object of such respect as this world's envy can bestow, she exerted all her influence to draw him into society which he felt to be most deadening to his spiritual energies, and destructive of the peace which he most coveted Still his affection for her was so great as to render her persuasions irresistible : and, while the fading

THE SNOW-DROK 13

of his healthful cheek, and increasing pensiveness of his eye, bespoke the internal conflict, he yielded to the snare so far as to devote many precious hours which might have been profitably spent among God's people, to associates, moral and respectable indeed, but very far removed from the ways of godhness.

Frederick concealed from his wife the extent of his sufferings, while she thus encouraged the flesh to lust against the Spirit; but she could not be ignorant of it; and that knowledge, as she described it, only added strength to her endeavours. She was conscious of a sort of jealousy, the recollection of which, overwhelmed her w^ith horror : in the selfish indulgence of an inordinate attachment, she felt it as a wrong that her husband could love God better than he loved her— she sought to rival the Lord, to win from Him the allegiance of a soul that He had betrothed unto himself: and when, in the fiery furnace into which she was shortly afterwards put, all these things were recalled to mind— set in order before her— how fearful were the agonies of her remorseful spirit ! If I could display its writhings as she described them to me, the warning might be salutary to sotne who are, in like manner, provoking the Lord to jealousy, endangering abrother's safety, and braving the storm of divine indignation.

After some months passed in the manner above 2 stated, while Frederick perceptibly drooped more and more, under the struggle that divine grace enabled him to maintain against temptations, too frequently successful, to compromise his Christian simplicity of walk and conversation, he appeared one day to his anxious wife, radiant with joy and holy exultation. * Oh, Theresa,' he said, * what can I render unto the the Lord for his great benefits V I have long been a wretched, prayerless outcast, unable to pour out my soul to him. T have pined under the sense of banishment — of deserved exile from his presence. I have been forsaking him : and he almost forsook me. But on this happy morning, I have been once more admitted to my Father's throne : I have had such enlargement of spirit, such freedom in prayer, such a blessed assurance of his unchangeable love, that surely, surely he will not let me wander any more !' She told me that his look and manner quite overpowered her selfish feelings : she was conscious of the deep cruelty of her conduct, in depriving him of such peace, such joy : she even prayed to be kept from a repetition of offence. Her impressions were, however, then too weak and transient to have endured a trial — the Lord wrought, in a way that neither of them had anticipated : and on the very next day she saw her Frederick laid on the bed of dangerous sickness. He recovered speedily, so far as to appear out of immediate danger ; but the medical men pronounced it indispensable that he should return to his native England without delay ; and, two years' leave of absence being granted, they embarked ; her fond bosom cherishing the confident expectation of his perfect re-establishment. At the Cape they made a short stay ; and Frederick appeared so perfectly convalescent, that he seemed beyond the reach of a relapse. Alas ! on the very day of their quitting that shore, his malady returned with such overwhelming violence, tliat before they had made many leagues of the long homeward voyage, not a hope remained of his reaching England alive.

It was dreadful to see the effort with which that broken-hearted creature nerved herself to tell me the sequel. Her feet placed on the fender for support, knees crushed together, lips strongly compressed, brows — such beautiful brows ! — bent into an expression of sternness, and even the hectic of her cheeks fading into ghastly white — all bespoke such mental suffering, that I implored her to spare herself the recital : but in vain.

It appeared that, while Frederick, full of joy, lay dying in his cabin, the fiery darts of Satan were almost all shot into the soul of his distracted wife. She told me that she never suffered him to suspect it — that she wore an aspect of even cheerful resignation — and by so doing, increased his happiness. But, whenever withdrawn from his siglit, the tempest would break forth with such maddening violence, that it was astonishing how she could survive the paroxysms. Thoughts of blasphemy, the most appalling, were continually infused into her mind : every creature that enjoyed health and cheerfulness was to her an object of such bitter envy, that she desired their death. And while contrasting the rude hilarity of some men upon the deck, who lived in open scorn of every divine law, only using the name of the Most High in jests or curses, with the wasting anguish that was dissolving the frame of her angelic sufferer in the cabin below — then, impious thoughts, wild charges against the mercy, and even the justice of the Most High, would shoot through her brain, until, loathing them as she did, while totally unable to repress them, she was many a time on the point of flinging herself into the roaring surge beneath. 'And then, to dress my face in smiles, to go back to him, and take his hand, and tell him that the air had refreshed me — to read the word of that God whom I felt that I was defying — to kneel in prayer, seemingly a sharer in his beautiful aspirations of hope and peace, and joy, and thankfulness — You know it not— oh, may you never know it !'

The closing scene was at hand ; and while she hung in quiet despair over his pillow, he told her, with a look of sweet sympathy, that the Lord would soon bring her to Himself; but that he saw it needful first to remove the object of her exclusive attachment. * My death will be the means of bringing you to Christ ; and Christ's death has opened for us both the way to God. Fear not, my beloved Theresa — only believe. — We shall sing a new song together before the throne of the Lamb.'

Poor, poor Theresa ! A few days more would have brought them to anchor in the English port ; and at least she would have been spared the awful solitariness that surrounded her, when without one outward solace, she sat watching that lifeless clay, extended before her in the calm still beauty of death. She described herself as having undergone the most extraordinary change, from the moment of his decease. The smothered tempest under the outbreakings of which she had expected, and even hoped to die, passed away without a single burst. A cold, dull, quiet endurance succeeded ; not unmixed with transient gleams of hope, as his parting words again and again passed through her unresisting mind. Yet she was roused, by what I can well suppose must be one of the most heart-rending sounds pertaining to this world of woe ; the splash that told her when that form, so long and fondly loved, was indeed descending into its watery grave — and the 2* ship rolled on — and even the eye of such loves as Theresa's might never, never catch a trace whereby to discern the spot of his obsequies. Ocean was his tomb : and who should reveal in what chamber of the mighty mausoleum those cherished relics had found rest, until that day when the sea shall give up its dead !

As yet, no real peace had visited the soul of the mourner : the enemy was restrained, that he should no longer inflict on her the torture of his blasphemous suggestions : but grief, corroding grief, ate into the vital principle. She was desolate, and a widow, moving to and fro : looking for some manifestation of that divine love, of which the first breathings were yet hardly perceptible in her soul ; yet without any energy of prayer, any confident hope, or such a measure of faith as might enable her to lay hold on one of those promises, whereof she was very certain that her dear husband was enjoying the glorious fulfilment in heaven.

In this wretched state Theresa returned to the home of her widowed mother; but there she could not remain. She pined for the ministery under which her departed husband had first received a blessing, and gave her mother no rest, until she consented to remove to that place ; where, on the first Sunday after the arrival, we were brought in the house of prayer.

Theresa had taken the infection, while tending the death-bed of her husband. Consumption, lingering but confirmed, had shown itself before I saw her; grief had bowed her once elegant figure, and I cannot look at a snow-drop without recognizing her very aspect, — every lock of her hair concealed beneath the widow's cap, which scarcely surpassed in deadly whiteness the countenance that drooped beneath it.

But let me render thanks to God, that, speedily as the outward form decayed, the growth of spiritual life within was far more rapid. She had found mercy, and I never beheld such intense application of every faculty to the one work of searching the scriptures ; such fervent importuni ly for divine teaching ; such watchful discrimination in securing the wheat and rejecting the chaff while listening to the various instructors who proffered their aid to this interesting inquirer. In trembling humihty and self-distrust, she no less resembled the snow-drop, which looks as though the lightest zephyr would rend it from its stem : but, strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, rooted and grounded in faith, she still, like the snow-drop, maintained her assigned place,unmoved by storms that carried devastation to loftier plants around. Popery, infidelity, antinomianism, were casting down many wounded in her path ; but God had indeed revealed to her the pure doctrines of gospel truth, and beautifully did her growing conformity to Christ evidence that the clearness of her views was not merely an operation of the mind — it was an illumination of the soul.

Yet though enabled to rejoice in spirit, sometimes with joy unspeakable and full of glory, her earthly sorrow pressed heavily on the heart so early bereft of its idolized treasure. To me alone was the privilege allowed of numbering over with her the httle relics of by-gone hours ; and of gazing on his miniature ; where his beautiful features, that never seemed to have lost the noble simplicity of expression that characterized his childhood, recalled many endearing little incidents to my mind, on the recital of which she dwelt with sad delioht. One occasion I well remember, when the depth of her feehngs was displayed in a singular manner ; and this I often think upon, when revelling in the contemplation of my flower-garden at the height of its glory.

She came to me one morning, and found me still in my bed, suffering from a sore throat. A basket of flowers had just arrived from a distant friend, which, moistened by a shower of rain, 1 dared not then unpack. When she entered, I called out, ' Theresa, you are just the person I wanted. I can trust precious flowers in your careful little hands ; and you shall arrange them with ail the taste that you are mistress of.' She threw a hasty glance on my blooming store, smiled very faintly, then, seating herself beside me, entered into conversation. After a while, I renriinded her of the flowers : ' Presently,' was the answer ; and she then commenced a long history of her childhood, which was indeed one of extraordinary interest. Hours passed away ; and I, seeing the flowers begin to droop, once more asked her if she intended to let them die ? She rose, with a long sigh ; and kneeling down beside a chair, slowly commenced arranging the rich variety before her. I thought she had never looked so touchingly forlorn, as when, with her black garments spreading around, and her pale sorrowful face bent over the glowing heaps of roses, carnations, and every brilliant child of June, she pursued her task, filling several vases with the bouquets thus formed.

She brought me my dinner, and then dressed, and conducted me into my study, where she had placed the flowers with such exquisite state, that I cried out in delight, / O Theresa, you shall be my florist in ordinary : what a beautiful display you have made ! She seated herself b" my side on the sofa, kissed me, and said, ' Novv, x' .er this, you are never to doubt that I love you.'

' Doubt it, my dear friend ! I could not if I tried : but you have given me stronger proofs of it than this, much as your taste and ingenuity are now displayed on my behalf.'

' No — I never gave you such a proof before !*

She then burst into tears, and told me that her passion for flowers was as great as even mine *. that it was Frederick's daily task, when in India, to go out every morning and cull the most splendid blossoms of that glowing clime, which he always arranged in her boudoir, and upon her beloved piano, with as much care as he bestowed on his military duties. The long voyage had separated her from the world of flowers during his illness : and when, after leaving him in the depths of ocean, she first beheld those smiling remembrances, such a horror took possession of her poor lacerated mind, that, as she solemnly assured me, she would rather have taken the most noisome reptile into her hand than a rose. Voluntarily, she never entered a garden ; because of the almost unconquerable desire that she felt to trample every flower into the earth. She had struggled and prayed against this : it was a species of delirium over which time seemed to have no power ; and it was to avoid a taskso torturincr that she had engaged my attention for hours, in the hope of my forgetting it until after her departure. ' When I kneeled down before the chair,' said the sweet mourner, * I prayed that the sense of all your love toward me might prevail over my dreadful reluctance ; and it did.' Then, after a pause she added, with another burst of tears, * I don't think I could have done it, if you had not loved Frederick !'

Not long after this, I was surprised by seeing in her own apartnaent. a single, soft white rose in a glass. She pointed it out to me, saying, ' I am following up my, or rather your conquest ; it is too ungrateful, that because God has seen fit to resume the dearest of all his gifts, I should spurn from me what he yet leaves in my path !' I understood the nature of her struggle ; and, trivial as it may appear to those whose minds are differently con stituted, I could appreciate the honesty of her efforts to overcome what too many would have delighted to indulge, as the offspring of feelings that could not perhaps have excited but in a remarkably sensitive and imaginative character. She laboured to bring all into the captivity of wilhng obedience to Christ : thus yielding strong evidence of a growth in the grace that was preparing her for glory.

I watched, for twelve months, her progress towards heaven ; and greatly did she desire to die, where alone she had truly begun to live ; but duty called her elsewhere, to the fulfilment of a painful, though sacred task. She applied, her remaining strength to the work, and then lay down in peace. Her death-bed was described by a pious minister as presenting a foretaste of heavenly triumph. Her ashes repose beneath the green shamrocks of her native isle ; her spirit rejoices in the presence of her redeeming God.

Chapter II. The Furze-bush

'Nothing venture, nothing have,' is one of the homely sayings against which sentence of banishment has been pronounced from the high places of what we are pleased to call refined society. When I scrawled the adage in my first copy-book, I thought it exceedingly wise ; and reduced it to practice a few evenings afterwards, in a merry holiday party, where the old game of snap-dragon was played. I had rarely borne off a single plum' from the midst of those pale blue flames that appeared in my eyes most terrific ; indeed, all my prizes had been made under circumstances that called only the best part of valour into exercise ; for I watched when some more adventurous wight, who had boldly seized them, w^as induced, either by alarm or burned fingers, to let the trophy fall, which I quietly picked up, and conveyed into my mouth. The proverb, however, seemed to have inspired me with somewhat of a more enterprising character ; for, on the evening in question, I elbowed my way through the laughing, screaming little folks, and secretly ejaculating, ' Nothing venture, nothing have,' I bravely plunged my hand into the dish, and bore off a noble plum, enveloped in those alarming flames, which I blew out ; and certainly I thought the morsel that my own chivalrous exploit had secured, infinitely superior in flavour to any of the more ignoble, spoils of former times.

How far this successful application of an old saw might influence my after life, J know not but certain it is, that I have done many things which wiser people call rash, and imprudent in the highest degree, under an impulse very similar to the foregoing. Not that, in the darkest days of my ignorance, I ever looked to what is called chance, or luck : even in childhood, I regarded with inexpressible contempt what the grace of God subsequently taught me to reject as decidedly sinful. I was taken to church every Sunday, even before I could read the bible, and when sufficiently advanced in learning to do so, I was told to receive every word that I read in it, as the declaration of God himself. This I did : and I believe that a reverential reception of our Lord's plain assurance, that the very hairs of our head are all numbered, and that not a sparrow could fall to the ground without our Father, proved suf- 3 ficient to arm me against the whole theory of luck. I notice this with gratitude ; and as an encouragement to parents to bring that blessed book within the reach of their little ones, from the first dawning of their infant faculties.

It was not, therefore, in a gambling spirit that I applied the adage : — to venture something, where the object was to be gained according to the turning up of a card, or the random decision of a lot, I felt to be foolish, before I knew it to be wicked ; but when any desirable thing was placed within my grasp, the attainment of which I might honestly compass, at the expense of some loss, or perhaps suffering to myself. I have rarely shrunk back from the enterprise. It has pleased God, in his great mercy, so far to sanctify this feature of my natural character, that I am able, through prayer, to attempt things, where his glory alone is concerned, that some who are far superior to me in every spiritual gift and grace would pause at . and I have a criterion whereby to judge when it is through the help of my God that I overleap any wall. Accomplishing it in my own strength, and for my own gratification, I am sure to carry off either bT-oken bones, or some severe sprain or contusion ; obliging me to limp for a long while after : but when the power of faith has alone wrought the achievement, I alight unharmed, and go on my way rejoicing.

THE FURZE-BTJSH. 27

* Nothing venture, nothing have,' was my mental reflection, as I inserted my hand, the other day, within the strong fence-work of a hardy furze-bush, to possess myself of the fragrant flower that reposed its golden bosom where few would have cared to invade its retreat. But the plant was an old, an endeared associate, having formed a distinguishing feature of the wild, sweet scenery, amid which I passed many a happy day. A type, too, it was of those days ; for as the bright and beautiful furze-blossom throws its sunny gleams over the withering herbage that lies frozen around, — shedding lustre and breathing fragrance on its own thorny tree, — so did the transient loveliness of that short season to which I refer, ameliorate the dreariness of a wintry doom, a^ sweeten many thorns, planted around me by the hand of unerring wisdom^ The furze-bush from whence I last plucked a flower, is located, indeed, in a region as dissimilar from that which my memoryenshrines, as are the feelings excited by a glance at the present, contrasted with the retrospection of what is forever past : but its tints are as mellow, its foilage as green, and its aspect altogether the same, I knew that if I secured a cluster of its soft petals, they would breathe a like fragrance ; and I was content to venture a scratched finger, for the indulgence of a sweet, though melancholy, gratification^