if comparisons drawn from nature to illustrate his sermons, which are so replete with good cheer and helpfulness.
As we read in the introduction to "The Mystical Flora of St. Francis de Sales"; "In this he holds a place peculiarly his own. His images do not recall scenes of Cappadocian gloom, like those of St. Basil, nor, like St. Jerome's, the harshness of the desert. But rather, as the clear blue waters of the lakes of his own Savoy soften without distorting the rugged outlines of the overhanging hills, which they reflect bright with sunshine, gay with flowers, and crowned with teeming vines so does his gentle spirit present to our minds the loftiest doctrines in all the grandeur of truth, and yet clothed in images of beauty that charm the fancy while they flash new light upon the understanding. But most of all is this true of him as he comes in from the garden with comparisons gathered from the flowers that bloom therein." The spiritual comparisons of St. Francis drawn from plants and flowers make clear to us "how one may draw good thoughts and holy aspirations from everything that presents itself in all the variety of this mortal life."
Ornsby, in his life of the saint, says: "There appears in the mind of St. Francis de Sales that union of sweetness and strength, of manly power and feminine delicacy, of profound knowledge and practical dexterity,
