“The natural world, so to speak, is the raw material of the spiritual. Therefore, ere man can understand the spiritual, he must understand the natural,” writes Thomas Gentry. The authors of this book would go a step further and say that the natural world is the spiritual. Soul and body, ephemeral and material, on this plane of existence are ineffably bound together. If you would climb to sublime heights of ghostly exaltation, study first the grass at your feet. If you would unravel the mysteries

“ ’Tis a quaint thought, and yet perchance, Sweet blossoms, ye have sprung From flowers that over Eden once Their pristine fragrance flung. ” “In the beginning God created the heaven and earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light!” There is no greater mystery than the mystery of creation. Nowhere is its story told more eloquently and more

“ We cannot pass a blade of grass unheeded by the way, For it whispers to our thoughts and we its silent voice obey. ” — J. E. Carpenter The growth and development of a plant, though such a common thing, is full of very real wonder and mystery. It takes only a little observation to discover the various stages in the process, but how they are brought about and by what laws they are governed, not even the most astute investigators can always say. To the lay mind, the statement that the plants depe

“ Race after race of leaves and men Bloom, wither and are gone; As winds and water rise and fall So life and death roll on. ” We are so in the habit of thinking of plants as fixed and static things that it rarely occurs to us that they migrate over the earth’s surface quite as extensively as do men or animals. While it is probably true that vegetation originated simultaneously at different points on the globe’s surface, not much observation is necessary to indicate that it does not always stay w

“... which links by a fraternal tie The meanest of His creatures with the high. ” — Lamartine The first and greatest problem for every terrestrial creature is to live. The chief means of doing so is to eat. Therefore, the relation of being to being and species to species is dominated by the necessity for food. Among man this fact is somewhat masked and obscured, but in the rest of the world it is entirely plain and obvious. Again and again on every hand, we see that plant, animal, and man all ma

“ I wish I were a willow tree— Young wind in the green hair of me And old brown water round my feet, And a familiar bird to greet. ” — Elizabeth Fahnestock. Every division of terrestrial life constitutes a struggle. The plants grow and carry on their business and social activities so unobtrusively that we seldom think of them as appealing to arms—yet their whole existence is a battle royal. They must fight with aspiring neighbours for every inch of their upward growth, and at the same time wage

“ Pale primroses That die unmarried. ”— Shakespeare “Love consumes the plants” once wrote Linnaeus, and the observation of every student of Nature goes to confirm his statement. The plants marry and are given in marriage. Reproduction is undoubtedly their chief end in life. The simplest and most primitive plants have no sex but produce new individuals by splitting their single cells in two. It is in the thread-like bodies of Pond Weeds that we find the first beginnings of the principle of genera

“ As if the rainbows of the fresh mild spring Had blossomed where they fell. ” The plants are perfect artists. From the budding of the Rose to the sudden shooting forth of the seeds of the Wistaria, everything they do is in perfect taste. Ugly flowers are decidedly uncommon. Those which human judgment declares to be less lovely than their fellows have their attractive points, if we take the trouble to look for them. If art is a desire for beauty, a searching after perfect harmony, then the plant

“ Many voices there are in Nature’s choir, and none but were good to hear Had we mastered the laws of their music well, and could read their meaning clear; But we who can feel at Nature’s touch, cannot think as yet with her thought; And I only know that the sough of the pines with a spell of its own is fraught. ” Music is a language—a species of soft, dreamy speech which makes up for its lack of definiteness and precision by a beauty and harmony which can best be described as divine. Indeed, the

“ Weak with nice sense, the chaste Mimosa stands, From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands. ” Plants are profound scientists. Their knowledge may not be as broad and far-reaching as that of man, but they are more successful workers than he. With all his wonderful discoveries in physics and chemistry, man as a class has not yet learned to conduct his own body so as to make it yield the highest efficiency. In fact, members of the human race are today wearing out their frames at a faster rate

“ Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth. ” — Byron In a sense, the entire plant world is a beautiful and expressive worship of a bountiful and beneficent Creator. No creed which does not deny God will fail to see the silent but reverent adoration exhibited by His handiwork. Every tree which raises its brave crest toward the heavens, every flower which greets the warming sunlight with a smile, is a testimony to the omnipotence of divine law. Fully explain the wonders of a single blade of Gra

“ I’ll seek a four-leaved clover In all the fairy dells, And if I find the charmed leaf, Oh, how I’ll weave my spells. ” Every Plant is surrounded by a halo of human thought. If one is able to discern that halo, he finds a new and fascinating interest attaching itself to each herb and flower. The most humble of them become fortune-tellers, luck-bringers, and talismen against evil, as well as dwelling-places of fairies, elves, imps, and other ethereal mischief-makers. In the childhood of humanity

“ Who passeth by the Rosemarie And careth not to take the spraye, For woman’s love no care has he, Nor shall he though he live for aye. ” One day John G. Allen of Cherry, Arizona, went fishing along a small tributary of the River Verde. His skill with the rod seeming to fail him, he decided to make his outing profitable in other directions by hunting through some neighbouring cliff-dwellings for pottery. While wandering through those ancient and curious abodes, he accidentally discovered a secti

“ The Marigold goes to bed with the sun, And with him rises weeping. ”— Shakespeare It is no new thing to believe in the existence of intelligence among plants. As far back as Aristotle, various great minds in the earth’s history have ascribed definite, thinking acts to our floral and vegetable friends. Not a few have seen unmistakable evidences of soul in plantdom. Even the most skeptical have become aware of many things they cannot explain in purely mechanistic terms. We are still living in an

“ I swear I think now that everything, without exception, has an immortal soul! The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have! the animals! I swear I think there is nothing but immortality! ” — Walt Whitman Maurice Maeterlinck, in one of his delightful essays, pays a remarkable tribute to the spiritual powers of plants. “Though there be plants and flowers that are awkward or unlovely,” he says, “there is none that is wholly devoid of wisdom and ingenuity. All exert themselves t

“ Our human souls Cling to the grass and water brooks. ” — Athanase The average city man gives little thought or attention to his vegetable neighbours, yet their continued existence is quite as vital to him as the air he breathes. Directly or indirectly he is utterly dependent upon them. Every time he sits down to a dinner table, he is paying an unconscious tribute to the food-producing abilities of plantdom. In a general way, plants are the world’s food producers and the animals are the consume