The presence of flowers as symbols and language on the monuments of Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, India, and other countries of the past, and the graceful floral adornments sculptured on the temples of the Græco-Roman period, demonstrate how great a part flower and plant symbolism played in the early history of mankind. The Jews, learning the art from the Egyptians, preserved it in their midst, and introduced plant emblems in their Tabernacle, in their Temple, and on the garments of the priests. Flowers with golden rays became symbols of the Sun; and as the Sun was the giver of life and warmth, the bringer of fertility, the symbolic flowers stood as symbol-words for these great gifts; and gradually all the mysterious phenomena connected with birth, reproduction, and fecundity, were represented in plant, flower, and fruit symbolism; for not only were flowers early used as a pictorial language, but the priests made use of fruits, herbs, shrubs, and trees to symbolise light, life, warmth, and generation. Let us take a few examples:--When in the Spring, church altars and fonts are piously adorned with white Lilies, which are, in some countries, carried about, worn, and presented by ladies to each other in the month of May, few of them, we may be sure, imagine that they are perpetuating the plant symbolism of the Sun-worship of ancient Egypt. Miss Marshall tells us that “in Catholic countries the yellow anthers are carefully removed; their white filaments alone are left, not, as folks think, that the flower may remain pure white, but that the fecundating or male organs being removed, the Lilies may be true flower symbols or visible words for pure virgins; for the white dawn as yet unwedded to the day--for the pure cold Spring as yet yielding no blossoms and Summer fruits.”