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Ye bright mosaics that with storied beauty / The floor of Nature's Temple tessellate; / What numerous emblems of instructive duty / Your forms create. - Horace Smith.

The Floral Kingdom is assuredly a most beautiful part of Gods creation. It is arrayed in rich and varied vesture - its teeming profusion of flowering plants, each one of which seems mystically to preach to us all on the most wonderful wisdom and goodness of our common Creator and Lord, as also on what we ourselves, as his favorite and favored creatures ought to do, in order to please Him on earth and thus become happy with Him hereafter.

Listen then dear reader, to those mysterious teachings, firmly resolved to perform conscientiously whatever the God of Nature through Nature's secret language may tell you.

That He may be with you, to guide and inspire you while on these your mental excursions through Nature's lovely garden, is the sincere wish of THE AUTHOR.

Dodgeville, Wis., August 1, 1900.

[left coloumn] Wondrous truths and manifold as wondrous, / God hath written in thise stars above; / But not less in the bright flowers under us . Stands the revelation of His love.

[right column] In all places then and in all seasons, / Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings, / Teaching us by most persuasive things. - Longfellow. [/right column]

Readers of the "Floral Apostles" will find in this a rare combination wherein our best poets preserve our choicest plants in their original beauty from the sheltering oaks to the kindly blossoms. The name itself is admirable. The "Floral Apostles," God's messengers sent to show us there is so much enjoyment he wants us to have more than can be expressed in words, so he gives us the flowers, and to those of us in the cities who have been deprived in a great measure from sharing His pleasure in them, this becomes doubly precious, as also the comforting thought that this is only one of the many blessings and privileges the future holds in store for us and the troubles and trials and difficulties of this life are only his method of enlarging our capacity to take in the eternal satisfaction which awaits our awakeing. We heartily commend it to all lovers of the beautiful. - I. A.

[left column] REV. SIR: - Although I have already thanked you for sending me "The Floral Apostles," I am so much pleased with the good thoughts which it inspires, that I must renew the expression of my thanks for giving me so much pleasure.

Faithfully yours in Christ,

J. CARD. GIBBONS.

Most Rev. John J. Keane, now Archbishop, of Dubuque, Iowa, wrote to the author of the "Floral Apostles:"

REV. A. J. AMBAUEN, Dear Sir:

"I congratulate you on your 'Floral Apostles.' The book is beautiful in conception and in execution, and I trust it may carry the preaching of the flowers to many hearts.

[right column] On of the many favorable press notices "There was need of just such a book, explaining as it does, in a most practically instructive manner, the precise lessons of Plants and Flowers relatively to man's true well-being. Other works of a somewhat similar character which we have come across in our reading very often allow their theme to evaporate in much aentimentalism; but 'The Floral Apostles,' with a certain temperate enthusiasm, contemplates the flowery realm with eyes of the Christian philosopher and descants thereon in a strain as solid as it is entertaining.

"The introduction to the book written by the Rev. E. J. Fitzpatrick, under the designation of a Prefactory Essay' It gives so enchanting a view of the botanical kingdom as must delight every reader. That introduction is certainly the essay of the decade. We do not remember ever to have read in a single article, so able and extended a treatment of Flora's beauties.' [/right column]

Address all orders to Miss Alston, 1028 W. Harrison St., Chicago.