came on humming wings for the nectar lying deep in their tiny florets.
Eager stamens reached out far beyond the blossoms to brush the bees'
backs with precious freights of pollen to be transported to the
stigmas of older flowers. Playing each its part in the plan of the
universe, flower and insect added its mite to the life and the
loveliness of the summer. From the sunshine and the soil-water the
long leaves manufactured food for the growth of the plant. Prettily
notched, daintily tapering, and arranged in star-like whorls about the
stem, they enhanced the beauty of the flowers above them and attracted
the observer to the exquisite order governing their growth. When the
leaves were arranged in whorls of four, the floral spires were
quadruple, like the pinnacles on a church tower; if the green towers
were hexagonal, then six white minarets pointed to the sky. The
perfect order of the solar system and the majesty of the Mind which
planned it, was manifested in this single plant. So does beauty lead
the way to the mountain tops of truth. By the road of earthly beauty
we may always reach religion and truth is ever beckoning us to new and
nobler visions. That "thread of the all-sustaining beauty, which runs
through all and doth all unite" gently leads us from the things which
are tangible and temporal to the truths which are spiritual and
eternal; from the beauty of the concrete to the beauty of the
abstract, onward along the road of beauty and farther up the heights
of truth until our admiration for the beauty of the sunrise, the snow
crystal, the graceful spray of the trees in winter, the exquisite
order and harmony of the universe from the orbit of the largest planet
to the flow of life in the tiniest leaf, develops into a lasting love
for beauty in life and in character; and still farther up the heights
into an atmosphere of intelligent, rational, genuine love for the
Great First Cause of all beauty. As the heart opens to receive the
beauty of the world, as the mind and soul strive, like the plants, for