To what excellent account have our thoughtful old writers turned these prophetic indications of changeful flowers! Bishop Hall, in his _Occasional Meditations_, has the following “On the Light of Tulips, and Marigolds, &c. in his Garden:” “These flowers are the true clients of the sun; how observant they are of his motion and influence! At even, they shut up, as mourning for his departure, without whom they neither can see nor flourish; in the morning, they welcome his rising with a cheerful openness; and at noon, are fully displayed in a free acknowledgment of his bounty. “Thus doth the good heart turn unto God. ‘_When thou turnedst away thy face, I was troubled_,’ saith the man after God’s own heart. ‘_In thy presence is life; yea, the fulness of joy._’ Thus doth the carnal heart to the world: when that withdraws its favours, he is dejected; and revives with a smile. All is in our choice. Whatsoever is our sun will thus carry us. “O God, be Thou to me such as Thou art in Thyself: Thou shalt be merciful in drawing me; I shall be happy in following thee.” The use of Perfumes in the last century exceeded that in the present day. Possibly the old notion that they were employed to mask the exhalations from diseased persons may have driven perfumes out of fashion in our day; we recollect _musk_ to have been specially so considered. Bishop Hall, in his _Occasional Meditations_, adverts to this use of perfumes in a meditation illustrative of a custom which is associated with the symbolic character of “flowers and redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in Holy Scriptures to those fading beauties, whose roots, being buried in dishonour, rise again in glory.”[135] The Bishop’s meditation is “On the Sight of a Coffin stuck with Flowers:” “Too fair in appearance is never free from just suspicion. While there was nothing but wood, no flower was to be seen here; now that this wood is lined with an unsavoury corpse, it is adorned with this sweet variety. The fir, whereof that coffin is made, yields a natural redolence alone; now that it is stuffed thus noisomely, all helps are too little to countervail that scent of corruption.[136] --------------------- Footnote 135: Evelyn. Footnote 136: See “Flowers on Graves,” in _Mysteries of Life, Death, and Futurity_. ---------------------------- THE WORLD’S CYCLES. There is a Revolution of History as of Knowledge: who does not remember how often the same succession of events has happened in his memory! Dr. Newman has well expressed this truth in a poem in the _Lyra Apostolica_, entitled “Faith against Sight,” with the motto, “As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man:”