"
There is a pretty poem which Sharley learnt the other day, beginning--
"I praised the earth, in beauty seen,
With garlands gay of various green."
When she had repeated it to me, I asked, "What are the 'gay garlands,'
Sharley--flowers?"
But no, they could not be, because the flowers are not "green"; so Sharley
answered that she thought they must be beautiful trees with which the earth
is covered; for their brightly coloured leaves, especially in autumn, are
as gay as wreaths of flowers, with their many shades of red and brown, as
well as "various green."
The more we notice the trees and flowers, the more we wonder at their
loveliness; for God has "made everything beautiful in his time," whether
the rich trees of autumn or the tender green of the spring-time, when all
the earth seems young again.
Beautiful indeed this earth must have been; still so fair, even in its
ruins; when it came fresh from the hand of God, prepared by Him to be the
dwelling place of His creatures; but who can tell how fair it will be when
every trace of sin and its sad work shall be gone for ever, and the Lord
Jesus, the Prince of Peace, shall reign over it?
And although it is all done so quietly and secretly, and seems so natural
to us that we hardly give it a thought, even still more wonderful than
their beauty is the way in which these trees, yielding fruit after their
kind, "whose seed is in itself," go on constantly, not only living, but
producing other living plants, which increase and multiply, each in its
turn again producing more and more "after its kind.
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