The roots of
the plants were carefully nourished, and whenever there was not
sufficient rain the flowers were all watered, and thus the plants and
flowers grew to their greatest perfection and beauty.

Now, these other flowers which I gathered in the fields and along the
roadside and in the woods, have had a hard time of it. In their growth
they had to contend with other weeds. They have been tramped upon by the
cattle. They have been scorched by the sun. And year after year they
have grown in these neglected quarters with great difficulty,
consequently they are stunted and have never attained any perfection or
beauty.

Do you know that these very beautiful flowers in this bouquet at one
time grew just the same as the flowers in the other bouquet? But they
were removed from the roadside, and from the fields and from the woods,
and placed by themselves where they could be properly cared for and
cultivated, and they grew more beautiful from year to year, until we
have this present satisfactory result.

Boys and girls are very much like flowers. Those who are neglected, who
are permitted to walk the streets, to stroll along the roads and over
the fields, to go along the streams fishing on Sunday, instead of being
in Sunday-school and in church, those who are permitted to run out at
nights and play with all kinds of company--these are the boys and girls
who are like the flowers which grow by the roadside. Nothing very
beautiful, or very good, or very perfect can reasonably be expected from
them.

This beautiful bouquet represents those boys and girls who have
Christian fathers and mothers, who surround them by influences which are
well calculated to make them pure in thought and upright in life, so
that they may grow up to be good Christian men and women. These flowers
represent the boys and girls who grow up in the Sunday-school and in the
Church, who give their hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ, and grow up
into His likeness, and into His image, and into His stature, and become
noble Christian men and women.

When parents permit their children to run wild, they cannot expect them
to grow up Christians. It is only by culture and education and Christian
influences that they can be improved, so as to become honorable and
upright.

Nearly all the products of the field have been improved by cultivation,
just the same as these flowers have been improved. Wheat in its native
state, as it may still be found in France and I