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Garden Graith; 
 
 Ealfe among mg JFlotoers. 
 
 SARAH F. SMILEY. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE FULNESS OF BLESSING.' 
 
 Truth has her pleasure-grounds, her haunts of ease 
 
 And easy contemplation — gay parterres. 
 
 And labyrinthine walks, her sunny gla!des 
 
 And shady groves for recreation framed. 
 
 There may he range, if willing to partake 
 
 Their soft indulgences, and in due time 
 
 May issue thence, recruited for the tasks 
 
 And course of service Truth requires from those 
 
 Who tend her altars, wait upon her throne. 
 
 And guard her fortresses." — Wordsworth. 
 
 New York: 
 ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 
 
 900 BROADWAY, COR. 20th STREET. 
 
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 ''K^< 
 
 Copyright, 1880, 
 By Anson D. F. Randolph & Company. 
 
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 ■ ST. JOHNLAND PRINTED BY 
 
 STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, EDWARD O. JENKINS, 
 
 SUFFOLK CO., N. Y. 20 NORTH WILLIAM ST., N. Y. 
 
TO MY FRIENDS. 
 
 The pleasure which is unshared by others is but half 
 a pleasure; and one of the chief delights of a garden is 
 found in its peculiar power of permitting others to par- 
 ticipate in its bounty. Yet this is at the best a limited 
 privilege; and it has given me great joy to gather out of 
 mine a higher and less perishable treasure, and to share 
 it now with a wider circle — trusting that some of these 
 thoughts will fade less quickly than the flowers, and that 
 here and there a seed may fall which may bear some 
 heavenly fruit. I shall be thankful indeed, if that which 
 has been a recreation in the midst of more earnest work, 
 can thus be made to contribute its little share of service 
 for the Master. 
 
 Saratoga Springs, November, 1880. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 o>*ic 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE GARDEN ITSELF 3 
 
 II. SEED SOWING 23 
 
 III. "CONSIDER THE LILIES " 49 
 
 rv. WEEDS 71 
 
 V. FRAGRANCE 97 
 
 VI. POT-BOUND 119 
 
 VIL AFTER THE RAIN 143 
 
 VIIL THE LIFE BEYOND 17^ 
 
I. 
 
 E\)t ffiarticn Etsclf. 
 
I. 
 
 Wi}t ©artren Itself. 
 
 "Lord! all Thy works are lessons, — each contains 
 
 Some emblem of man's all-containing soul; 
 
 Shall he make fruitless all Thy glorious pains, 
 
 Delving within Thy grace an eyeless mole ? 
 
 Make me the least of Thy Dodona-grove, 
 
 Cause me some message of Thy truth to bring, 
 
 Speak but a word through me, nor let Thy love 
 
 Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing." 
 
 Lowell. 
 
 **And the Lord God planted a garden in 
 
 Eden And the Lord God took the 
 
 man, and put him into the garden of Eden to 
 dress it and to keep it" (Gen. ii. 8-15). O for 
 a moment's vision of ^/lat garden ! — planted by 
 His own hands, who beholding all that He had 
 made to be very good, and His fair world yet 
 without sin, could in His holy leisure gather up 
 the choicest of His creations, and group them 
 in a garden, and so hand them over to be the 
 
GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 joy of His yet unfallcn children — showing Him- 
 self thus in His first act towards man to be the 
 giving- God, — giving liberally, giving lovingly. 
 Has such a thought as this ever come to you, 
 dear friends, as you looked at some exquisite 
 flower, or on some tree of surpassing stateli- 
 ness and symmetry — perchance the seed of this 
 came originally from Eden, or this may be a 
 shoot of one of those self-same trees beneath 
 the shadow of which their own Creator walked ? 
 Flowers have ever seemed to me an unfallen 
 part of earth — mementos of Eden, and pledges 
 of Paradise. Who can walk in a garden — much 
 less dress it and keep it — without the thought 
 of that garden being ever present as the great 
 ideal? Look at Eve among her flowers; — giv- 
 ing new loveliness from out her love — taking 
 them delightedly yet reverently from the hand 
 of God, and learning from "each something more 
 of Him who surely made no meaningless form 
 or tint, but with every touch of His forming 
 hand put upon them also a thought of His 
 heart. Behold her then considering her lilies, 
 and finding as she looked and mused an inter- 
 change of ministry — they, for her tender train- 
 ing, teaching new joys of communion with her 
 
THE GARDEN ITSELF. 
 
 God. And now that the innocence has gone 
 forever, has this also perished from the earth ? 
 Surely not ! And in all thankfulness and rev- 
 erence — not indeed in Eden, but only in this 
 little garden plot of Elim — I may claim both 
 the unfallen flowers, and somewhat of that fel- 
 lowship that made her bliss. True, I can not 
 have here the bursting beauty of that new world, 
 and her open vision of Jehovah; but not even 
 for that would I exchange the glory that from 
 the Cross floods a new creation in Christ- Jesus, 
 and the blessed hope of all that shall be, when 
 this redemption is completed. Dark and dread- 
 ful are the shadows that rest long upon our poor 
 world. But all along the shadows fall the rays 
 of revelation; not faint and flickering, but steady 
 as letters of graven gold; and however few in 
 number, there are enough to spell out one 
 soul-cheering promise, — ** SUBJECTED IN HOPE." 
 '* The creation itself also shall be delivered 
 from the bondage of corruption into the lib- 
 erty of the glory of the children of God." 
 
 So we will even leave the study and its dearly 
 treasured books, and come out into the garden, 
 where the voice of God is yet audible, and look 
 and listen together, and learn what He has to 
 
GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 teach us out of His own handiwork. We will 
 go down the hill into the hollow, and take our 
 seats in the little arbor that encircles the tall 
 elm-tree, and here with the garden spread out 
 before us we will watch its growth as the sea- 
 sons pass on, and gather up its graith^ as our 
 more lasting possession. Let me beg of you 
 not to despise through pride of learning the 
 simple lessons of the flowers. Listen to George 
 Herbert's thoughtful counsel — 
 
 "These are Thy wonders, Lord of love, 
 
 To make us see we are but flowers that glide: 
 Which when we once can find and prove, 
 Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide. 
 Who would be more. 
 Swelling through store, 
 Forfeit their Paradise by theur pride." 
 
 For myself I must acknowledge that many a 
 truth which books have "never taught me has 
 been found here; and that the lessons are oft- 
 times as searching as they are ever simple and 
 sweet. 
 
 Here then we will be at our ease. We will 
 
 * Qx'xx'Ccv— furniture ; goods; riches (North of England). — Wor- 
 cester's Dictionary. Somewhat different definitions are given in 
 Webster, and still others in Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary. 
 
THE GARDEN ITSELF. 
 
 drop all our stiffness, and relax the strain of 
 abstract thought, and so rest and renew our 
 spirits. Right welcome are you all, as you turn 
 hither in your thought, to the green grass and 
 fair flowers and the shadows of my patriarchal 
 oaks. And that you may know it more as 1 
 know it, let me give you in brief its simple 
 story. 
 
 Seven years ago this was no garden, but a 
 wild and well-nigh barren spot. There was 
 a steep and rugged hillside sloping southward, 
 and on its brow, a little from the roadside, 
 three old oaks, the growth of centuries, and at 
 its foot this one elm; as for the rest, thorns 
 and briers, wild grass and weeds. And so my 
 joy has come, not from the placing of a perfect 
 gift in my hands, but through slow triumphs 
 over many obstacles — so turning at last desola- 
 tion into beauty. Yet even thus have I learned 
 most. My garden redeemed is a truer micro- 
 cosm of the world of human hearts. 
 
 Some of you will remember how we took pos- 
 session — how as a sort of consecration of the 
 spot to its new service, the thicket of thorns 
 and briers was mown down, and then in the 
 autumn twilight heaped high by the children 
 
8 GAKDEiV GRAITIL 
 
 for a bonfire. So it was set apart, in hope that 
 it mii^ht sometime prove worthy of the valley 
 that smiled before it. and the amphitheatre of 
 richlx' wooded hills that rose to meet the hori- 
 zon. Ah, but none of you can know the care 
 and toil that followed. It was so easy to plan 
 it all beforehand in the mind's eye — the smooth 
 little lawn of i;-rass that should front the cozy 
 cottage nestling beneath the oaks; the green 
 slope southward that should still keep a nat- 
 ural outline, swelling here and sinking there ; 
 the little path with its stone steps winding 
 down the hill, past the spring and tiny brook 
 to the gate, into the meadow; the clumps of 
 shrubbery, the llower beds, and the border. But 
 all these years have only imperfectly wrought 
 out that plan. Set down in the midst of ene- 
 mies, if I may so name the old inhabitants of 
 the hillside, I have had to learn Israel's lesson, 
 — " By little and little shalt thou drive them 
 out." I did expect and thought it but reason- 
 able to have my grass grow smooth and green 
 at once. But I have reached the conclusion 
 that a garden's greatest of all attainments is 
 more grass. You smile significantly, for you 
 ha\e learned some of \'ou at least, dear friends, 
 
TriE GARDEN ITSELF 
 
 that the merely sweet and simple graces are the 
 most difficult to sustain in your souls. Low- 
 liness and meekness, humbleness of mind, the 
 freshness of your spirits in the dew of your 
 youth — these are Hkest to ''the small, soft, 
 sweet grass." To be thus in your homes, and 
 in your common callings, may seem to some 
 things little to speak of; but there is nothing 
 like unto it, for it is the only fair setting of all 
 else that may seem more fair. 
 
 And here I must digress a little, to tell you 
 what I have been taught by this same grass; 
 for in my little garden pulpit this was the first 
 preacher. When I was about to sow the grass 
 seed, there was no small stir in many circles 
 as to the nature of sanctification. There were 
 not a few who claimed that it should be at 
 once both instantaneous and entire, and an 
 often quoted phrase was this, "the eradication 
 of the roots of evil." The analogy of nature 
 can never be positive proof of any point of 
 doctrine; still it often more than illustrates, 
 and in this case it very strikingly confirmed 
 the teaching of Holy Scripture. There was in- 
 deed a definite day when I purposed to have a 
 weedless lawn, and not only purposed, but with 
 
lO GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 the utmost care had it prepared, enriched, and 
 sown. Certainly not a weed was there, and as 
 the purest seed that it was possible to obtain 
 was sown, all seemed hopeful. Soft showers fol- 
 lowed and I watched with delight the shooting 
 of the tiny blades. All looked prosperous. Here 
 and there indeed some other suspicious looking 
 growth was visible, but the grass would surely 
 outgrow it. So I was busy hither and thither, 
 till one day my friend from the cottage over 
 yonder was passing and saluted me facetiously, 
 "What a fine crop of lamb's-quarters ! " I was 
 startled. Yes, there were weeds indeed, and my 
 friends were even having some sport over it. But 
 where did they come from.? Were they in the 
 soil } In the fertilizers .? In the seed t Perhaps 
 in all. At any rate there they were, and the 
 wiser question was, what can now be done } 
 After all, I said, this 'can soon be set right. 
 No weed is so easy to pull up, and there shall 
 soon be an end of this. So they vanished. But 
 alas ! many a bare spot was left, and in a short 
 time instead of the green grass spreading, what 
 was this I saw } Purslane ! Roman wormwood ! 
 sorrel ! thistles ! — a whole army of weeds. Still 
 I persevered. I had them mown down. With 
 
THE GARDEN ITSELF. n 
 
 my own hands I pulled them up. As often as 
 the soft showers loosened the long roots, I went 
 forth with my basket, and counted the slain by 
 thousands. But always before another shower a 
 thousand more had sprung- up. Moreover when 
 all that I think were originally there had de- 
 veloped and disappeared, the winds drifted in 
 the foul seed from the roadside. The tall ox- 
 eye daisy and dandelion came in battalions. So 
 I saw that it was a question of unceasing vigil- 
 ance; and have patiently continued, weeding and 
 weeding still, these seven years. Now indeed no 
 passer-by can easily see the smallest weed on 
 that green sward; but / see them often; and 
 though the task is easier, vastly easier, now, 
 yet were I to give up my watchfulness a while, 
 there would soon be a sad relapse. But more 
 of this when I come to tell you of the lessons 
 learned from weeds. I was to show you my 
 garden first, before we began to gather up its 
 treasures. 
 
 The centre of my little domain is a spring 
 welling forth in the hollow below the oaks. 
 Some other day you shall hear its little his- 
 tory also, and the lesson of its life. Its waters 
 pass into the tiniest of all little brooks in the 
 
12 GARDEN GRAITIL 
 
 short course of which is a sort of toy-lake. A 
 smaller you never saw; but I doubt if any other 
 large or small was ever the source of more hap- 
 piness. Even while we have been talking, the 
 beautiful Baltimore oriole has brought down her 
 young brood from their nest in the elm -tree 
 above us, to take their first bath, and they are 
 frolicsome as children over this new experience. 
 I can never tell what delight it has given me to 
 watch from my balcony the birds at their bath- 
 ing; coming as they do all through the heat 
 of summer, not unfrequently by hundreds at a 
 time, and for the sake of that clear, pebbly 
 pool making this their chosen haunt, and fill- 
 ing the air with their song the whole day long. 
 It adds wonderfully to the beauty and interest 
 of my garden that it is not a silent picture but 
 full of busiest life. At almost any hour, I can 
 catch the light of golden plumage, or a flash 
 of flame, or the spread of wings so blue that 
 they might seem little fragments of low float- 
 ing sky. And always, flitting this way and 
 that, can be seen the soft gray or brown of 
 some little warbler, now and then a glossy 
 woodpecker making the rapid circuit of the 
 oaks, while the robin in spite of all his mis- 
 
THE GARDEN ITSELF, 13 
 
 chief parades the place upon his feet, with all 
 the confidence of an acknowledged chief So 
 fearless are they that the little phcebe builds 
 above my door, and the first flight of her 
 young is often into my chamber. Once when 
 the wild winds of autumn rocked the great 
 oaks to and fro till the birds were shaken from 
 their shelter, amid the roar of the storm a 
 strange sound was heard at my window: they 
 were tapping earnestly, entreatingly for entrance; 
 and once admitted, allowed me to close my hand 
 upon them without a struggle. 
 
 But you can not sit long in the arbor with- 
 out seeing another form of happy life. Look, 
 one of my little squirrels comes rushing down 
 the hillside at full speed in search of me. He 
 stops almost at my feet, and resting his pretty 
 striped tail upon the grass, sits upright, with 
 paws folded easily over his fawn colored breast, 
 looking steadily at me with those clear keen 
 eyes. He will wait till he sees me absorbed; 
 and then will creep stealthily up and push play- 
 fully against my feet; but the moment I look 
 up, off he darts with an affected air of the ut- 
 most terror, taking good care however to have 
 one last peep to make sure of my seeing it all 
 
14 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 before he drops so deftly into one of his many 
 round doorways in the turf Were I to tell you 
 half the winsome ways of my family of squirrels 
 I should weary you; and some of you might be 
 slow to credit their doings. Ah ! little do peo- 
 ple imagine the power we might have over the 
 animal world, making pets of other things than 
 cats and dogs. I can not claim to have ever 
 learned one deep spiritual lesson from these 
 little friends of mine; but the service they have 
 rendered me is none the less. A certain dash 
 and brightness about them drew my admira- 
 tion at first, and next their unwearied efforts 
 to tame mc won upon me till I returned to the 
 full their fondness for my presence. Among all 
 living things my little squirrels are to me the 
 best pattern of unvarying cheer. The pewee 
 grows painfully plaintive as the summer wears 
 on, as though calling hopelessly for a wander- 
 ing mate, and the oriole's coaxing charge — 
 trilled out so sweetly in spring — ** Take care, 
 Cherry dear; take care," grows at length sen- 
 sibly shorter and sharper in a fault-finding note. 
 Not so my squirrels. I never saw a dull, dis- 
 pirited look or a laggard movement, while their 
 varieties of sport are manifold. Especially do 
 
THE GARDEN ITSELF. 1 5 
 
 they delight to join me in the early morning — 
 chasing each other at full tilt down the long 
 line of fence, or with a more steady, business- 
 like air trotting incessantly up and down the 
 winding garden walk. I remember often to my 
 comfort that the great commission of the Gos- 
 pel (Mark xvi. 15) does not stop short with 
 man, but extends, as the learned Bengel shows, 
 and Dean Alford clearly admits, to all creatures 
 having life. So I consider that my birds and 
 squirrels have solid Christian claims upon my 
 interest and affection; while the intense happi- 
 ness of their lives is a constant and beautiful 
 lesson of God's great love. 
 
 And now we must look at the flowers. We 
 will leave for those who only see them from 
 the avenue the few that are planted in front, 
 where they struggle with the full force of the 
 winds. Here in the hollow where we are seated 
 in a sacred seclusion, is the veritable flower 
 garden. And first of all you will note that 
 mass of forget-me-not below the little lakelet, 
 the trickling drops from its sides giving the 
 needful moisture. Planted here a solitary sprig 
 — as a little German exotic — the true poet's for- 
 get-me-not, the warmth of this ever -flowing 
 
1 6 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 Spring enables it to survive the severe winters; 
 and it has spread in wild profusion till its mass 
 of delicate blue smiles upon you as though it 
 were the truer lake. There is no blue like that 
 among all the flowers, and a lively French writer 
 has told us that nature is very sparing of her 
 blue. There they bloom unweariedly from April 
 to November, ready to send out troops of little 
 comforters and cheerers to loved homes and lone- 
 ly hospitals beds. And next you will notice the 
 vines — the Virginia creeper that drapes all the 
 cottage windows, the bitter-sweet that mounts 
 the balcony, the graceful Alleghany vine, the 
 woodbine, and the climbing roses and the Cata- 
 lonian jessamine that are clinging to the eight 
 columns of our little arbor; and you notice how 
 above the awning that tents us from the sun- 
 shine the Virginia creeper has made its way 
 fully fifty feet up the elm-tree and has spread 
 out upon its arms. Ah ! but you should see it 
 in autumn when it shows from the balcony like a 
 crimson cross. Other and choicer vines are half 
 hidden here and there, beginning lives of much 
 promise for the future. But one you will find 
 at every turn — our native clematis or virgin's 
 bower. That little Gothic trellis near my door 
 
THE GARDEN ITSELF. 17 
 
 is completely overhung with it. Few vines are 
 so pretty at every stage. Its dark green leaves 
 are peculiarly effective, and the twisting leaf 
 stalks by which alone it climbs present a curi- 
 ous study of contrivance. The buds just be- 
 fore opening are of extreme beauty, while the 
 long festoons of clustered starry flowers of a 
 soft creamy white are next in loveliness to the 
 orange blossom. Then follow the silken curls of 
 pale olive green which adorn the seed, changing 
 last of all into the gray feathery plumes which 
 become it like the soft white locks of a^re. I was 
 long in having it in perfection from not under- 
 standing another of its idiosyncrasies. In the 
 early spring you would think its long slender 
 stems quite dead, looking indeed like old straws 
 and being as brittle to the touch. So I had it 
 all torn down. In one spot a single stem was 
 overlooked and to my utter astonishment slowly 
 and surely life made its way again, and greenness 
 and suppleness returned, till it was a rich wreath 
 of bloom and beauty. So now as I go over it 
 in spring, touching it most tenderly in the 
 training it needs — all ragged and forlorn as it 
 appears — I muse upon the meaning of this and 
 say to myself, "Who can tell but that in higher 
 
1 8 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 orders of being where there is an utter look of 
 death, Hfe is yet waiting to return, and to re- 
 store all things. 
 
 As we sit here we are compassed with foliage 
 and flowers. Within the hedge of Norway pine 
 there is a group of stately cannas ; and half 
 hidden in the shrubbery is a large low mound 
 of maiden-hair and native ferns, and in its centre 
 a fountain feeding them with a weeping mist. 
 As this is the "free-and-easy" corner, all else 
 is growing in clusters and clumps; here a mass 
 of richly marked oxalis and there a tangle of 
 the so-called coliseum vine. Up the hill on 
 one side is my verbena bed, revelling in a blaze 
 of sunshine ; and on the other rests a broad 
 crown of ruby and gold that shows afar off, 
 even from the distant hills. By the way, no 
 color is so effective at a distance as yellow. 
 And now going out into the opposite corner 
 of this valley, we come upon my little pleasure 
 ground; where the grass is green and soft as 
 in our dear old motherland, and the flowers, 
 sheltered from the winds, and set in moist and 
 mellow soil, grow after one's own heart. Small 
 as it is you would be astonished at the actual 
 variety to be found there. Here grow all those 
 
THE GARDEN ITSELF. 19 
 
 lovely things that have but a brief glory, and 
 then are content to sink back unnoticed and 
 give place to others. Here too are the flowers 
 that are sown and spring up each year — a score 
 of kinds at least. And here too grow all those 
 choice bits that one loves to gather up for a 
 beloved friend — fragrant blossoms and leaves and 
 fairy grasses. 
 
 But I see that your eyes are wandering from 
 this to rest upon that stretch of valley and 
 meadow beyond ; and where the knolls swell 
 upward to the west, flecked with rich shadows 
 from grand old trees — and there where the pine 
 covered hills rise eastward, and the road winds 
 upward in the open space in a fine curve past the 
 healing springs, and up to the height where the 
 mountains burst upon your vision; and last of 
 all that hanging forest southward that comes 
 down with richly varied green to the very edge 
 of the stream that you see flowing beneath the 
 stone arch yonder — Restful, peaceful, and grow- 
 ing more and more fair to the eyes that look 
 longest : not overpowering, not exacting by 
 reason of rare beauty, permitting one to think 
 one's own thoughts sometimes, and not saying 
 as some grand prospects do, "Look evermore 
 
20 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 on US," for which reason one could not well 
 live and work among them. 
 
 Some of you from your wide domains and trim 
 gardens may smile at the smallness of mine. 
 But simply because it is such, and without any 
 other pretence than merely to take the good 
 and common gifts which God has given, and 
 use them gratefully, it places itself beyond the 
 proper range of criticism. It is not for display, 
 but for enjoyment, and for true love of that 
 which the Lord has fashioned so fair. 
 
 And now we have lying open before us our 
 little text book of truth, the motto of which 
 we will do well to study silently in our secret 
 souls, until we have made sure of our sympathy 
 with our great Teacher and His ways of teach- 
 ing us — ''The invisible things of Him from 
 the creation of the world are clearly 
 seen, being understood by the things that 
 are made, even his eternal power and 
 Godhead." 
 
II. 
 
 Seen Sotoins. 
 
II. 
 
 Scei gaining. 
 
 «* Earth can not long ensepulchre 
 
 In her dark depths the tiniest seed; 
 Wlien life begins to throb and stir, 
 
 The bands of death are weak indeed. 
 No clods its upward course deter, 
 
 Calmly it makes its path to day; 
 One germ of life is mightier 
 
 Than a whole universe of clay." 
 
 It is early spring— so early that not a flower 
 or green leaf, or even a blade of grass, can be 
 seen in all my garden, that still wears its mantle 
 of snow. But it is not too early to prepare for 
 brighter days. I hold in my hands a package 
 of seeds. These are the possibilities of my gar- 
 den. In such little things, in things that seem 
 utterly unlike those that are desired, in things 
 that are almost as naught, are gathered up in 
 
24 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 embryo all the beauty and the glory that I 
 confidently expect yet to rejoice in. 
 
 Let me look closely at one of them. It is a 
 hard black speck, without one sign of life. Let 
 me forget that I have ever watched this marvel 
 of development, and turn rationalist for a mo- 
 ment. Am I required to believe that out of 
 this will come forth a plant, tall and spread- 
 ing, with all grace of foliage, and then a flower 
 with petals frail as gossamer and most delicately 
 tinted, and that the only preliminary is that this 
 seed shall be buried a while in the moist, brown 
 earth .^ How } — how i* — how } — I ask but in vain; 
 coming back to accept the simple fact that it 
 has been. 
 
 As I take up the little seeds, a voice whispers, 
 " That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that 
 body that shall be," and I sit and ponder the 
 promise, "a spiritual body," ''raised in glory," 
 "raised in power." And let no one tell me that 
 the one marvel is a repeated fact in the past, 
 and the other only an unproved hope. The 
 resurrection is also an accomplished fact — " Now 
 is Christ risen from the dead, and become the 
 first fruits of them that slept." Our human 
 nature became a celestial flower when it was 
 
SEED SOWING. 25 
 
 fertilized from heaven. And we shall be like 
 Him. 
 
 I take up one of these tiny treasures and adore 
 the wisdom of its Creator. That He should fash- 
 ion one flower was a little thing to this — that 
 He should be able thus to store up all its po- 
 tentialities in such a way that it may be car- 
 ried safely around the globe, that it can resist 
 all the frosts of winter, that it might be trampled 
 on unharmed, or even lie biding its time in some 
 dark tomb for centuries. 
 
 What lesson has my Lord for me here } What 
 is there among the invisible and spiritual things 
 that can be seen and understood by this "> I 
 turn to His sermon upon the sea-shore, and 
 I read these simple words, " The seed is the 
 Word; " — that is, the word is like a seed. When 
 a message from the Master comes to a human 
 heart, how few understand what is wrapped 
 within it, and to what it will expand if only 
 received and nurtured. How few pause even to 
 consider — like a seed, so small and unimportant 
 in its seeming ; so easily lost by the careless ; 
 and calling for so much co-operative care, after 
 the great Creator has shown all His care in 
 forming and furnishing it. 
 
26 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 In His parable our Lord distinctly points out 
 this analogy in describing the first failure — "He 
 that heareth the Word and understandcth it not'' 
 He does not see that it has Christ in it — and 
 heaven in it ! Never could he be so foolish as 
 to fling away the full-grown flower or fruit, but 
 this seed, of what account is that ? And so 
 Satan ''cometh and catcheth away that which 
 was sown in his heart." None will ever treas- 
 ure it unless God give with it a spirit of under- 
 standing. 
 
 And what a lesson is there here for all those 
 to whom the Lord entrusts the sowing of His 
 seed. Do they prepare the soil for it .'* Do they 
 choose wisely both the time and place for sow- 
 ing it ? Surely if the Spirit always guided in 
 this, there would not be such waste of seed. 
 
 I once had an extraordinary dream upon this 
 wise. I was in the midst of my Bible class of 
 young ladies, but instead of having a Bible in 
 my hand, I had upon my arm a little basket 
 of seeds; and passing from one to another I 
 placed a few in the hands of each. But the 
 hands were held listlessly. Few of them clasped 
 the seed, and by the time I had finished my round 
 nearly all of it was scattered upon the floor. I 
 
SEED SOWING. 27 
 
 was about to utter some reproof, when suddenly 
 this thought arrested me, It is / who merit re- 
 buke, / who have been careless, / who am re- 
 sponsible for all this waste I see around me. I 
 have not even told them how choice is the seed. 
 So I paused and said earnestly, '' My dear girls, 
 I should have told you what I was giving you. 
 Look for a moment at this little seed. It is 
 very small and most easily lost, but if you will 
 but keep it, and sow it, and watch its growth, 
 it will give you by and by the most exquisite 
 and fragrant flowers. And this, still smaller, will 
 become a vine that will cover your window or 
 some porch or trellis, giving you shade and 
 sweetness. And this, somewhat larger, if you 
 can only wait with patience for a few years, 
 will yield you delicious and refreshing fruit." So 
 saying I began a second round; and now every 
 hand was outstretched to take all that I would 
 give. 
 
 Yes, these tiny seeds teach us deep lessons 
 of the power of both faith and hope. All true 
 life, in proportion to its elevation above the 
 mere physical plane, has to be more and more 
 lived, through looking at the things which are 
 not seen; and probably the most of the seed 
 
28 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 sown in us and by us awaits a summer beyond 
 this present age: so that the very chief of our 
 rejoicing must needs be ''in JiopeT 
 
 And our little seed fails not to teach us also 
 the necessity for the ''patience of hope." "The 
 husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the 
 earth, and hath long patience for it, until he 
 receive the early and latter rain." Very rarely 
 indeed do we receive any good gift out of the 
 spiritual treasures of our God in ripe complete- 
 ness at the first. It would be as difficult to 
 put a full-grown grace into the soul, as it is 
 to transplant a full-grown tree. 
 
 All our hope for the multiplication and spread 
 of good and beautiful things, whether earthly or 
 heavenly, depends upon seeds and shoots and 
 slips. It seems in nearly all instances an essen- 
 tial prerequisite both of our full enjoyment and 
 our wise use of these "good gifts, that we should 
 be slowly trained through waiting and watching. 
 That tree whose slow but steady growth we 
 have watched, since first with our own hands 
 we planted the sapling, what significance its 
 size assumes as the j^ears roll on ! 
 
 Nor can we forget in looking at these old 
 giants saved from the forest primeval, that some 
 
SEED SOURING. 29 
 
 one else has waited and watched. This slow and 
 solid building up of the column of a great tree 
 has a grandeur entirely unique in nature. The 
 vast cathedral column was hewn slowly an.l 
 skilfully, and it therefore has its majesty; l)ui 
 these grew with only God's own hand to shape 
 them, and He was content to build even slower 
 than we build, with here a little and there a 
 little. One little life cell followed another, and 
 then one more little fibre slowly stretched its 
 line from the expanding leaf down to the hidden 
 root, and at last out of weakness it was made 
 strong, so that the awful fury of the tempest and 
 the wrath of the whirlwind are hurled against 
 it in vain. Exquisite and almost perfect type of 
 the growth of holy character, of the building 
 up in strength and beauty, of man in the like- 
 ness of God ! The silent, constant appropriation 
 of all the supplies within its reach, the working 
 of them into its own being, the converting of all 
 things that touch it within, into its own great- 
 ness, is the same process alike in the tree and 
 \\\ the soul of man. 
 
 The spirit grows by all its silent sympathy 
 with the truth of God, by every moment's med- 
 itation upon things above, by every secret fast- 
 
so GARDEN GRAITR. 
 
 ening of its affections upon Christ, by every 
 acceptance of that which He sends, and then 
 most of all by every carrying out into act of 
 the power of this hidden life. 
 
 It is deeply interesting, in counting the circles 
 of a section of some old tree, to note the varia- 
 tions; some circles being almost imperceptible 
 for narrowness, and some so broad that you fear 
 almost to have counted two as one. As you 
 count the outer circles your memory reaching 
 back to those years can show a cause for this 
 difference. The years of drought are the years 
 of little growth. 
 
 For the tree as for our spirits, it holds true 
 that "a man can receive nothing except it be 
 given him from heaven." There are surely sea- 
 sons when one can make little increase save 
 under exceptional circumstances — such as those 
 of a tree by the riverside which shows little vari- 
 ation. It drew supplies from an abiding source. 
 
 Precisely this sweet secret it is that finds ex- 
 pression in the first psalm, " He shall be like a 
 tree planted by the rivers of water." They who 
 live near the Lord, who delight themselves in 
 His law and meditate on it day and night, are 
 ever growing and fruitful. 
 
SEED SOWING. 31 
 
 But I must return to my seed sowing. What 
 certainty there is in the product of a seed, what 
 perfect fidelity to its type. I am holding some 
 now in my hand that I gathered myself the 
 last summer — the seed of the Rocky Mountain 
 columbine. From these glistening grains I fore- 
 cast their future ; I see clearly the graceful ar- 
 rangement of the deep-green leaflets, the cen- 
 tral cup of snowy white, and around it the guard 
 of sky-blue spurs where the humming bird will 
 hang with quivering wings while he sips their 
 nectar. I know to an absolute certainty that 
 as surely as this seed reaches its full develop- 
 ment, such will be the flower. I know that no 
 possible freak of nature can transform it into a 
 rose or pansy or forget-me-not. I* know also 
 that it will not have those tints of gold and 
 flame that were worn by its sisters growing 
 close at its side. I remember how unvarying 
 is the law, *' to every seed its own body." 
 
 And when I apply all this to the heavenly 
 seed, and consider that *'the word of truth" is 
 the outgoing of the eternal personal Word, and 
 that thus we are born of God, how sure a thing 
 it seems that when our hour of true maturity ar- 
 rives, then we shall be like Him. 
 
32 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 I do not marvel that the Apostle John, pon- 
 dering these heavenly laws as we the earthly, 
 and his thought filled with this divine necessity 
 of love to beget its like, should emphasize as 
 he does the impossibility of failure where this 
 law of life works unhindered — " Whosoever is 
 born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed 
 remaineth in him, and he can not sin, because 
 he is born of God;" and all the more that I 
 realize God's perfect provision of power and 
 faithfulness, do I recognize man's responsibility 
 for perfect trust and fidelity. 
 
 Among the seeds that I am sowing to-day are 
 some that will never bloom, and yet the self-same 
 powers are in them now. Alas for the failure 
 that is all too possible in the human receptivity ! 
 It is this indeed that so powerfully stamps the 
 parable of the sower and his seed, and that colors 
 more or less the whole series of seven that Jesus 
 gave at that time. The warning note through 
 all is — '' Take heed how ye hear," how ye re- 
 ceive. That mighty problem of the apparent 
 free-will of man must await the revealing of 
 some of the now secret things of God; but so 
 far as present truth is concerned, the surest pro- 
 visions and promises of God turn practically for 
 
SEED SOWING. 7,1 
 
 each soul upon this, "I do not frustrate the 
 grace of God." 
 
 And yet in no instance is this perfect like- 
 ness the immediate result of life. I shall not be 
 dismayed when in the first two tiny leaflets of 
 any of my plants I can trace little resemblance 
 to the parental type. I know that it signifies 
 infancy, not failure. And, moreover, there are 
 instances in which I shall not see a failure, even 
 in much unlikeness of the first flower. 
 
 One year I sowed some choice imported 
 pansy seed of assorted varieties. They were all 
 carefully marked, and their first bloom watched 
 for most eagerly. Unhappily they had been 
 planted that year near the roots of a tree that 
 sapped their growth, while it also shut out the 
 sunshine. As one after another the feeble flowers 
 appeared, they proved all alike — the old common 
 sort. I waited till all had bloomed, — tricolors all 
 of them, instead of the variety of twelve which I 
 had planted. Suspecting the cause, I had them 
 all transplanted to a rich soil and open sunshine, 
 and arrested all further bloom until autumn by 
 nipping the buds. Then at last they were true 
 to their type. There was the creamy white, the 
 golden yellow, the heavenly blue, the deep 
 
34 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 velvety purple with its crimped border, and other 
 tints and shades which can not be described, 
 but which once seen can never be forgotten. 
 
 I foresee some wonderful developments in ver)^ 
 commonplace lives, when once the Chief Gar- 
 dener transplants us from this poor soil, and 
 the sapped and shaded spaces of earth, to the 
 Heavenly Paradise. How will souls that here 
 show little of beauty, shine out there, each in 
 its own loveliness. 
 
 And here I may mention an exactly opposite 
 instance in which it was riches and not poverty 
 that proved the hindrance. One winter a friend 
 gave me some choice gladiolus bulbs, which I 
 planted with special care, enriching them to the 
 utmost. What was my chagrin to find as the 
 tall spikes began to open, that I had only the al- 
 most worthless red and yellow sorts. I confided 
 my trouble to the florist to whose skill and 
 learning I owe so much — a former gardener of 
 the then King of Prussia — and he readily ex- 
 plained the failure — They had reverted. 
 
 A stranger watching me at my work might 
 wonder at my partiality, why in my little pleas- 
 ure-ground, I so heavily enrich the edging of 
 the central bed for pansies, and as carefully 
 
SEED SOWING. 35 
 
 allow no such soil to touch the outer circle 
 bordered with gladiolus. Nothing in all my 
 gardening has surprised me like this, the inti- 
 mate knowledge needed of the character and 
 habits of each plant. If any of you care to peep 
 under the benches of my little green-house, which 
 is however only the work-room and the nursery 
 of my garden, you will see what I have pro- 
 vided for their special requirements. That box 
 of cherished soot is for my roses; that old lime 
 rubbish for my cacti; and so on through sands, 
 and peats, and composts that would bewilder 
 the uninitiated. Nor is this all. To one plant 
 I must give sunshine, to another shade; one re- 
 quires moisture, another dryness. With the same 
 care for all, I may not deal alike with all. And 
 rejoice, O my soul, in that minute and intimate 
 knowledge of thyself, thy needs, thy dangers, 
 that constrains thy Lord not to deal with thee 
 as with any other; — now to give thee more, and 
 then to give thee far less. He has His plans, as 
 thou hast thine. What if He even holds back 
 all through the summer-time of life — as thou 
 wilt do — some of His plants from flowering, that 
 they may be the more ready for some day of 
 days. Never question the wisdom of His will; 
 
$6 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 only watch lest in any thing small or great thou 
 should frustrate the grace of God. 
 
 The seed first — but what next ? What shall 
 be the preparation for all this beauty and glory ? 
 How shall the tiny life be nursed ? What ar- 
 tistic appliances shall be sought ? Shall we 
 choose the choice china for its cradle, and bring 
 it nourishment as dainty as a babe's ? The very 
 thought provokes a smile of contempt. It cares 
 not how humbly it is reared; and the flowers 
 that are to grace the gardens of a king ask 
 for their babyhood no more than if a peasant 
 reared them. Nay, rather, coarse and common 
 surroundings suit them best. There shall come 
 a time indeed for the alabaster vase or the clear 
 crystal to hold them; but now — well the shallow 
 box of rudely jointed pine — yes, let the whole of 
 the most unpoetical truth be told — the half of 
 an old soap-box is by general consent their 
 best abode. What wonder then if God stoops 
 to sow His precious seed in hovels of wood and 
 straw, and huts of peat; yes, and sometimes 
 keeps them there till they have bloomed, when 
 He gathers them for His Palace. 
 
 But what of the soil } Soil is every thing, said 
 the friendly florist to me as he saw my need of 
 
SEED SOWING. 37 
 
 such knowledge. Yet all important as it is, the 
 sources of it are most lowly. Worn out and 
 otherwise wasted things — faded, fallen leaves, 
 tliat mournful mound of death that rose so high 
 last autumn when the sharp sudden frost struck 
 down in one night the glory of my cannas and 
 caladiums that were matching the stature of Go- 
 liath, — buried all of them out of my sight upon 
 the morrow: scattered over these, the ashes from 
 my funeral pile of autumn prunings; and finally 
 grosser gleanings from the pasture, where the 
 kine gathered and lowed at night. Down into 
 such rude details must the skilful gardener de- 
 scend, and the daintiest lady in the land can find 
 no wiser way. 
 
 Out of disorder, out of death, out of repulsive- 
 ness, out of ruin, is gathered the choice food of 
 a new fair life that is to be. And one who sits 
 sowing seed in such a soil, mindful of its ele- 
 ments, can but start and ask, does God plant 
 His seed thus t Does that grow all the better 
 when it falls into a heart where disappointment 
 and death have done their work } Can the dead 
 leaves of our once beautiful things, minister even 
 through dying to something still brighter t Can 
 the chastening that lopped our too luxuriant 
 
38 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 growth, and turned many a promise into ashes, 
 can that give precisely the precious element 
 without which our flower, that is to be, would 
 miss somewhat of health and brilliancy ? 
 
 And now must follow the days of patient wait- 
 ing; nor of waiting only, but of unwearied watch- 
 ing. It is no common care that such seeds de- 
 mand. As an amateur, following as faithfully as 
 I could, the best oral and written instructions, 
 I saved not one seed in a hundred. Package 
 after package of the more delicate sorts failed 
 utterly. I had quite underrated the skill re- 
 quired. The slightest chill, a sunshine only a 
 little too strong, a very trifling excess of dry- 
 ness or moisture, and the only reward of all my 
 previous care was a dearly bought experience. 
 The 'Mamping off" process is a sad one to wit- 
 ness. It is not only in my garden that I have 
 seen it; — the withering Sunshine of this world 
 has laid waste whole fields sown for the Master. 
 
 Nothing is more common among the unskilful, 
 than complaints against the seed. Repeated fail- 
 ures end in disgust, and therefore some of the 
 most beautiful flowers are very rare; few being 
 prepared to set themselves humbly and perse- 
 veringly to learn. Consequently such flowers, 
 
SEED SOWING. 39 
 
 even when once introduced into a neighborhood, 
 soon die out — precisely as so many Christian 
 gifts and graces have died out or become ex- 
 ceedingly rare. We talk indeed very presumpt- 
 uously, and without the least authority from 
 Holy Scripture, about their withdrawal. We 
 are ready to lay the blame anywhere, to give 
 any account of the matter, rather than sus- 
 pect, search, and stir up ourselves. How much 
 of Christian activity bent narrowly upon the one 
 object of seeing the seed spring up quickly, has 
 failed of all final results, because the seed sowing 
 was followed by so little nurture. What might 
 we not hope for if, as carefully as a florist watches 
 his flowers, each pastor and teacher watched for 
 the souls for which they must give an account. 
 What a text for such to study, — '* We are labor- 
 ers together with God: ye are God's husbandry." 
 Above all, when the skill is secured, should stead- 
 iness be added. I never saw a fitful nature suc- 
 ceed in a flower garden. 
 
 My little seedlings must be closely sheltered. 
 Having sown them, over each box I place, for a 
 time, a lid of glass, and following no rigid rule, 
 the quick eye discerns whether it be air or water, 
 whether it be shade or sunshine, that is needed. 
 
40 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 ^^Such care over such little things! " I have often 
 read that comment in the eyes of an unappre- 
 ciative spectator; but I think I never heard or 
 saw it from July to October. It belongs to the 
 struggles of March and April, and the day of 
 small things, which only the wisest learn not to 
 despise. 
 
 A few days of waiting, and lo ! my seeds are 
 springing up. After all, how disproportioned my 
 little care to such a marvel. I cast my seed into 
 the ground and went the common round — to 
 rise by day and sleep by night — and now, " it 
 springeth up and groweth," I '* know not how." 
 I sit speechless, almost thoughtless, before this 
 secret of life; and where science stands confounded 
 I bow my head and worship. 
 
 Some of these seedlings are not only tiny, 
 but, as the children say, "tinty." Yet small as 
 they are, the time hastens when their individ- 
 uality must be recognized. The true leaves now 
 appear, and then follows that delightful task of 
 " pricking out," in which each little plant is held 
 lovingly in one hand, while the other prepares 
 the place for its roots and then carefully covers 
 them, and "firms" them. 
 
 And now with v/hat care must the weeds be 
 
SEED SOWING. 41 
 
 watched. How close they contrive to grow to 
 the very roots of the plants. What skill is some- 
 times needed to hold firm the flower while draw- 
 ing away the weed. And how rapidly w^eeds 
 always grow ! I sometimes wonder why. It 
 surely is not their advantage as natives of the 
 soil, for the majority of them are as truly exotic 
 as our flowers. But in my seed boxes I can al- 
 most tell a weed from its tallness alone. Was 
 it that God saw fit to set such a type in nature 
 of the rankness of evil in the moral world .-* I 
 can but think so. 
 
 And now in nursing my frail charge, I have 
 one care above all others, to secure the growth 
 of roots. I do not care to see my seedlings 
 shoot up tall and slender. Holding them back 
 from this by every known device, I encourage a 
 deeper growth. Some varieties are placed for 
 this purpose in small earthen pots, that the 
 sun striking upon their sides may give them 
 genial warmth, and so fill them with balls of 
 vigorous roots. 
 
 In my inexperienced days I said, " Surely the 
 more soil and the larger pot, the better." *' No," 
 said the florist, ''give them no more than they 
 can use; the rest simply sours." So I find it; 
 
42 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 and only when they have thus appropriated all 
 their nourishment do I give them more. And as 
 often as I thus transfer them, do I ponder those 
 words of wisdom — ** I have yet many things to 
 say unto you, but ye can not bear them now." 
 "And with many such parables spake He the 
 word unto them, as they were able to hear it." 
 Healthy growth, however slow, is my own aim; 
 and very sure I am that hot-house forcing is not 
 the way of our far-seeing, patient Lord. 
 
 But now at last, surely my little plants are 
 ready to be set out, and moreover the gar- 
 den beds are so bare, and the sunshine is so 
 genial. 
 
 Ah ! but take heed of those sudden surprises 
 of late untimely frosts, and inure the tender 
 growth slowly to the chilly nights. Let it learn 
 by degrees what it is to have the rude winds 
 beat against it all the' day, and the fiery sun 
 scorch it till its freshness fails. Keep back — 
 keep back — for the sake of growth; that is the 
 paradox in man's garden and in the Lord's. The 
 Bible is full of it: Moses must add to the forty 
 years of highest human culture, another special 
 forty of seclusion at the back side of the desert, 
 but near the Lord, in order that he may do the 
 
SEED SOWING. 43 
 
 actual work of only forty years more. So St. 
 Paul must be set back, so to speak, in Arabia, 
 for three years, before his most powerful preach- 
 ing, and spend three years more in prisons and 
 perils of the sea, before we can have his choicest 
 epistles. How different the spirit of this age, 
 demanding as it does, immediate and striking 
 success ! How restless one is apt to become 
 when it is delayed! 
 
 The first year of my flower garden, after the 
 planting of my geranium bed, I noticed a strange 
 lack of growth; and as weeks even passed with 
 scarcely a new leaf, while a bed in a neighbor- 
 ing garden grew rapidly, I hastened to my un- 
 failing adviser, the florist. — ''What are my ger- 
 aniums about } they do not grow at all." With 
 a half-amused look he answered, '* They are 
 doing the best thing they can do, — they are 
 making roots. You will see by and by." And 
 I did indeed see. 
 
 And would that I might pass on that answer 
 to every Christian educator and trainer of souls 
 — "■ Making roots ! " Do you see to it that souls 
 do that .? — that the deep underlying principles, 
 the healthy impulses and receptivities, and the 
 cogent constraints of conscience, are secured 
 
44 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 first of all ? Do you look after the roots of 
 faith before the works that will follow ? Do 
 you watch, as precious beyond all price, the 
 forming- of those little tender working roots of 
 love, through which all future enriching must 
 come ? Do you seek to multiply roots ? For 
 only thus can one find deliverance from that 
 short-lived devotedness and intermittent inter- 
 est in good works that are so prevalent. 
 
 I have flowers among these seedlings that I 
 shall not allow to come into bloom until au- 
 tumn. Every little flower-bud will be nipped 
 at once, that the stalk may gather strength and 
 put forth at length the perfection of beauty. 
 And ought not those who are so often discour- 
 aged at the withheld opportunities of life, who 
 are conscious of energies that God only could 
 give, and know that His gifts are always His 
 calls to service — ought not such to trust the 
 Hand that again and again forbids them to 
 come forth. Their time is not yet. Another 
 and yet another little branch, and each one 
 made stronger daily, this is the present voca- 
 tion. Our blessed Lord Himself is the one Great 
 Example even in this. Thirty years of waiting, 
 saying to their end, " My time is not yet come," 
 
SEED SOWING. 45 
 
 —but then three years that held the blessedness 
 of thousands ! 
 
 But the time of seed sowing passes quickly. 
 Ere it be gone let me consider closely, ''Have 
 I sown the seed of all that I purpose to have?" 
 For as is the seed sowing, such must be the 
 summer glory and the autumn fruition. Think 
 and think yet again; and then turn to ask more 
 earnestly, '' Have I forgotten any little seed of 
 truth and righteousness ? Have I forecast the 
 future— now in this life that is the seed-time of 
 eternal life } " For whatsoever a man soweth, 
 that shall he also reap He that sow- 
 eth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life 
 everlasting." 
 
III. 
 
III. 
 
 "Consider tjje £iUes." 
 
 "We're made so that we love 
 First when we see them painted, things we have passed 
 Perhaps a himdred times nor cared to see; 
 And so they are better painted — better to us, 
 Which is the same thing. Art was given for that — 
 God uses us to help each other so. 
 Lending our minds out." 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 I have received a beautiful gift to-day. Yes- 
 terday in passing my lily bed I noticed the 
 rapidly swelling buds and said to myself, In a 
 week I shall have lilies. Last night the rain 
 fell in warm, soft showers, and with the sun- 
 rise the birds were all astir, with music that 
 seemed more delicious than ever — singing as 
 they only can sing who are uplifted for the 
 time by the throb and thrill of a great thanks- 
 giving in the heart. So I arose also. My first 
 
50 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 step was enough. The lilies ! — they too had 
 hastened forth. There stood in line the snowy 
 Easter lilies telling over again in their full prime 
 the same glorious evangel they had been sum- 
 moned to symbolize those months ago. 
 
 O pure white lips ! — how is it that ye seem 
 more full of conscious life than any other flower ? 
 What is it in these waxen almost fleshlike petals 
 that has a human touch } Was there ever gold 
 like this in the coronets ye wear half hidden 
 in your bending blossoms, as not caring to show 
 all your wealth save to those who love you } 
 Art never yet brought together such coloring 
 in such perfect harmony. 
 
 But another surprise awaits me. My Pales- 
 tine lily has also bloomed. Five scarlet bells 
 are here this morning. What intensity of color, 
 yet what solidity ! — there is not the slightest 
 paling of it to the very tip of the firmly re- 
 curved petals. It is royalty itself that is bloom- 
 ing here side by side with purity. And O how 
 marvellously there come to me in this sweet 
 morning air — as from the lips of One unseen, 
 yet ever seen — the words I know He uttered 
 once, '^Consider the lilies how they grow: they 
 toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you 
 
CONSIDER THE LILIES:' 5 
 
 that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
 like one of these." 
 
 I stand transfixed. The message is for me, 
 this very hour. My Saviour also loved the 
 flowers. He pondered, as like unto us in all 
 things, the lessons which His own creative 
 skill had committed to them, when by Him 
 the worlds were made. He taught us to pon- 
 der them. And as I look and listen, the well- 
 known words are taken up into a music I have 
 so loved to listen to — would that she whose 
 voice and skilful touch along the keys gave 
 them such rich expression, were here now to 
 sing it over them, — **And yet I say unto you, 
 I say unto you that even Solomon in all his 
 glory, was not arrayed like one of these." Again 
 and again I hear the cadence of that soft refrain, 
 "was not arrayed — was not arrayed — was not ar- 
 rayed — like one of these — like one of these — like 
 one of these." 
 
 So I am looking upon a glory which man can 
 never match — the glory of color and the grace 
 of form, which the Lord of all converted to high 
 spiritual service. And now my heart takes up 
 the song that shall one day be sung in the new 
 Paradise of our God — *'Thou hast created all 
 
52 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 things, and for Thy pleasure they are, and were 
 created." 
 
 The loveliness that is the reflection of His 
 love who made them, is the first thing to see. 
 And yet it was not this alone that the Lord 
 Jesus bade His disciples consider. He used this 
 beauty to comfort heavy hearts. He was speak- 
 ing to the poor. Why take ye thought for rai- 
 ment } Behold what God hath wrought for flow- 
 ers. They have no strength to toil. They have 
 no skill to spin. God does it all. He surely 
 taketh thought then for the garments of His 
 own; and whether with soft silken folds, or scan- 
 tiest serge, He will provide what He sees fitting. 
 
 And doing this for the body, will He not much 
 more clothe our spirits } The fine linen in which 
 the Bride is to be made ready — the righteous- 
 ness which we are to put on, even till we 
 fully put on Christ, and stand arrayed in the 
 lovely lineaments of His heavenly beauty — how 
 can we toil over this.'* In what wondrous loom 
 shall raiment like this be spun t 
 
 O careful, anxious, troubled soul, if thou art 
 indeed a new creature in Christ Jesus, how can 
 He fail to clothe thee in garments of glory .? And 
 so is not the sweet and simple lesson which our 
 
CONSIDER THE LILIES:' 53 
 
 Lord gave over the lilies, even more applicable to 
 our inner than our outer life ? Any dogma which 
 relegates to man the formation of his own Chris- 
 tian character, is most radically defective. It is 
 His work, His care — for is it not written of the 
 Bride, ''To her was granted that she should be 
 arrayed in fine linen clean and white." Only from 
 His creative spirit can possibly come the beauty 
 that shall make Him say hereafter, ''Thou art 
 all fair, my Love; there is no spot in thee!" 
 
 And yet sometimes the teaching of Holy 
 Scripture upon this subject seems contradic- 
 tory. Now righteousness is the work of the 
 Spirit, and through faith; and now it is through 
 watchfulness and obedience and constant striv- 
 ing; and yet again it is through patience in much 
 suffering that we are to be made perfect and en- 
 tire, wanting nothing. But there is no real con- 
 tradiction in all these. 
 
 For let me consider further what has been 
 done for these lilies by human care. How close- 
 ly I watched the preparation of that bed, made 
 so deep and filled with the richest mould. How 
 often have I loosened the soil around them, and 
 refreshed them when the showers of heaven failed. 
 How carefully each winter I spread the fallen 
 
54 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 leaves for their blanket, and watched that no 
 careless foot of man or beast trod on their push- 
 ing shoots in spring. In short, how manifold the 
 caressing cares I have given them. And without 
 all of these they would not be what I behold 
 them now. 
 
 And yet none of all these things made one of 
 them a lily. They were that from the first. God 
 gave to the small seed and to the deep hidden 
 bulb, the wonderful heirship of this primal beauty; 
 and then He caused His sun and air and rain to 
 work through its vital forces, and so to take up 
 that brown earth and refine it, and assimilate it, 
 that the flower which crowns their silent labor, 
 is whiter than snow. 
 
 As truly as the seed must follow on until it 
 has fulfilled the entire type of its parentage, so 
 we, that are born of God, must grow on and on 
 with ever more of His image, till we stand at 
 last '^ fulfilled in Christ." And all the time His 
 Holy Spirit will keep silently ministering to us 
 as the air, and. as the soft showers, and all the 
 while the Sun of righteousness will transmute all 
 earthly things to pure and heavenly ones, til] 
 finally the Lord will come into His garden, and 
 gather His lilies. 
 
CONSIDER THE LILIES:' 55 
 
 Yet, meanwhile, we as workers together with 
 Him are required to remove the hindrances, and 
 to give all earnest and constant heed to this 
 spiritual culture, waiting in patience for such an 
 end as this. How well I remember as a little 
 child, taking from one species of lily some of the 
 little black bulblets that had grown in the axils 
 of the leaves, and planting them. How perplexed 
 I was over the unlikeness of the first year's growth, 
 and even of the subsequent ones. Years are al- 
 most decades to a child; and the five years dur- 
 ing which I waited for their bloom, seemed the 
 utmost reach of patience. Yet it had at last its 
 great reward. 
 
 But this morning, even in the enjoyment of this 
 burst of beauty, I must also needs acknowledge 
 failure. A little neglect here and there has some- 
 what marred the effect of the whole, and had I 
 given in the early spring, a little more enriching, 
 my lilies had been still more queenly. So with 
 secret resolve, I hope for still better things in the 
 future. 
 
 By the way, how much of our success depends 
 upon a high standard ! How many wretched gar- 
 dens and forlorn plants can be seen everywhere, 
 simply because their possessors do not know their 
 
56 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 possibilities. It were well to know our short- 
 coming even at the cost of much humbling. 
 
 A few years since, in this same bed, my first 
 Japan lilies bloomed. One tall stem bore two 
 magnificent golden-banded flowers, by far the 
 finest I had ever seen. I was that very morn- 
 ing, setting out on a journey to my twin brothers, 
 and this seemed a peculiarly fitting offering for 
 them. A detention on the way took me to the 
 house of a dear friend, who I knew would fully 
 appreciate them. The whole household was sum- 
 moned, and were in ecstasies of admiration, when 
 last of all entered the son who had just returned 
 from Japan, who sat down very coolly to tell me 
 how often he had seen such lilies growing by the 
 side of a moat at Yokohama, and fully twice the 
 size of mine ! Mine, of course, dwindled accord- 
 ingly in all our admiring eyes. Had I not heard 
 that, I should have been supremely satisfied; but 
 having heard it, mine have grown finer every suc- 
 ceeding year. I know the standard now. 
 
 So too with my gladiolus: I had been content 
 with small spikes a few feet in height; but when 
 in St. Augustine, in a garden that for luxuriance 
 I never saw surpassed, my astonished eyes beheld 
 their superb heads towering high above mine, I 
 
'^ CONSIDER THE LILIES,^^ 57 
 
 came home with a new ideal. It is hopeless in 
 this climate to rival the stature of those, but I 
 have often since had them somewhat exceed my 
 own height. 
 
 And precisely in this, it seems to me, lies the 
 blessing of Christian example. Comparing our 
 stunted graces among ourselves, or often with 
 what we our own selves have been in the past, 
 we have little thought of that which we are called 
 to be. Suddenly God sets before us a living man 
 or woman, -full orbed in love" as Bushnell says, 
 or perfect in patience, or simple and sweet as 
 only the truly great ca?z be; and we learn through 
 these, the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
 Christ. 
 
 So of old the zeal of the Church at Corinth 
 provoked very many. I doubt if any other hu- 
 man influence be half so stimulating to our growth 
 as the pattern of holy character. Indeed it is not 
 wholly human; for it is also the most immediate 
 and powerful ministry of the Holy Spirit, working 
 through one healthy member upon all others in 
 the same body. Even when such examples are 
 only embalmed in their memoirs, a vitalizing 
 power still lingers, as in Elisha's bones, and we 
 rise up to follow them, as they followed Christ. 
 
58 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 But to go back to a point already spoken of. 
 Much of our care while directly causative of no 
 growth whatever, may yet, in removing hin- 
 drances, foster it indirectly in the most powerful 
 manner. Such a lesson, also, I have learned from 
 my lily bed. 
 
 These Easter lily bulbs were the gift of a dear 
 friend. I planted them in two rows, seventeen in 
 all, to form a background for the other varieties. 
 Two years after I saw one in the row nearest the 
 fence, falling short. I gave it a little extra care, 
 dug about it, and enriched it a little more. Still 
 it pined. At last its leaves grew sallow, and then 
 they fell off altogether. It was indeed time to 
 investigate the cause. So I dug carefully down, 
 searching for grubs, for mole tracks, for all thought 
 of enemies. None of these were there. At last 
 I found the bulb, sound but shrunken, held fast 
 captive in the meshes of another life. A wild cle- 
 matis had sprung up at an adjacent post, and I 
 had allowed it to remain, that it might trail its 
 dark green leaves, and wealth of bloom along the 
 somewhat unsightly fence. But, though not shad- 
 ing the lily, or apparently crowding it above, the 
 roots below had crept along instinctively to the 
 richer soil around it, and at last encircled the bulb. 
 
CONSIDER THE LILIES:' 59 
 
 There were the multitudinous golden fibres, each 
 only a slender thread, but counting as they must 
 have done by thousands, and all of them closing 
 round and round the struggling bulb, until at last 
 it was choked. 
 
 I never shall forget my thought as I held that 
 little rescued bulb in my hands. It seemed al- 
 most to grow into a human heart that had come 
 to me for help, and asked mc why it could not 
 have the life of joy and blessed service that so 
 many others have. And I made the sad answer 
 that my Saviour did: — ''The lust of other things 
 has entered in and choked the Word," Yet still 
 the poor withered heart pleaded, " But I know 
 of no wrong thing in my life: I have no un- 
 christian pursuit or pleasure." True, but other 
 things, Jesus said; not necessarily evil things. 
 Among these other things may be good things 
 even, unduly cherished. My clematis was not a 
 weed — not even when it did this deadly work 
 of sapping all sustenance from my lily. It was 
 only a good thing out of place. It was only 
 a good thing grown wanton, and by its rampant 
 growth stopping all growth in afar better thing. 
 I could not hesitate a moment to tear it from 
 its place. 
 
6o GARDEN GRAITH, 
 
 Choose — and choose the best. Give room, 
 give space. These are the lessons I am ever 
 learning from my garden. Again and again I am 
 admonished, Do not crowd, do not crowd. I am 
 the more bound to listen to this, that the temp- 
 tations to the contrary are very constant. There 
 are so many pretty things to provide a place for, 
 and the bare spots are so unsightly. But only 
 by permitting this for a season can the eye be 
 finally satisfied. Yes, it is all wrong — these over-^ 
 crowded lives of ours — this attempt to get every 
 thing that is good in science, art, society, com- 
 pressed into the space of threescore years and 
 ten. And so we have that great trouble out of 
 our very joys, called *' social pressure." How 
 many sink under its relentless exactions. In 
 how many ways do our coveted conveniences 
 become our cares, and our pleasures involve sore 
 pains. Man is all the time finding out many in- 
 ventions to lighten the burden of life, while all 
 the time it is steadily growing heavier. Some- 
 what of this is probably inevitable, and designed 
 to teach us how finite are our powers. Time 
 was when we could contrive to compass the 
 interests of a continent; but now a whole world 
 must be grasped. So far as this is remediable 
 
CONSIDER THE LILIES:' 6 1 
 
 our only hope lies in wise choosing. In the 
 struggle for supremacy the coarser elements stand 
 always ready to encroach upon the finer, the 
 earthly upon the heavenly. One has need in 
 these days to act upon Luther's plan; and as 
 our duties grow confused and clamorous, to 
 bring them to peace and order through added 
 hours of prayer. 
 
 But while I am thinking thus, my lilies are 
 looking silently upon me, and feeding me each 
 moment with their loveliness. How fitted they 
 are to take a high symbolic place. Nor need 
 we be surprised that even the heathen should 
 recognize this symbolism of nature, turning often 
 enough indeed the truth of God into a lie, and yet 
 even then holding, as has been well said, ** lies that 
 cry after the truth.'* In Japan and other eastern 
 countries the lily is the symbol of human purity. 
 The lily of the Old Testament was also, as its 
 very name — '* the white" — implies, a symbol of 
 purity; but always of a purity divine, or at least 
 divinely given. 
 
 As the palm among trees, and the pome- 
 granite among fruits, so stood the lily in its pe- 
 culiar beauty and significance among the flowers. 
 We might be tempted to underrate the impor- 
 
62 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 tance of its symbolism from the fact that there 
 is but one solitary mention of it in Sacred Art 
 (i Kings vii.)- But we shall recognize the im- 
 portance of this one, when we consider that the 
 symbol was constantly before the eyes of every 
 temple worshipper — for them, not to be read 
 about once, but seen daily. A lily was the 
 crown and completion of each of the two pillars 
 that adorned the porch of the temple — stand- 
 ing there not as supports, but as beautiful col- 
 umns. *' Upon the top of the pillars was lily 
 work; so was the work of the pillars finished." 
 These pillars had no counterpart in the taber- 
 nacle, and therefore must represent something 
 peculiar to the kingdom. In the temple, as in 
 the tabernacle, the work and offices of both Christ 
 and the Holy Spirit are everywhere shadowed 
 forth. If we ask then, what will be the great 
 characteristic of the coming kingdom of our 
 Lord, we are answered again and again, that 
 it will be first His visible appearing in power 
 and great glory; and also this, that ''when 
 Christ shall appear, then shall we also appear 
 with Him in glory." Christ and His Church 
 will then stand side by side in the eyes of an 
 admiring universe. These pillars therefore would 
 
CONSIDER THE LILIES.'' (y^ 
 
 seem to set forth the symmetry and adorning of 
 holy character, as expressed first in the life of 
 our Lord, and repeated next in that of His 
 Church. How subtly suggestive of this are 
 these often recurring expressions, *' the one," 
 "the other; " — ''so did He for the other." There 
 was but one model. They were cast in one 
 mould. One was finished first, and in that the 
 skill of the artist had its complete triumph. 
 The other was a most faithful copy; even as 
 God has *' predestinated us to be conformed to 
 the image of His Son." 
 
 A lesson of exceeding beauty is given us in 
 these pillars. He that is blind to it must needs 
 be blind, but that is no reason why those that 
 see should shut their eyes to it. The strength 
 and lofty stature first impress us. Then upon 
 the capitals is the net-work of seven-wreathed 
 chains, to mark the intertwining in a perfect 
 harmony of all fair Christian graces; like the 
 seven virtues that St. Peter would have us add 
 to our faith. The abundant fruitfulness is plainly 
 indicated in the double rows of pomegranites 
 that bordered the capitals as with close-set 
 beading. Then last of all we see this open 
 lily cup, as though the whole pillar were re- 
 
64 GAJ^DE.V GRAITH, 
 
 garded as a vast vase to hold up its beauty to 
 the eye of heaven. What have we here but 
 the beatitude, "Blessed are the pure in heart; 
 for they shall see God." 
 
 That our whole soul should ever be open to 
 His eye, to drink in His light. His air. His 
 dew, and so give back to Him the fragrance 
 of a pure heart and life, — for this He made us, 
 and placed us where we might worship Him 
 in spirit and in truth. That which we are in the 
 sight of God is the supreme thing — far beyond 
 all work, all fruitfulness, greatly as these are 
 to His glory. And even as our spirits are fed 
 by the vision of all pure, sweet things, so He 
 deigns to feed upon that which He Himself 
 creates in us ; and even for His sake should we 
 offer our fervent prayer — 
 
 "I ask this gift of Thee, 
 A life all lily fair, 
 And fragrant as the place 
 \Vhere sera-phs are." 
 
 And now I must gather my lilies. IMost cruel 
 would it be to snatch them from this sweet 
 sisterhood of buds, were it not that the sultry 
 sun would ere long smite them; and so that 
 their brief life of beauty may be a little length- 
 
''CONSIDER THE LILIES:' 65 
 
 ened, and that others may enjoy them, I must 
 carry them within. 
 
 But what shall I place with them, where their 
 stems stand so stately in this tall vase ? A 
 little more of green is needed, and their own 
 leaves, fitting and beautiful as they are, are not 
 available for this; yet they give the hint of a 
 true accord. None but grass shaped leaves will 
 answer; and these must somewhat correspond 
 in size. So I pass by the delicate grasses I am 
 rearing, where the exquisitely graceful culms are 
 bursting into airy bloom, as too small, too 
 ethereal — and I go on to the margin of the 
 meadow, and there among the wild grasses that 
 spring up as very weeds, I find my treasures. 
 Tall bending blades of richest deepest green, 
 soft as velvet, bearing aloft their paler plumes, — 
 those are perfect in their adaptation. The lilies 
 and the grass of the field, clothed both of them 
 by God — how fittingly they stand together, even 
 as He has linked them in His Word. 
 
 What a delight to group them thus ! What 
 a strange satisfaction it gives to enter ever so 
 little into sympathy with the plans of the Crea- 
 tor — to carry out, so to speak, His preferences ! 
 
 O if souls that are conscious of some creative 
 
66 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 skill which they suffer to lie unused on earth, 
 for the sake of service for the King, could but 
 know how readily, and with what small expen- 
 diture of time, many of an artist's instincts might 
 be gratified, what refreshment would be theirs ! 
 And if they who sit in humble homes, half cov- 
 etous of some rare work of art which only 
 wealth can command, could but see what cul- 
 ture really lies within their reach, what great 
 contentment would be theirs ! 
 
 My study rivals royalty to-day. Whatever I 
 may read of, or think of, this day, in the whole 
 range of beauty, I can still answer with a smile, 
 — x\nd yet it is not "like one of these." There 
 are treasures of art here that were the outcome 
 of no common gifts, some of them wrought for 
 love's sake, and so ever doubly blessing me 
 with their presence; since ever above that which 
 the skilled hand made so fair, hover the beam- 
 ing eyes of living and loving human faces. 
 Among them is one treasure modelled by a 
 princess' hand; but they all alike make their 
 obeisance to-day, in the presence of a gift from 
 the King Himself who, giving many good gifts 
 for our common service, gave this as a token of 
 love and remembrance. 
 
''CONSIDER THE LILIES:' d*] 
 
 And now one final lesson sinks into my soul, 
 as I glance not at the lilies only, but at the 
 grass of the field that is not abashed by all 
 their splendor. The choice thing, and the com- 
 mon thing — one firom the Orient, and the other 
 lifted up as '' the beggar from the dunghill " 
 to be "set among princes" — truly ** the rich 
 and the poor" here *' meet together," and "the 
 Lord is the Maker of them all." They need 
 each other. In this union each finds something 
 to complete its own charms. Even so when the 
 lilies of His garden are gathered, and carried by 
 the Master to His mansions above, then will He 
 delight to place together the prince and the 
 peasant — one at length in the possession of the 
 true riches, and the learned and unlearned — one 
 henceforth in the wisdom that is from above. 
 Passing wonderful, and passing fair, will be the 
 grouping of spirits in the Palace of the King. 
 
IV. 
 
J 
 
IV. 
 
 '♦To win the secret of a weed's plain heart, 
 
 Reveals some clue to spiritual things." 
 
 Lowell. 
 
 "O mickle is the powerful grace that lies 
 In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities; 
 For nought so vile that on the earth doth live, 
 But to the earth some special good doth give; 
 Nor aught so good, but, strained from that fair use. 
 Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse." 
 
 Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 A question has been exercising my mind this 
 morning — Had Eve any weeds among her flow- 
 ers ? On the whole, I think not; and in confir- 
 mation of this I remember that Milton signifi- 
 cantly omits this chief care of modern gardens 
 from that which he portrays. He does indeed, 
 with his fine perception of the fitting, assign to 
 our first parents a work that tasked all their 
 energies. Adam was not to lounge, nor Eve to 
 
72 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 dawdle ; and it only indicates the high happi- 
 ness of full employ, when he describes our busy 
 mother as almost overpressed by care. 
 
 "What we by day 
 Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind, 
 One night or two with wanton growth derides, 
 Tending to wild." 
 
 Well, if that were all / had to do, I should 
 never, I think, get upon the verge of complaint. 
 Weeds are the chief of my work. Indeed I 
 sometimes think they have a peculiar tendency 
 to grow in my garden; but I have heard others 
 occasionally make the same remark. 
 
 I have already spoken of the weeds that 
 sprung up among the grass; but one special 
 struggle in that line has a small history of its 
 own — as that of a valiant among weeds. 
 
 When I first saw this spot, there was growing 
 beneath the oak trees upon the hill-side, a large 
 compact clump of elder. This was cut down 
 with the briers and burned in our bonfire. In 
 preparing the soil for grass not only was this 
 spot ploughed up, but in the change of level 
 was much more deeply covered; so that I little 
 thought of seeing the elders again. Greatly to 
 
WEEDS. 73 
 
 my surprise they were soon up, feet in height. 
 They appeared even to relish their own ashes, 
 and throve under all the persecutions I could 
 devise. ''Very hard to get rid of," said an old 
 farmer. " You will have to dig up the whole 
 spot again; there is no other way. Not a single 
 root must be left in the ground." So to work 
 he went with a strong spade; but on reaching the 
 difficulty, not an inch could he strike the spade 
 into those tough and crowded roots. " A pick- 
 axe will do it," suggested another workman, 
 **and it stands to reason that if you take that, 
 and go through them inch by inch, there'll soon 
 be an end of them." '' Capital," I answered, — 
 "the very thing to be done." And so having 
 watched the success of the first few strokes, I 
 withdrew. But I was soon summoned from my 
 study. The workman was in great perplexity. 
 He could not help hitting and hacking the huge 
 roots of the oaks. In fact the two had often 
 become so twisted together as to be inseparable, 
 and in not a few cases indistinguishable. Of 
 course the pick-axe process was stopped, and 
 all advice was now exhausted. 
 
 As I stood there, fairly facing the difficulty, 
 foiled and ignorant, I became aware that it was 
 
74 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 another deeper question that I was in reality 
 pondering. Had I always been able to discern 
 between the good and the evil, in the deep, 
 and ever deeper working of the heart ? Could 
 I say decisively which were holy, and which 
 were unholy ? Had I been able at all to judge 
 the thoughts and intents of those around me ? 
 And in the secret scrutiny of the counsels of 
 my own heart, in my very intentness to root 
 out the wrong, might I not possibly, all unaware, 
 be marring the growth of some of the noblest 
 powers that God my Maker had planted in my 
 being ? And had I not known too, even when 
 conscience gave her unhesitating verdict, that 
 then the very efforts to subdue an evil, seemed 
 only to provoke its utmost vigor ? 
 
 Of course it was not long before another clump 
 of elder reared its defiant head. It now occurred 
 to me, that under all these difficulties, the only 
 practicable plan was this: as soon as a shoot was 
 up high enough to betray its real nature, and 
 with strength enough to furnish a good grip to 
 the hand, it should be seized fast, and a sharp 
 knife thrust far down by its side, cutting it off 
 as much below the surface as possible. I said 
 to myself, I know that it is a law of all such 
 
WEEDS. 
 
 75 
 
 life, that it can only be maintained finally by 
 growth in the air and light. / can worry them 
 to death. 
 
 No sentinel at his post, ever watched more 
 closely for an enemy, than did I. It was a huge 
 satisfaction to take this almost desperate case 
 into my own hands, and to run my keen blade 
 far down, till I could bring up inches of the white 
 root stalk. Of course the next shoot had to 
 start much lower down, and from a somewhat 
 exhausted root. They were slower and slower in 
 reappearing, and more and more feeble, though 
 still they held out with a perseverance worthy 
 of a better cause. But I made no truce with 
 them. Instant execution was the unvarying sen- 
 tence. Now, I suppose they are quite exter- 
 minated; none at least, have appeared for the 
 last two years. After discovering for myself this 
 slow but successful process, I had the pleasure 
 of reading it all in the agricultural column of 
 my newspaper. The process was styled, ''suffo- 
 cation." 
 
 "Now give us the moral of all this in full," 
 some one demands. Stay, good friend, fond as 
 I am of tracing these deeper meanings, believing 
 devoutly with my wcll-revercd Jeremy Taylor 
 
76 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 that, " all things are full of such resemblances," 
 cut and dried moralizing is not at all to my 
 taste. Even as a child, it seemed to me that 
 they half spoiled the beautiful fables and alle- 
 gories that I read. Why could I not have the 
 delight of seeing what it meant myself. There 
 is a certain voluminous history upon my shelves, 
 which, though sometimes referred to, is never 
 really read, for the monotony of the incessant 
 application of the facts, which seems always to 
 say, **Alas, you are so dull, this would never 
 once enter into your own thought." It spoils 
 even the sport of a child, to have an enigma 
 answered in the same breath in which it was 
 given. 
 
 I like, however, that pleasant social game of 
 "Throwing Light." And truly it is something 
 not unlike that which I am trying to do; giving 
 merely a hint here and there, of the manifold 
 lessons to be drawn. And besides, in many in- 
 stances, the shadow, that can never be seen like 
 the light, is the very charm that allures our eye. 
 Now and then also, ''the ctiriain is the picture," 
 and for those who can not see that, there is 
 nothing to be seen. 
 
 Still I may as well confess to having often 
 
WEEDS. 
 
 11 
 
 queried what the elders most resembled. I think 
 it must be self-will, whereof truly the root is so 
 tough, and the struggle with it so long. How 
 often too I have noticed, that the few who hast- 
 ily claimed its utter subjection, or annihilation, 
 were not slow in giving some special proof of its 
 vitality. Like the elder too, it thrives wonder- 
 fully upon its own supposed death. That it should 
 find its supreme delight, in trying to subjugate the 
 will of others, has, I fear, no type in nature. 
 
 As for the weeds that spring up among my 
 grass and shrubbery, they give me a fair oppor- 
 tunity of testing the value of Cowper's advice to 
 one of his fair lady friends, who was to be kept 
 from growing corpulent, by '' Jtow and then'' pull- 
 ing a weed in the garden. Now and then, indeed ! 
 But I dare say that was a euphemism. At any 
 rate in my daily task, with much bending of back, 
 and bracing of knees, and far reaching of hands, 
 and hard pulling of arms, I have followed out to 
 its literal results, a much older recipe than Cow- 
 per's (given in the third chapter of Genesis, the 
 nineteenth verse), prescribed when man left Eden, 
 and had henceforth thorns and briers and weeds. 
 If this command, which was not a curse, but a 
 part of God's kind remedy for a curse, were only 
 
78 GARDEN GRAITII. 
 
 more widely obeyed, how many much sorer things 
 we might be spared. 
 
 What need is there to invent such varieties of 
 artificial exercise, when here is one all ready to 
 our hands, which gives healthful play to all the 
 bodily powers, under that prime condition of in- 
 tensely interesting the mind. Is it to be refused 
 as an old wives' fable, that the very contact with 
 the earth is healthful ? Those who garden in 
 gloves are not competent to decide this; but if 
 a superstition, it is a very harmless one at least. 
 How often would I like to prescribe this remedy 
 to pale and listless young girls, who are not 
 blessed with so wise a family physician, as the 
 good old man who saved my life as a child, by 
 a prescription of three words in plain English, — 
 *' A flower garden." So I took my iron through 
 flower stems instead of glass tubes, and found 
 the blue blossoms of the gentian vastly better 
 than its brown, bitter roots. 
 
 Can you wonder th^n, that I have sometimes 
 pictured to myself a garden sanitarium, where 
 weary brain workers, and especially clergymen 
 threatened with a break down of health, might 
 resort .'' I would have them marched forth every 
 morning, a little before sunrise, armed with all 
 
WEEDS. 79 
 
 manner of peaceful weapons. How delightful to 
 watch the result! to see the vigorous wielding 
 of the ''Excelsior weeding hook," issue in the 
 more powerful grappling with great moral evils; 
 and the hand well exercised with a digging fork, 
 turn to all the more masterly pose of the pen. 
 The more stately and dignified, who like not to 
 stoop, might push the scuffle-hoe along the walks. 
 The orator should sustain the energies of ges- 
 ture, by swinging a scythe; while some more 
 gentle spirits might trundle the lawn-mower and 
 draw the spring-rake. Some warlike spirits might 
 possibly learn that neither a literal nor metaphor- 
 ical garden, is any proper place for swords and 
 spears ; and without waiting for the millennium 
 to turn theirs into ploughshares and pruning- 
 hooks, would find the weapons of their warfare 
 all the more mighty. 
 
 However, to go back to my weeds, I do not 
 find my chief trouble with the large or clearly 
 defined weeds of the loose soil. I am most dis- 
 comfited by the little straggling leaves here and 
 there in the green sward, on the hill-side, where 
 I do not aim to keep it closely shaven. Some of 
 them are so weak as not to give a stem for lever- 
 age. The yarrow with its crimps and curls looks 
 
8o GARDEN GRAITH, 
 
 even pretty for a time; till you become aware of 
 its spreading far and wide, and growing coarse 
 withal. The plantain too — well who knows but 
 there may be a grain of truth in the old tradi- 
 tion that spares it for the sake of the toads, those 
 busy welcome helpers of youi toil, the weeders 
 of the insect world; at any rate the birds will 
 delight to peck its seeds; but at last the '* much- 
 ness " of it becomes the question. 
 
 And then the chickweed that begs permission 
 to hide itself under your tall caladiums, and 
 creep modestly under the eaves of the cottage — 
 it seems too small to make an enemy of; — ^and 
 will not your little friends near by need some of 
 it for their canary-birds .'' 
 
 And then the sorrel; — why you have to deal 
 with it almost leaf by leaf However, I have 
 learned at last a better way for that. I dis- 
 covered that its acid shoots were the natural 
 and necessary expression of a sour soil, and that 
 in this case it did not suffice to battle with 
 the roots. So I had the ashes of my wood fire 
 carefully sifted over every spot where it grew, 
 and the sorrel has ceased to spring up, giving 
 place to the sweet grass. 
 
 One can not help moralizing a little over said 
 
WEEDS. 81 
 
 sorrel. It is so exactly like a sour temper — or 
 rather the sour looks and sharp words that be- 
 tray their soil, and that head up finally in such 
 a dreary discontent with all men, and all things. 
 
 Who are the freest from this } They who have 
 suffered, and have had their sorrow sanctified. 
 You may be almost confident that those who in 
 mature life are the habitually cheerful and even 
 buoyant, are they who have known most of trial, 
 or suffered most of wrong-. They have been 
 sweetened as with ashes ! Such rare sweetness 
 of spirit have I sometimes seen among the former 
 slaves of this land, as well as among the poor- 
 est peasantry of other shores. I have seen it too 
 where few knew the secret sorrow of the life. 
 
 To lose the wise use of such disappointment 
 and trial as God permits in our lives, is one of 
 the greatest of all possible losses. Those dying 
 embers and grey ashes on your hearth-stone, 
 where the fire that warmed and cheered you 
 has faded away — these are no nuisance to be 
 put far away, but a treasure that can make your 
 life greener and brighter. The waste and de- 
 spised things that are hurried out of our sight 
 are precisely the things we need. 
 
 I think I have learned at last to utilize every 
 
S2 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 thing in my garden. Not an old bone, or husk 
 is there, that is not to be counted as treasure 
 instead of trash; just as I truly believe that 
 nothing is permitted to enter our lives, that may 
 not in some way work together for good; al- 
 though every thing depends upon our trustfully 
 accepting and wisely using it. 
 
 I may as well confess that I find a positive 
 pleasure in the basket of weeds I secure in a 
 morning's round. Like a miser I hoard up every 
 leaf and stalk, and even the faded flowers from 
 my vases, having learned the power of littles. 
 If you wish to peep behind the curtain, you can 
 pass along that screen of sweet-peas at the end 
 of my garden, and outside of them behold the 
 bank in which I keep my gold dust, making daily 
 some deposit or other. This very day stronger 
 arms than mine have turned it all over, scattered 
 a few ashes through it, and shaping it somewhat 
 comely, have covered it with fresh earth that 
 the sun may not waste its rich juices, and gar- 
 nished it finally with the grass shearings, that it 
 may not offend the prying eye. By next spring 
 it will be perfect mould. These flowers and 
 shrubs hard by, had no other food for this season, 
 and nothing could be thriftier. 
 
WEEDS. %i 
 
 A few mornings since, as I was musing on 
 the vast difference between a flower and a weed, 
 and the unsparing severity I used to the one, 
 while bestowing such caresses on the other, — 
 this aphorism suddenly took shape in my mind: 
 — the weeds of this year are the flowers of the 
 next ! I dare say some one will object, that 
 surely it would be better if the weed did not 
 spring up, and if all the richness of the soil went 
 directly to the plant: that after all, the weed can 
 only bring back again that which it took away. 
 
 Not so fast, good friend. The weed is not 
 made wholly out of earth. It draws still more 
 largely its stores from air and water. Each 
 plant is a chemist, elaborating the elements to 
 its own liking and forming new compounds; so 
 that many a farmer enriches his land by plough- 
 ing in a harvest of clover, the soil thus doubling 
 its fertility. Of course there is a great difference 
 among plants or weeds, some being more skil- 
 ful chemists than others. I was searching a 
 chemical work but lately, for quite another 
 purpose, when my eye fell upon this statement: 
 " Different plants, and even different parts of 
 the same plant, yield ashes of a very different 
 composition. Thus the ashes from one ton of 
 
84 ga/;:d£x graith. 
 
 pine wood gives of pure potash 0.90 lbs.; beach, 
 2.90 lbs.; oak, 3.6 lbs.; common wheat straw, 7.80 
 lbs.; dry straw of wheat before earing, 34 lbs.; 
 bean stalks, 40 lbs.; stalks of Indian corn, 35 lbs.; 
 t III sties in full grozviJiy yo lbs.\ worjuzcood, 146 
 
 ihr 
 
 Two things I gathered from this — (dear patient 
 reader, do not take alarm at the statistical look 
 of this page) — firstly, nothing was surer to im- 
 poverish my soil than those thistles, the seeds 
 of which rode on all the winds of autumn. 
 Therefore the earlier pulled the better, and the 
 surer one makes of the very tip of their long 
 roots the better; secondly, I learned this: if 
 they contained such choice salts, then all those 
 thistles bristling around my lower borders, were 
 so much booty in store for me. If left as not 
 belonging to me, then I must of necessity take 
 all their seeds as the reward of my indifference. 
 Nor could I overlook all the torture to the 
 mouths of poor horses and cows, that would 
 follow from their being left to be mown with 
 the grass. To the farmer whose perquisite they 
 might have been, they were worse than valueless; 
 and if he cared about it at all, he would thank 
 me for the raid. Here then was a chance for a 
 
WEEDS. 85 
 
 little adventure of a most novel sort. So, early 
 the next morning, armed with thick gauntlets 
 and my lawn-shears, I bore down upon the foe; 
 and seized with the very spirit of conquest, it 
 was almost exultingly that I saw them rise like 
 Samson's slain, " heaps upon heaps." I douVjt 
 if any morning's toil ever brought me a larger 
 stock of vigor, to begin with, than did this ex- 
 traordinary coup d'Uat. 
 
 Then I went within; and having anointed the 
 few stray scratches with oil, I sat down to med- 
 itate in a manner most profitable to myself: but 
 I fear the thoughts were too wide and wander- 
 ing ever to be told. So I will leave each of 
 you, dear friends, to think it out for yourselves, 
 as I had to, as to how far we are responsible for 
 the evils that are bristling around all our bor- 
 ders, and as to our wise disposition of the irre- 
 pressible thistles of life. There, is in fact, a 
 theme large enough for a year of thought. 
 
 The only regret I experienced, was when in 
 glancing again at my chemical table, I noticed 
 that the wormwood was twice as rich in those 
 hid treasures. I have none of that growing at 
 all near me now. If any of you have, do not let 
 it go to waste, but learn the happy art of caus- 
 
86 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 ing the self-same stroke to disarm the power of 
 evil in others, and to enrich your own existence. 
 Out of rough and sharp things, and even most 
 bitter things, may the garden grow ever fairer 
 and fairer. 
 
 As in most human affairs, there come pro- 
 pitious times, even for weeding. Not that we 
 are to wait idly for the best time, only that when 
 it comes, we are then to set aside what other 
 things we may, and do our utmost. Weeds do 
 not yield easily in a dry soil; and after a rain is 
 the golden time for approaching them. How 
 easily and neatly they come up from walk, and 
 flower bed, and lawn. You work with triple speed. 
 Nay, better one hour then, than a whole day when 
 all is parched. The soil is left so firm and tidy 
 now, that the very definiteness of the work is 
 delightful. "Oh!" I say to myself, as I follow 
 up the soft showers, getting a grip then on many 
 a weed that has escaped me hitherto — "oh! let 
 me use even thus every tendering visitation of the 
 Spirit." 
 
 Do we not all know that there come seasons 
 in our lives, when the work of sanctification may 
 be set further on in a day, than in weeks of the 
 common course of things } What a ready yield- 
 
WEEDS 87 
 
 ing up is there then of that which is seen to be 
 evil; what righting and readjusting of the life. 
 When such seasons come for my garden, I drop 
 every thing but duties, and devote myself to this 
 work. And well were it for our souls if we would 
 thus turn aside, as God sends the favoring season, 
 to discern and judge ourselves, and to put away 
 from us all, from the greatest thing down to the 
 very least, that we recognize as evil, or even un- 
 fitting for the Eye of the Lord. 
 
 Among the evil growths in my garden, there 
 is one however, which I dare not lay a hand 
 upon. The slightest touch of it, or even ap- 
 proach to it, would cause me weeks of suffer- 
 ing, unless an antidote were promptly applied. 
 I watch with wonder, the laborer, for whom I 
 send, when a sprout of it appears, as he handles 
 it with the utmost impunity — a power which few 
 possess. Of course there is nothing about its 
 appearance that denotes a poison; that it is such, 
 is simply a matter of knowledge; or, lacking that, 
 of most painful experience. 
 
 Nothing, however, has been more helpful to 
 me, in the solution of some of the painful prob- 
 lems of life. There are certain errors both in 
 doctrine and practice, which, judging from mere 
 
88 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 appearance, are no more harmful than others, but 
 the least approach to which is perilous to the 
 soul. That such has been their practical work- 
 ing in the lives of others, ought to satisfy us, 
 without presumptuously proving it, by our own 
 added experience. That a few singularly consti- 
 tuted souls escape unharmed, does not affect the 
 general law. 
 
 In dealing with all such poisonous plants, and 
 here the analogy is very plain, exactness of 
 knowledge is of the utmost importance. To an 
 untaught or careless eye, this poison-ivy {Rims 
 Toxicodendron) might easily pass for the Virginia 
 creeper. I have often mistaken it for a moment, 
 as I caught sight of a leaf or two only. One 
 point is decisive; the creeper has five leaflets, the 
 poison-ivy only three. But having one such cer- 
 tainty it is sufficient. 
 
 On the other hand, I have often witnessed 
 great alarm over perfectly innocent plants. I 
 once met a lady who, knowing two of the su- 
 mach family to be poisonous, had all her life 
 resisted the temptation to gather the rich crim- 
 son leaves, which make the other species so at- 
 tractive in autumn. 
 
 One other instance of needless alarm I venture 
 
WEEDS. 89 
 
 to relate. I had gone for a day's excursion with 
 a small, but delightful company, among the hills. 
 After our noonday repast, in the edge of a charm- 
 ing grove, I found the Eupatorium perfoliatum in 
 bloom. It so chanced that one of our company 
 was far from well; and so after descanting to her 
 upon its well-known medicinal properties, and half 
 playfully claiming its discovery as providential, 
 I gathered the blossoms, and that evening pre- 
 pared a simple decoction. Unhappily, before I 
 had time to state the proper dose, my friend 
 had heroically swallowed the whole of it ! That 
 night I was aroused from my sleep by our hos- 
 tess, with the rather startling charge of having 
 poisoned our invalid. The whole household was 
 already astir. In a moment I joined the anxious 
 group whom I found slow to be reassured. I had 
 again and again to assert, that as a botanist, I 
 knew to a certainty, the name of the plant; that 
 it was impossible for me to mistake any other 
 for it, so strongly marked were its character- 
 istics, and that, however unpleasant the conse- 
 quences, she was not dying of poison. Hap- 
 pily the affair ended the next morning in much 
 merry laughter, and even the hearty approval 
 of the physician, though that plant has since 
 
90 GARDEN GRAi'TH. 
 
 been known to some of us, as '^ the providential 
 boneset." I may as well add, however, lest some 
 one should copy my experiment, that during that 
 night I renounced forever the office of an ama- 
 teur medical adviser, even in herbs ! 
 
 But it has often since come to my help in this 
 way. There are nice distinctions between truth 
 and error, upon which quite as much may turn 
 for moral health or disease. Those who have 
 not an accurate knowledge of the often minute, 
 but no less certain distinctions, should never tam- 
 per with their doubts, and should bow humbly to 
 the authority of those who have the requisite 
 skill, but who can not always make their nice 
 criteria clear to others. 
 
 For instance I have never extended my botan- 
 ical researches to fungi. Consequently unable to 
 detect to a certainty a poisonous mushroom, they 
 are never served upon my table, until sent for 
 examination, one by one, to a quick-eyed Eng- 
 lishman, who usually rejects two or three that 
 might have brought death into the pot. He 
 knew himself, but not scientifically; and there- 
 fore could not teach me to know. 
 
 Often it is not the doctrine itself, but the pe- 
 culiar combination in which it is held, that proves 
 
WEEDS. 91 
 
 SO injurious. Combined with but a little error it 
 may become quite another thing. Nay, further, 
 the very proportions of truth may be so changed, 
 as to result in grave or even deadly error. Here 
 also Nature is close at hand with her wonderful 
 analogies. Listen only to this passage from the 
 Duke of Argyll's ''Reign of Law." 
 
 " How delicate these relations are, and how 
 tremendous are the issues depending on their 
 management, may be conceived from this single 
 fact, that the same elements combined in one 
 proportion are sometimes a nutritious food or a 
 grateful stimulant, soothing and sustaining the 
 powers of life; whilst combined in another pro- 
 portion, they may be a deadly poison, paralysing 
 the heart, and carrying agony along every nerve 
 and fibre of the animal frame. This is no mere 
 theoretical possibility. It is actually the relation 
 for example, in which two well-known substances 
 stand to each other — Tea and Strychnia. The act- 
 ive principles of these two substances, ' Theine ' 
 and * Strychnine ' are identical as far as their ele- 
 ments are concerned, and differ from each other 
 only in the proportions in which they are com- 
 bined. Such is the power of numbers in the lab- 
 oratory of nature." 
 
92 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 The balancing of truth may be then of mighty 
 moment. And may not the neglect of this ac- 
 count in part for the frequent rejection of truth 
 which yet is most clearly to be found in the 
 Word of God. At some period of its progress, 
 careless hands changed its proper combination. 
 Some one used it in this way, and what it then 
 was became widely known — strychnia or some- 
 thing a little less deadly. Henceforth a sort of 
 terror was attached, not only to that combina- 
 tion, but to all its elements. 
 
 To give but one example. Among the offices 
 of the Holy Spirit is that of direct guidance. But 
 other elements to be combined with this are the 
 testimony of Scripture, and an enlightened judg- 
 ment. Let the proportions of the latter fall but 
 a little short, and at once we have fanaticism. 
 
 Or to give an instance of truth and error thus 
 combining — what doctrine can be more stimulat- 
 ing, or more nutritious even, than the blessed 
 hope of the return of our Lord in His power and 
 glory.? And yet again and again, has a carnal 
 thirst for earthly splendors, or the presumptuous 
 attempt to know the times and seasons, brought 
 this truth into disrepute. And yet whoever 
 thinks, to go back to the Duke's instance, of 
 
WEEDS. 93 
 
 giving up tea because strychnine is so nearly- 
 like it? 
 
 Sometimes, mere abundance may turn a flower 
 into a weed. I could scarcely credit my eyes 
 when I first saw the ox-eye daisy — that chief of 
 outcasts — adorning the windows of Paris as the 
 cherished marguerite. Doubtless there will come 
 some happy time, when we can have many a 
 now rejected weed for our enjoyment, as a fair 
 flower once more. 
 
 How lovely is my garden to-day — now that 
 I think it is without a weed ! Yet, alas for that 
 unhappy day when I trusted a gardener to help 
 on my work, and found afterwards that many 
 a petted little plant, and some of great value 
 had disappeared. Only a wise and loving hand 
 is fit to do this work of weeding. 
 
 I passed by a garden yesterday, where many 
 of the flowers were like my own. But oh how 
 unsightly, when it might, with this one care have 
 been made so pleasant. Oh, laborers together 
 with God, in your spiritual husbandry, count 
 it not enough to sow your seed, and to water 
 it, but set yourselves faithfully, tenderly, to this 
 divinely appointed task. All other care is wasted 
 if by sinful negligence you fail in this one duty. 
 
94 GARDEN GRAITH, 
 
 Take as your model the Epistle to the Ephe- 
 sians, where St. Paul shows such skill in so speak- 
 ing the truth in love, that he never puts out one 
 hand to draw forth a weed, without the other being 
 busy in helping on the growth of some fair flower 
 that blooms beside it, and for the sake of which 
 you see that it must go. The God of love and 
 wisdom teach us all the secret of such heavenly 
 skill ! 
 
V. 
 
 Jragrancc. 
 
V. 
 
 JFragrance* 
 
 "There's not a flower of sprinjj 
 That dies in June, but vaunts itself allied 
 ]}y Issue and symlxjl, by significance 
 And correspondence, to that spirit world, 
 Outside the limits of our space and time, 
 Whereto we are lx»und." 
 
 Mrs. Browning. 
 
 Is there any thing so subtle as fragrance ? 
 What IS it ? — we ask in vain. And while our 
 philosophers go on through the ages, shifting 
 their theories of light and of sound, here is 
 something so unsubstantial, yet so powerful, so 
 all pervading, yet so penetrating, stealing in till 
 it seems to mingle with the very essence of the 
 soul itself, that even science draws back not 
 in perplexity alone, but as hesitating to be 
 guilty of a profanation. She can contrive all 
 
98 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 manner of instruments and apparatus to invade 
 those mysteries of light and sound, but she can 
 find no aid whatsoever as she enters this sanc- 
 tity of ''a soul dissolving odor." 
 
 Had it pleased God to make but one sweet 
 smell in all the earth, that had been a price- ^ 
 less blessing; or to vary it as He has varied 
 color, that had been still more; but giving it 
 as He has — varied to the utmost bound. He 
 has imparted a unique element to this boon, 
 as to none other given to our senses. 
 
 We find not unfrequently a repetition of tints 
 in flowers, so that one is like another; but we 
 never find this in fragrance. Nothing is more 
 unmistakable, and yet so almost utterly indefina- 
 ble. Here language fails. Sounds can be meas- 
 ured with the utmost accuracy through scale 
 after scale, and we have a rich vocabulary to 
 define their qualities. So too we have a whole 
 regiment of terms for defining color, while art 
 can imitate approximately any hue in nature. 
 But the moment we enter the world of sweet 
 smells, we have only a few feebly descriptive 
 words, while the art of man is suddenly limited 
 to mere conservation and combination. And yet 
 this nameless something it is, which more than 
 
FRAGRAXCE. 99 
 
 any thing else, gives character to each flower, 
 and secures for it an abiding place in our affec- 
 tions. 
 
 I have been led into these thoughts by the de- 
 liciousness of my study this morning, after I had 
 arranged its flowers. Satisfying as the fair forms 
 are to the eye, I can not sit and look at them 
 all day; only now and then may I indulge in 
 the luxury of a glance. But all the day long, 
 as I read, and write, and talk with my friends, 
 I shall carry within me a deep sweet conscious- 
 ness of my flowers. Every breath of mine will 
 be blended with their breath, and the very spirit 
 of the flowers will pass into my spirit. 
 
 Yonder in that little bracket-vase of a tailor 
 bird upon her nest, that hangs upon the wall 
 behind my study chair, is a graceful grouping of 
 flowers so delicate that it will attract only quick 
 eyes. It is simply filled with sprays of that 
 modest flower which men call "■ Gypsophila panic- 
 ulata," but which women call ''Baby's breath;" 
 and then here and there through this sort of 
 bridal veil, shining with its tiny silver stars, peep 
 the long stemmed blossoms of the dear old- 
 fashioned sweet pea. 
 
 Ah ! poor little flower, with its plebeian fam- 
 
100 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 ily, and its inability to suit the freaks of the flor- 
 ists by growing double, or otherwise monstrous, 
 it is yet sure to hold its place in cottage and 
 palace to the end of time, or so long as it can 
 keep that same sweet breath. Even its simple 
 name is respected; and in all our catalogues it 
 is entered without any learned title, and no one 
 dare do more, than, now and then by the side 
 of some more pretentious variety, to put Lath- 
 yrus in a bracket. It is noteworthy also that 
 in looking for it in the alphabetical list, you 
 turn to S. and not to P. — the szveet having grown 
 to be a part of its name, and no more a mere 
 descriptive. 
 
 Yes, little painted lady, in thy pure white robes 
 and maiden blush, and yet more in thy inimita- 
 ble breath, are charms that no ''Violet Queen," 
 nor "Crown Princess of Prussia," nor ''Invincible 
 scarlet," can ever rival. If I have put their blos- 
 soms among thine in my garden, it is chiefly to 
 show that thou art never- so fair as when seen 
 in the midst of them all. 
 
 I can not help a little doting over this dower 
 of beauty, so free from all pretence, so unaffected. 
 I remember some grand lady once sweeping past 
 a group of flowers upon leaving my cottage, who, 
 
FRAGRANCE. loi 
 
 spying this little pet of mine, trained modestly 
 in their midst, exclaimed in a half suppressed con- 
 temptuous astonishment: '' But what are these ? 
 P-e-a-s ? " 
 
 Yes, peas, my good lady, for all such souls as 
 have had their spiritual senses smothered in silks 
 and satins, and never knew what it was to lay 
 a true and open heart against the beating heart 
 of nature. But for others, for spirits simple as 
 themselves, and as unspoiled from the hand of 
 God, one of the sweetest gifts He ever gave us 
 among His flowers, that never appeals to admira- 
 tion, but solely to love. 
 
 So one more look at your sweet faces, and then 
 all day long you will possess me. Your reviving 
 breath will float over the old folios and octavos, 
 and when I am well nigh lost in the intricacies 
 of dogma and the strife of tongues, sounding so 
 shrill through all these church centuries, your 
 fragrance, in the swift transmutation of such 
 ethereal forces, shall become a music that shall 
 accord with the pure glad melody of the simple 
 Gospel of my Bible, and its angelic heralding: 
 ** Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
 peace, good will to men." 
 
 Yet, what is this fragrance } What is it } I 
 
102 GARDEN GRAITIL 
 
 can not help askinij;-, ai;ain and again, for the 
 very wonder of it. What is it that is ever flow- 
 ing out and flowing forth, and yet never failing ? 
 How came it there, and how has it power to 
 waft itself abroad ? Who but the God that is a 
 Spirit, could give this well nigh spiritual power 
 to the earthly substance of a flower. Oh, if it 
 be that His hands not only made them at the 
 first, but that still "in His hands is the breath 
 of every living thing, and the breath of all man- 
 kind," then somehow, from Him this fragrance 
 flows. Is it His breath touching the flower, and 
 making it so sweet, that He may have one more 
 link between His Spirit and our spirits } 
 
 How natural it is in the arrangement of flowers, 
 to place the fragrant ones the nearest to us. As 
 I glance around my room, I see how almost uncon- 
 sciously I have done this. Far off is the vase that 
 holds my gay trop;eolums with all their bril- 
 lianc}'. h^ew flowers are more effective, when 
 properly massed; but it is the eye alone that 
 they delight. And my gladioli, with their fine 
 spikes, and all their wealth of color, and exqui- 
 site shadings and markings, every eye is sure to 
 be drawn to them, place them where I may; 
 but still they do not hold you at their side. 
 
FRAGRANCE. 103 
 
 You greatly admire, you almost revel in their 
 beauty, and yet you will never find yourselves 
 heartily loving them, or turning to them for 
 any ministry of comfort. 
 
 But there, on the side of my organ, is the 
 stock with its rich, far reaching fragrance; and 
 beneath its heavy white clusters droop the small 
 pale-blue bells of a clematis, with their faint spicy 
 sweetness, as from their native wild wood. Fra- 
 grance and praise belong together; and though 
 I have done it instinctively, I can not remem- 
 ber ever to have placed there a merely showy 
 flower. 
 
 And on my study-table, and on my reading- 
 stand, and wherever they can get nearest, crowd 
 the heliotrope, and roses, and carnations, and 
 mignonette. 
 
 Poor little mignonette ! dost thou know my 
 little darling, that thou hadst been called a 
 weed but for thy surpassing sweetness; but that 
 having that, thou art indeed a flower, and needst 
 never have a fear that thou wilt be forgotten. 
 Fashion, that fickle mistress of ceremonies, guards 
 even the entrance to a flower garden, and now 
 and then strangely frowns upon her old favorites. 
 But thou hast a life-long passport granted thee. 
 
I04 c.Uk/^kx gk A/til 
 
 And what a niissicin is thine, hiding thyself in 
 any little corner, read}' to conceal the failure of 
 any thini;- else, never pushinj;- to the front; but 
 purifyiui^ the ver\' atmosphere, they tell us; 
 meeting;- an\' stra>' malarial whiffs, and even as 
 a soft answer turneth away wrath, sending;- them 
 o\\ their way disarmed of all their power to 
 harm. 
 
 So, lest from }'onder valley, some such foul 
 breath should wander, I have set thee as a guard, 
 beneath my window; on one side of the narrow 
 walk, that leads past it, the petunias; and thou 
 upon the other, nestling among my lilies, and 
 helping to screen their roots from the scorching 
 sun. And so your sweet breaths mingle and 
 steal through my open window all night long, 
 till in the morning the sweet-brier on the hill- 
 side, masses her sweets beneath the dews and 
 overpowers you. 
 
 What a benediction is this fragrance of the 
 early morning ! The vernal grass fills the whole 
 atmosphere as with a shower of sweetness. And 
 then the rose border. What intensity in those 
 odorous buds of the Bon Silene, making the very 
 spirit bound as though a message had reached it 
 from heaven. And the verbena bed is all com- 
 
FRAGRANCE. loq 
 
 passed with fitful fraf^r.'incc. Iwcn the pansics 
 with their dewy eyes, are ready to rival the 
 vif>lets now. Most especially do the fragrant 
 leaves make this the hour of their choice favors. 
 My rose f^eraniurn scarcely needs a finder touch 
 to win her response, and the lemon verbena is 
 freer still, with her bounty. Xor must the j^ur- 
 plc buds of the calycanthus be forgotten. "Sweet- 
 scented shrub," indeed, for let me hide but a sinj^lc 
 one of these in some fold of my (]ress, and the 
 spices of Araby will float around me till the 
 eveninj^. 
 
 And this prime Ijour of frar^rance, is the hour 
 so many miss upon beds of sloth, never lialf 
 knowin;^ what a beautiful, marvellous world is 
 around them. Not all the long hours of day 
 can possibly bring back again the charm and 
 blessedness of this, either to the body or to the 
 soul. 
 
 It is likewise another world we enter, when 
 in the stillness of the early morn, the Sun of 
 righteousness shines anew upon the soft bedew- 
 ing of the spirit. That is the chosen hour for the 
 south-wind to wake, and blow upon the garden, 
 that the spices thereof may flow out. If we only 
 knew what freshness and fragrance are waiting 
 
Io6 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 for our souls, would not more of us like the royal 
 singer ''awake the dawn"? 
 
 This too is the hour for all sweet sights, and 
 sounds. How often do I live over again in my 
 own garden, the memories of some early morn- 
 ing hours among the Alps ! I see once more the 
 shadows flee away, and give place to that crys- 
 talline clearness that none ever see, unless at 
 dawn. And now it is the Jungfrau that draws 
 nearer and nearer, still bearing down slowly upon 
 the spirit as we twain stand there together, till 
 thought bounds exultingly to her snow summit; 
 and now it is the mighty Mont Blanc, that is 
 no longer a far off thing, but moves steadily, 
 nearer, nearer, till the eye only asks a bridge 
 long enough to span those blue Genevan waves 
 before we might rest upon its peak. An hour, or 
 even a half hour later, and the glorious vision is 
 ended. The mountains are far off and mantled 
 with mist. *' One might as well not go to Switz- 
 erland at all, as to go unprepared to rise at four 
 in the morning." Such was the counsel that gave 
 me these life-long possessions of beauty. 
 
 And shall I tell still further the simple convic- 
 tion, that flashed upon my conscience, as I found 
 my rich reward for the unquestionable effort .'' 
 
FRAGRANCE. 107 
 
 " You have done this to behold the glory of 
 the mountains, why can you not also awake ear- 
 ly to look upon the glory of God in the face of 
 Jesus Christ ? " Yes, truly the same law is found 
 working in that higher sphere. It is in the early 
 morning hour that the unseen is seen, and that 
 the far off beauty and glory, vanquishing all their 
 vagueness, move down upon us, till they stand 
 clear as crystal, close over against the soul. 
 Then does that Righteousness which is like the 
 great mountains, stand out distinct in all its 
 length and all its height, with range beyond 
 range, and summit over summit, till in this 
 clear and solemn vision, we almost forget that 
 even yet we see but afar off, see but in part. 
 But who can measure the holy elevation of soul 
 that comes from such communing, before the 
 day ! 
 
 How often too, as in the early coolness, I have 
 foreboded the intense heat of noon, has it been 
 my delight to water once more, with my own 
 hands, some of my most petted flowers; nor can 
 I ever do it without saying over to myself the 
 sonnet in which Archbishop Trench has so grace- 
 fully linked the heavenly with the earthly. 
 
Io8 CARD EX GRAITIL 
 
 "A garden so well watered Ivfore morn 
 Is hotly up, that not the swart sun's blaze, 
 Do\vn beating with unmitigated rays, 
 Nor scorching wmds, from fiery deserts borne, 
 Shall quite prevail to leave il baie and shorn 
 Of its green beauty, shall not quite prevail 
 That all its morning freshness shall exhale. 
 Till evening and the evening dews return — 
 A blessing such as this our hearts might reap. 
 The freshness of the garden they might share. 
 Through the long day a heavenly freslmess keep. 
 If, knowing how the day, and the day's glare 
 Must l->eat upon them, we would largely steep 
 And water them Ivtimes with dews of prayer." 
 
 To return once more to the subject in hand, 
 I am incHned to beUeve that as o\\ the one hand 
 the sense of smell must rank among the most ig- 
 noble, however serviceable, of animal instincts, so 
 on the other it may be developed into one of the 
 finest and most spiritual of powers; belonging in 
 this wa\-, only to the most highly organized be- 
 ings. How little is made oi it in ordinary life. 
 Even among the poets it is only now and then 
 that you meet with any real appreciation of its 
 delights. The poet Wordsworth indeed lacked 
 this sense — and only once in some abnormal 
 condition oi health, smelt a bed of stock-gilly- 
 flowers which seemed to him like a vision of 
 
FRAGRANCE. 109 
 
 Paradise. I have this day been looking over one 
 of the latest and largest botanical text books, 
 most exhaustive in its treatment of the deepest 
 mysteries of vegetable life, — but nowhere through 
 its eight hundred and fifty pages, so far as I can 
 see, does the learned German author intimate 
 that flowers are possessed of fragrance ! See on 
 the other hand what a place is given it in the 
 Scriptures, honoring the oriental habit oi associ- 
 ating sweet and reviving odors with the persons 
 of one's friends. The dying Isaac smells the 
 smell of his son's raiment and exclaims, " See, 
 the smell of my son is as the smell of a field 
 which the Lord hath blessed : Thci^efore God 
 give thee of the dew of heaven and the fatness 
 of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine." The 
 sweet smell that went up from the altar of sac- 
 rifice is continually noted, and reappears in its 
 spiritualized form in the epistles, as "the odor 
 of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well 
 pleasing to God." 
 
 We are told that the various odors can be 
 grouped and combined until nine classes exhaust 
 the list. But surely whoever has done this, was 
 strangely lacking in that acuteness of sense upon 
 which all keen enjoyment depends. Who for in- 
 
GAA'DAW GRAITff. 
 
 stance couKl classity or imitate the odor ot* an 
 orchid ? C^ncc in my lite I reeeix'ed an alnu>st 
 ro\al L;ift ot' its exotic blossoms. 1 arrani;-ed 
 them, absorbed in this rare beaut\', placing- eacli 
 of the ten species in i;i-onps b\' themsehes — \\\y 
 e\e halt" daz/.led by these strani;e shapes and 
 perfect tints. Init on returninL;' later to the room 
 which their tVai^rance had tonnd time to till, 1 was 
 hushed as in the ethereal atmosphere ot' hea\en. 
 There was sometliini;' about it altetL^ether unlike 
 this earth; so unobtrusi\e )'et so wooin*;'; now 
 tar awa\' tor \'ou to search it. and then rushing* 
 like a swit't breeze into the depths o{ yowv being-. 
 
 Yes, I repeat it again, that fragrance more than 
 an\- thing else gives chviracter to a tlower, and 
 decides the cjualit)- auil Uviture of (.nu* love. 
 
 And wduft name shall be found for that still 
 nameless something — that subtle intluence — that 
 atmosphere, as we sometimes call it, that ema- 
 nates tVoni human spirits; and which is to their 
 quiescent state that which so called magnetism 
 is to their active state. There is nothing so akin 
 to it as this fragrance of tlowers. 
 
 As with the tlowers, it is not all who possess 
 it. There are some who will alwa}-s win our 
 admiration and homage, but who, lacking this. 
 
I'h'Af^h'ANCf']. Ijl 
 
 do not satisfy us fully. It is this sweetness of 
 spirit that is indissoluhly h'nkcd witf) love — wins 
 it, and keeps it. Ifavinr/ this, all other merit 
 need not ^o seekinrj for recognition, but is itself 
 ^our/ht for. You mir^ht pass many a spot where 
 tiie rose and the vvoodl^ine and the jessamine 
 flourish half hidden, but their breath is about you, 
 and straightway your eye searches them out. 
 You are walking it may be in some wild spot, 
 and your eye is on the beauty of a winding river, 
 or the majesty of the In'lls— when suddenly you 
 start a little; another presence quietly claims 
 you; ** Violets! "—Yes, they fill the air with that 
 most expansive of perfumes — so that whether 
 you shall turn this way or that you know not — 
 and yet you will not go on till you have found 
 the sweet treasures, hide themselves as best they 
 may. Blessed be God, that the sweetness of so 
 many lowly spirits refreshes our hearts in these 
 wilds of earth. And thanks be to God also that 
 the fragrance of a life may be in part preserved; 
 that even as the sweet odors are taken from the 
 flowers to give refreshment when they have 
 faded, and to bear it to far off places, so the 
 saintly lives of the departed leave behind them 
 this chief of all their crifts. 
 
112 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 I am specially reminded of this by the biogra- 
 phies which I have just been reading in unusual 
 number. Some of these lives had unmistakable 
 elements of greatness, almost of grandeur, and 
 were gifted well-nigh as marvellously by Grace 
 as by Nature; and yet so it is that as we read and 
 admire, no sweet breath floats out upon us — un- 
 less it be now and then, when we see them 
 bruised a little in the afflicting hand of God. 
 
 But from other lives — less brilliant, less ac- 
 complished, even far less known by the onlooking 
 world, there escapes such an aroma of goodness 
 as penetrates to the depths of the soul. Such a 
 flagrant life was that of the sweet singer of holy 
 songs who has this summer been taken from us.* 
 A sort of spicy freshness floats all around those 
 pages in which her gifts and graces are so im- 
 perfectly embalmed; and the turning of each new 
 leaf brings anew the stimulant sweetness of her 
 life to our own. 
 
 And the saintly Muhlenberg t — what a fragrant 
 life was his ! The sweetness of a heavenly mind 
 was the greatest gift his God gave unto him. 
 Wherever the loving record of that utterly un- 
 
 * Frances Ridley Havergal. 
 
 t "Life and Work of William Augustus Muhlenberg." 
 
FRAGRANCE. 113 
 
 selfish life is carried, there surely the house will 
 be filled with the odor of that costly ointment 
 which it was his rare privilege to break upon the 
 feet of Jesus; and to visit his St. Johnland and 
 breathe the Christ-like spirit of the place, is like 
 bending over a harvest of hoarded fruit when the 
 tree that gave it is felled. 
 
 Alike among the living and the dead, this un- 
 named power, that reaches you, possesses you, 
 and refreshes your inmost being, bringing you 
 blessed thoughts of God — this impalpable, inde- 
 finable presence that depends not upon features, 
 or bearing or speech, although it may pervade 
 them all, what and whence is it but the nearest 
 and most subtle partaking of His divine nature 
 that our Blessed Lord can impart. 
 
 Daniel had it, and even Belshazzar's queen 
 with senses all dulled in a luxurious, selfish 
 court, could but perceive his "excellent spirit," 
 and call it "the spirit of the holy gods": and 
 this same excellent spirit it was that led Darius 
 to prefer him above all presidents and princes. 
 
 How full is the Song of Songs of all fragrant 
 things. A song of love must needs be so. The 
 well-beloved is as "a bundle of myrrh" and "a 
 cluster of cam[)hor." His "name is as ointment 
 
114 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 poured forth." He cometh out of the wilder- 
 ness perfumed with myrrh and frankincense and 
 all powders of the merchant. 
 
 Yes, blessed Lord Jesus, the best-beloved of 
 Thine own, even so has the record of Thy life 
 reached down to us; and there is not a grace 
 and not a virtue, the sweetness of Avhich was 
 not first embodied in Thee, and is still ever shed 
 forth. 
 
 In the great renewing of all things, may not 
 this gift of fragrance — even now the subtlest 
 of God's outward gifts, and ever pointing to 
 that which is spiritual, become a part of that 
 which is now signified, being itself spiritualized ? 
 Surely when the bride has made herself ready, 
 then will her royal Bridegroom say to her, '' The 
 fragrance of thy garments is like the fragrance 
 of Lebanon." 
 
 "Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranites, 
 with most excellent fruit; 
 cypress flowers -with nards. 
 Nard and crocus, calamus and cinnamon, 
 with every variety of incense woods; 
 myrrh and aloes, 
 with all the chief spice plants." 
 
 And oh, ye whom God has set in His garden, 
 
FRAGRANCE. 115 
 
 not as the giant oaks for strength, nor as the 
 tree that bears abundant fruit, — count it no vain 
 caUing, though ye may seem the least and last 
 of all the plants that claim His care, if still your 
 life is a life of sweetness: and be well content 
 to please your Creator by this blessed service of 
 ever having a reviving breath to pour out upon 
 the passer-by, or to fill the little sphere in which 
 you live with a continual fragrance. 
 
VI. 
 
 Pot=Bountr. 
 
VI. 
 
 |3ot=33ounli. 
 
 "Still uppermost, 
 Nature was at his heart as if he felt, 
 Though yet he knew not how, a wasting power, 
 In all things which from her sweet influence 
 Might tend to wean him. Therefore with her hues. 
 Her forms, and with the spirit of her forms, 
 He clothed the nakedness of austere triith.^'' 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 And what is the lesson of this morning ? — 
 was the eager question of one of a small group 
 of friends, whom I joined at breakfast — fresh 
 from my work in the garden. It had come to 
 be taken for granted that as soon as the morn- 
 ing greetings were over, I should thus furnisli 
 the topic for the time, which followed some- 
 what naturally the unlading of my full hands of 
 their freight of choicest buds and blossoms for 
 each. She who asked the question — herself like 
 
20 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 a flower among the flowers — will never again 
 brighten my home and garden, as the ever wel- 
 come guest. 
 
 I little thought that spring when she looked 
 so lovingly upon my lilies of the valley, that 
 they would be planted the next year to open 
 their blossoms upon her grave. But none the 
 less is she still a part of my life; and the glow 
 and fervor and brightness of her being, are linked 
 forever in hallowed association with many of 
 my flowers. I see that sweet face now, from 
 which not all the cares of life, nor the mother- 
 hood of many sons, nor all the strain that came 
 often upon a heart, as tender as true in its sym- 
 pathies, could at all take away the dewy fresh- 
 ness and eagerness of a child. Her loving ap- 
 preciation always quickened me in finding and 
 treasuring these lessons from my garden. 
 
 Her question was at once echoed by another — 
 *' Yes, tell us what you have been learning new 
 this morning, something, very plainly." 
 
 I glanced a moment at the faces so glowing 
 with affection and intelligence, and then made 
 my brief answer — *' Pot-bound ! " 
 
 There was first a ripple of smales, and then a 
 merry burst of laughter, and finally a volley of 
 
POT-BOUND. 121 
 
 questions as to what that meant; and yet before 
 our talk was over, I think there were tears in 
 all our eyes. 
 
 That was four years ago; but it has all come 
 back most vividly in memory as the same lesson 
 has been reviewed this morning. I will cite here 
 the fresher experience, and then supplement it 
 as best I can out of that conversation of long 
 ago. 
 
 When my German stocks were planted out 
 this spring, I reserved a few in small pots to 
 take the place of such as might prove single. 
 For the stock is almost peculiar in this, that 
 the single flowers are remarkably lacking both 
 in beauty and fragrance. In spite of all the fan- 
 cies of florists, my taste persists in its preference 
 for the single petunia, banishes from my pre- 
 cincts the double geranium, and cherishes a sly 
 liking for even the single tuberose. I will ad- 
 mit that the rose is a great exception, and yet 
 the English sweet-brier has its own incompara- 
 ble grace. Not so however with stocks. The 
 long loose straggling stems of shapeless single 
 flowers, can scarcely be tolerated. For aught 
 I know, there may be a natural state very differ- 
 ent, but certainly those that from seed of double 
 
122 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 stocks fail of being double, wear a most discom- 
 fited look. 
 
 This morning I found that all in my flower- 
 bed were at last in bloom, and alas ! fully half 
 of them single. So I turned to my reserve in 
 the pots. They had been transferred once to 
 pots of a larger size, but in the press of cares 
 further transfer was neglected. They had been 
 faithfully watered, but I had given them no at- 
 tention myself. So now I found a sad failure. 
 Compared with the others, set out so long ago, 
 they were mere pigmies. Soon exhausting all 
 the soil, the little roots searching round and 
 round for food, found themselves thwarted at 
 every turn by the hard walls of the earthen 
 pot; and finally after crowding it full of hungry 
 fibres, they could do nothing but stand still. As 
 I turned them carefully out of the pots, there 
 was nothing to be seen save a thickly matted 
 mass of dingy white roots. The plants were 
 alive, but not one of them in bloom, or even in 
 bud. They were, as the gardeners say, pot-bound . 
 
 All that is signified by this, can be better 
 known by a glance at the more prosperous mem- 
 bers of the family now blooming in my flower- 
 bed. Only look at those vigorous branches that 
 
POT^BOUND. 123 
 
 have shot out freely around the main stalk, and 
 note how many of them are even at this early 
 season loaded with those close-set, snow-white 
 blossoms. No flower in my garden has such a 
 style of massing- both its beauty and fragrance. 
 I can cut freely from these plants for myself and 
 for my friends, and they will thrive all the more. 
 From these early days of July, on into October, 
 past all the lighter frosts, they will continue 
 this lavish bloom. 
 
 The stock revels in the dews; and to lift one 
 of those heavy heads bowed under their weight, 
 all bathed and brilliant, is one o^ the special 
 delights of the early morning. And all this is 
 the measure of the loss of my pot-bound plants. 
 Ah, pitiable little objects ! — starved in the midst 
 of plenty, because only a thin wall came between 
 you and fertile mother earth, — I look upon you 
 with compassionate regrets. Never to you can 
 I turn to gather the rich stores of delight which 
 might so easily have been your portion. All 
 those weeks of soft showers, and long refresh- 
 ing rains, lost by you ! All these days of sun- 
 shine, in which every thing" seems ready to leap 
 forth for gladness, lost for you ! You have been 
 losing, too, more than this, even the very habit 
 
124 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 of growth; and now it will take much of pre- 
 cious time to recover merely that; and then the 
 sultry August suns will beat fiercely upon the 
 garden, and with my utmost skill put forth upon 
 you, you can by no possibility overtake your 
 freer sisters. 
 
 But as often happens to me, while holding in 
 my hand these little pot-bound plants, my busy 
 fancy clothes them with a hum.an garb. I see 
 then not stocks, but souls; — souls that God des- 
 tined for great growth and abundant bloom, put- 
 ting in them richly the potentialities of this; but 
 alas ! instead of making this their calling and 
 election sure, I see them pot-bound in narrow, 
 cramping, man-made systems of thought and ac- 
 tion; instead of being set free indeed to flourish 
 in the full riches of '' tJie wJiole triUJiy 
 
 How often have I found the lesson in my gar- 
 den, and the line of thought suggested by my 
 reading, in striking harmony. It was only yes- 
 terday that I was reading the answer of St. Paul 
 before Felix, as given in Acts xxiv., and noting 
 a point which the readers of our English version 
 miss, that the ''sect" of the fifth verse and the 
 ''heresy" of the fourteenth, are the same in the 
 Greek. Looking up the word once more in my 
 
POT-BOUND. 125 
 
 lexicon, I noted how innocent it was at first ; 
 coming from a root signifying to choose, and 
 meaning simply the part that was chosen. But 
 at last because it was a part and therefore not 
 the perfect whole, it acquired a bad sense, and 
 became that dreadful thing — heresy. 
 
 For not only is truth a whole, but an organic 
 whole; and while there may be but a few mem- 
 bers of it whose loss would involve that of life 
 itself, yet it has none so small that their removal 
 is not after all a loss and a deformity. 
 
 Every heresy repeats substantially the same 
 career; — first a portion of the truth hitherto 
 neglected is recognized; then follows its dis- 
 location from the entire body of truth; its dis- 
 tortion next; and finally its union with positive 
 error. 
 
 And then how could I but recall as I glanced 
 over the ancient course of sects and heresies, the 
 bitter bickerings that had polluted the most pre- 
 cious doctrines; — how again and again men had 
 grappled with the mere might of intellect the 
 things hard to be understood, and never to be 
 understood save by the devout heart and meek 
 spirit, and so had wrested them to their own de- 
 struction and that of many others. I remem- 
 
126 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 bered how the pages of church history were filled, 
 not with the records of heavenly fellowship, and 
 therefore deeper insight into the things of God, 
 but too often with sharp discussions and vio- 
 lent disputes. And even down to our own time 
 whether the few have met socially, or the many 
 in solemn convocation, rare as oases in the desert, 
 have been the occasions when the all-absorbing 
 themes were the love of Christ, the power of the 
 Holy Spirit, and our wondrous fellowship with 
 the Father through His dear Son. 
 
 Divisions and sub-divisions have failed to se- 
 cure this concord. How often indeed do those 
 who professedly agree, bring the more animosity 
 into their remaining disagreements. Wherever 
 there is great zeal unbalanced by wisdom, there 
 the temptation enters to place the favorite doc- 
 trine beneath the microscope, forgetting that the 
 more it is magnified the narrower is the field of 
 vision, and the more is there crowded out. Per- 
 haps all truth may at times and for specific pur- 
 poses pass profitably under the lens. But a fatal 
 thing it is, not only to keep it there, but to mag- 
 nify more and more, till the very little that is 
 seen becomes dim and spectral. Such narrow- 
 ness imist end in consummate heresy. 
 
POT-BOUND. 127 
 
 Having- thus taken this long flight of thought 
 (apparently as far off from my flower-pots as in 
 those curious cases of associated facts given by 
 Funcke in his inimitable '* St. Paulus zu Wasser 
 und zu Land"), I come back to my text, and the 
 old meaning of heresy in the New Testament, as 
 simply a sect or division. Thus we have as the 
 English rendering of the word — ''the sect of the 
 Pharisees," "the sect of the Sadducees"; and then 
 in the passage already referred to. Acts xxiv. 5, 
 "the sect of the Nazarenes." So Tertullus said; 
 and St. Paul only uses the word as giving his op- 
 ponent's view of the case, when he declares, v. 14, 
 — " But this I confess unto thee that after the 
 way which they call a sect^ so worship I the God 
 of my fathers." 
 
 His own faith was not the faith of a sect, for 
 who ever taught so earnestly as St. Paul, the 
 unity of the one Body, with one Lord, one Faith, 
 one Baptism, one hope of our calling .'* For more 
 than the space of three years would he have 
 wept, had he foreseen to the full what our eyes 
 behold so calmly, Christendom in sects ; each of 
 these, so far as it is a sect, being partial and 
 prejudiced, and using some narrowing system to 
 shut out the spirit from the free and natural ab- 
 
128 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 sorption of the truth as taught by Christ and His 
 apostles. 
 
 What a vision I have had this day of the poor 
 pot-bound spirits ! As with my stunted stocks, 
 the pot is more conspicuous than the plant, so is 
 it systems rather than souls that have become 
 most noticeable. It seems strange, when one 
 thinks of it, that the material of these pots was 
 in no wise harmful, and in its native state as the 
 simple clay, would indeed have enriched the soil, 
 giving it more firmness and substance. It was 
 only as the burned and hardened clay that it 
 could no longer minister life : even as forms 
 while fresh and living forms, may yield not sup- 
 port only, but choice sustenance to spiritual life; 
 but once becoming hard and unyielding, minister 
 not life, but death. 
 
 Again, the flower-pots before me are from vari- 
 ous potteries ; and therefore some taller, some 
 shorter; some broader, some narrower; some clay 
 colored and some brown; and would that the 
 mischief lay in any one of these distinctions. 
 Alas ! it lies not in the special shape, but in the 
 fact that they are pots, and every plant bound in 
 the most shapely of them this midsummer time, 
 is hopelessly dwar'ei. And all the worse is it 
 
POT-BOUND. 129 
 
 if we try to disguise the nature of our poor clay 
 pot. I have a painted one, quite elegantly set 
 off with the best vermilion, which only further 
 harms it by shutting out all air from its roots. 
 I have seen foolish women paying an extra price 
 for the shining glazed pots, and who seemed 
 never to care whether they were provided with 
 drainage or not ; and I have wished that I might 
 ask them — **What is your object — a pot, or a 
 plant ? " 
 
 Yet how keen-eyed Christians are to the de- 
 fects of other systems than their own, and how 
 ready to vaunt the advantage of this or that lit- 
 tle difference. The vital question is this — does 
 any name which marks a distinct company of be- 
 lievers, mean more to them than the one name of 
 Christian t Which is the more conspicuous on 
 their standard.? Do not these denominational 
 titles indicate the disciples of a dogma, rather 
 than the disciples of Christ t Once committed 
 to this sectarian bias through reverence for some 
 great leader of thought, or the mere force of 
 early training, then the secret pride of consis- 
 tency, like a slow sure fire, hardens the mould, 
 and lo ! the soul is pot-bound — too prejudiced and 
 too self-satisfied to even look into a larger love 
 
I30 GARDEN GRAITir. 
 
 and liberty. And yet here at our very feet lies 
 the rich virgin soil of truth divine, and in it all 
 the elements that are needed for the full suste- 
 nance of our spirits, to stablish, strengthen, set- 
 tle us : — and this has been our pitiful use of it ; 
 to gather up a little handful of it, and shaping it 
 first into a form, then to dry it into formalism, 
 and finally with as much of truth as tJiat will 
 hold, and no more, to attempt to nourish our 
 souls. 
 
 And now I go back to the breakfast talk with 
 which this chapter opened, to answer some of 
 the questions then asked. 
 
 — "Why then use these pots at all.'*" 
 They have their season of service; they belong 
 to infancy: at a certain period they are even in- 
 valuable in developing a mass of working roots, 
 which shall furnish a sure basis of growth when 
 the plant is transferred to the open border. True, 
 that is only relatively the best process. When- 
 ever it is practicable, a flower is ever the better 
 for being sown in the self-same spot where it is 
 to grow. This is the way of nature, and even in 
 our gardens, whatever can spring up from being 
 self-sown, is vastly more vigorous than by any 
 other process. But many circumstances combine 
 
ror-BouND. 131 
 
 to make this impossible, or difficult in most cases; 
 so that under existing circumstances, the plan of 
 potting is the wiser, but only for a time; the mo- 
 ment growth is arrested by it, the evil sets in. 
 However, please observe that I am not dealing 
 with an inspired type, and am not at all bound 
 to prove a perfect analogy. 
 
 — ''But are we to understand you as imply- 
 ing, that all Church organizations are evils, as 
 such.?" 
 
 No ! and again and again. No ! Nothing is 
 clearer in Holy Scripture, than that order and 
 discipline are divinely ordained in the family of 
 God, and it is almost equally clear that their de- 
 tails were very largely entrusted to the judgment 
 of the Church, under the guidance of her Heav- 
 enly Head. Few tendencies are more to be dep- 
 recated, than the desire to cast off such restraints. 
 Those who are in authority have need, indeed, to 
 consider how far they are responsible for any 
 abuse of power and influence, but for those under 
 authority, there can be little doubt that loyalty 
 is better than license, better often than liberty. 
 Indeed do we not know in other spheres than 
 this, that the truest liberty consists with even 
 rigid law and limitations. We have far too little 
 
32 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 of obedience to authority for our good. There 
 is more than one way of breaking 'the fifth com- 
 mandment. The shocking irreverence of our age 
 transgresses as much in the Church, as in the fam- 
 ily, and so each man's pope is his own opinion. 
 
 The great evil to be shunned is of another 
 sort, and springs from more interior causes. It 
 is sectarian selfishness, party prejudice, fossil- 
 ized faith ; precisely that narrowing, cramping, 
 isolating influence which formed the first point 
 of attack in St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corin- 
 thians. 
 
 Had the apostle who was so skilled in borrow- 
 ing apt imagery, been a gardener, instead of a 
 tent-maker, and so had seen what I have this 
 morning, one could easily imagine him proceed- 
 ing forthwith to picture these divided and con- 
 tentious saints, as bound, some in a Pauline pot, 
 some in an Apollonian, and some in a pot shaped 
 by Cephas; and he would have hastened to turn 
 them out of these (albeit tenfold the size of our 
 
 modern make of endless ist and ian pots) 
 
 saying as he did so: '^ All things are yours ! 
 Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, all are 
 yours ! " True, any one of these might be the 
 specially helpful teacher at first, but never was 
 
POT-BOUND. 
 
 ZZ 
 
 one to limit himself, by taking upon him such 
 a name as "of Paul," or ''of ApoUos," or "of 
 Cephas;" he must always be "of Christ." Why 
 take the finite when the infinite is ours ? Why 
 suffer any portion of the truth, however precious 
 to become an incrustation, shutting us out from 
 the wealth of all the rest ? 
 
 — "But what then, do you make of these 
 choice exotics that are nearly always kept in 
 pots ? Your beautiful agapanthus is blooming 
 in a pot. Your callas are in pots, and that su- 
 perb amaryllis." 
 
 Well, my answer must be a little like St. Paul's. 
 " I suppose that this is good for the present ne- 
 cessity." It certainly, as I said before, is not 
 the best in the natural state of things, for noth- 
 ing was ever created in a pot: but surrounded, 
 as such plants are, by so many unnatural condi- 
 tions, it is the best under existing circumstances. 
 Moreover, these bulbous plants seem to have 
 special laws of life, and the secret of thriving 
 upon very little soil, so it be of the best and 
 abundantly watered. I may as well admit, also, 
 that some, the amaryllis vallota is a striking ex- 
 ample, will not bloom at all, unless pot-bound. 
 I lost years in finding that out. It passes my 
 
34 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 comprehension even now; but I accept the fact, 
 and with it another, that there are some human 
 beings so pecuHarly constituted as to accomplish 
 most, in a very limited range of thought and 
 action. As to the family of bulbs in general, 
 they remind me of those large-hearted Chris- 
 tians, who, never being straitened in themselves, 
 seem able to triumph over all straitness in their 
 surroundings. 
 
 I have another little plant, one of the epi- 
 phytes, possessed of such vitality as to thrive 
 in every thing. I have tried it alternately, the 
 past six months in air and cai'tJi and water 
 with little difference of result. But the Chris- 
 tian species of epiphytes must be very limited. 
 
 — " But may you not over-estimate the loss 
 in being pot- bound .^ However impoverished, 
 those of whom you speak are still Christians; 
 and if their souls are saved, is not that the 
 main thing ">. " 
 
 And are you not using the word saved in too 
 restricted a sense ? But using it as you do, I 
 would never say, that salvation was the main 
 object of the Gospel, but the means to a glorious 
 end. That distinction is the very point of this 
 morning's lesson; but there is such fearful and 
 
POT-BOUND. 135 
 
 wide-spread defect in current Christian instruc- 
 tion upon the subject, that one needs to cry 
 aloud and spare not. And you remember that 
 when Isaiah was to do that, the Lord charged 
 him to ** show my people \\v€\x transgression;" — yes, 
 and the very people who sought him daily, and 
 delighted to know His ways. 
 
 Salvation, using it in its negative sense, has 
 been widely preached as the great object of 
 Christ's redemptive work, to secure which should 
 be the one aim of life. Whereas it should be 
 taught as the Scriptures teach, that salvation as 
 a true gift, v72iS given freely diXid give7i f icily, when 
 Christ died for our sins. All forgiveness and 
 reconciliation and salvation date from the Cross 
 of Christ. The purpose to bestow all these, an- 
 tedates the ages; but then the gift became an 
 accomplished fact. The actual reception of the 
 gift, calls for one condition only, — simple belief. 
 Starting then from this certainty, the Scriptures 
 everywhere go on to emphasize the object of 
 this salvation; which is briefly — conformity to 
 Christ through union with Christ — an object so 
 important as to be called in turn "the salvation 
 ready to be revealed in the last time." Chris- 
 tians are ne^^er urged to make their salvation 
 
136 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 sure, but to make tJieir calling and election sure, 
 as the only way of having an entrance ministered 
 abundantly into the everlasting kingdom. But 
 this subject is too vast, to more than touch 
 upon. 
 
 If only Christians could be convinced of their 
 short-comings, one main trouble would be re- 
 moved. As it is, they try to be satisfied; and 
 checking the convictions of conscience by much 
 mutual congratulation, concentrate all their con- 
 cern upon the unsaved. Whereas none of us ought 
 to be satisfied with the present state of things in 
 the churches themselves. Would that a trumpet 
 voice might break in upon all such false ease, 
 echoing and re-echoing those sure and solemn 
 words: ''He SHALL SUFFER loss!" He, even 
 the saved, shall suffer loss ! 
 
 Only suppose, for instance, that the kind friend 
 who gave me the choice seed of these stocks, had 
 found me in this morning's plight, over my pot- 
 bound plants; how would it have answered for 
 me to assume an air of great content, and to 
 say: "The seeds came up finely, and I am happy 
 to say, the plants are all living ! " Yet seriously 
 I suppose their state as stocks is beyond that of 
 very many Christians. Surely we were planted 
 
POT-BOUND. 
 
 137 
 
 in His garden, not to exist merely. He placed 
 us there to adorn it and to be His joy. He 
 placed us there to bear much fruit, and so to 
 be to the praise of His glory. He placed us 
 there to develope each of us to the utmost ca- 
 pabilities of nature, and the utmost possibilities 
 of grace. 
 
 — '* But are there not other ways of being 
 pot-bound, than the one you have been speak- 
 ing of.?" 
 
 Ah yes, I have been thinking of so many other 
 ways of becoming narrow in our interests, and 
 our sympathies, intellectually, and socially, and 
 always to our injury. All the little cliques of 
 society, all partisan action tend to this; our 
 very virtues, leave us exposed to the danger; for 
 instance, great devotion to one's family, shutting 
 us off from our wider responsibilities, and patriot- 
 ism becoming national selfishness, 
 
 — "But what of those whose misfortune it is 
 to be pot-bound, who have been so taught and 
 trained, and know not how to get out of their 
 straitness." 
 
 Ah, that indeed. We can not go to the depths 
 of any subject, without touching this wonderful 
 question of solidarity, which is never so signifi- 
 
^S GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 cant as in the spiritual sphere, where we are 
 all regarded as one body. Our responsibility 
 for our influence over others, must be immense. 
 How far this ever releases any from their own 
 responsibility, who, but One can tell ! 
 
 But this question brings to my mind another 
 little lesson, which I trust may give us cheer for 
 ourselves, and larger hope for others. 
 
 I was looking over my little lawn, one spring, 
 in search of small weeds, when I saw a few tiny 
 ovate leaves, I scarcely knew of what, but cer- 
 tainly not grass or clover, and therefore doomed. 
 My knife was passing rapidly to its root when I 
 saw suddenly among those leaves a flower, but 
 such a flower ! A pansy ! but surely the sorriest 
 pansy that ever struggled into existence. A stray 
 seed had been lodged in the close turf, and had 
 succeeded in this small way. I was smitten at 
 once with admiration for its bravery; its fidelity 
 too. Cast out, trodden under foot, among aliens, 
 with no kind recognition, with little to help it, 
 and with very much to hinder it, still it would do 
 its best to be true to its calling, and was still a 
 pansy. It could not look very bright, nor be 
 very graceful; and yet it had done its utmost. 
 "// shall live,'' I said; forlorn as it is, it shall 
 
POT-BOUND. 139 
 
 have a chance now. And so looking- hither and 
 thither for a new home for it, I set it down, 
 finally, in the rich soil of my rose border. Be- 
 fore that summer ended, it had won the admira- 
 tion of all who saw it. Not one of all my high- 
 bred pansies equalled this. 
 
 I am sure that little pansy had a special mis- 
 sion in this world, and I long for it to speak to 
 others as it has spoken to me — to be ever of a 
 good courage, and to accept all such straitness 
 as may come through circumstances over which 
 we have no control, and to bear with a meek 
 heart, all that may come to us through the mis- 
 understanding or even the malice of others; say- 
 ing only, softly, 
 
 "When obstacles and trials seem 
 Like prison walls to be, 
 I do the little I can do, 
 
 And leave the rest to Thee!" 
 
 In the lack of all human recognition, surely 
 the Lord knoweth them that are His. He will 
 never mistake their littleness so as to cast them 
 away; and His great heart of love will go out to 
 them, till He has done for them exceeding abun- 
 dantly above all that they ask or think. 
 
VII. 
 aftjr tte Eain. 
 
VII. 
 
 ^tttx tf}e Ijlain* 
 
 " Sfrft the ftarl}i, 
 y/ie body of our hody^ the '^^rcen eartfx, 
 Indubital^Iy liurnan lil«: thih flesh, 
 And thc;-ic articulal/::d veins lhroiij4i wJjIch 
 Our heart drives bkK>d ! " 
 
 Mi'.S. liKOWNINO. 
 
 The weary drour^jt is over ! The blesse-d rain 
 of heaven fell at last: and now it is as a new 
 earth to look upon, and we that look as new 
 beings. No more that sultry dryness — no more- 
 those hot and hurrying winds that seemed by 
 some subtle syirijjathy to wither our very sjjirits. 
 
 Can it be that when our souls are set in unison 
 with nature, there comes to us through he-r a 
 sympathetic vibration, so that as the soft breath 
 ')X the strong hand of God passes over her, and 
 
144 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 calls forth her notes of gladness or of gloom, we 
 are forced to respond in like manner ? Or is it 
 indeed that as '* the body of our body," we can 
 but throb and quiver with her ? However it be, 
 this sympathy with the moods of nature, appar- 
 ently unknown to some, is a very certain fact to 
 others. Nor can we possibly have the keen sus- 
 ceptibility to her joy without accepting her sor- 
 row also. 
 
 "Never the exquisite pain, then never the exquisite bliss, 
 For the heart that is dull to that can never be strung to this." 
 
 Yet who, for any suffering that nature ever 
 brought us, would forego the dear delight. And 
 then to heighten all present compensation comes 
 the thought, that her deep groaning and our 
 own moaning with her, will soon be ended; 
 while it is an immortal boon to be thus — 
 
 "Baptized into the grace 
 And privilege of seeing." 
 
 Even now, how easy is it to forget all those 
 days of dust and dreariness, for the sweetness 
 and freshness of but one day like this, after the 
 rain. 
 
 And yet this sympathy with nature which 
 makes man " subordinate to the east wind " is 
 
AFTER THE RAIN. 145 
 
 but a half truth. The fellow to it, who has 
 not experienced ? — but who need ever try to 
 describe it again, since Coleridge wrote his ** Sib- 
 ylline Leaves " : 
 
 "Oh lady! we receive but what we give, 
 And in our life alone does nature live: 
 Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud ! 
 
 And would we aught behold, of higher worth, 
 Than that inanimate cold world allow'd 
 To the poor, loveless, ever anxious crowd. 
 
 Ah ! from the soul itself must issue forth, 
 A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud 
 
 Enveloping the earth — 
 And from the soul itself must there be sent 
 
 A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth. 
 Of all sweet sounds the life and element ! 
 
 Oh pure of heart ! thou needst not ask of me 
 What this strong music in the soul may be ! 
 What, and wherein it doth exist. 
 This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, 
 This beautiful and beauty niaking power. 
 
 Joy, virtuous lady ! joy that ne'er was given, 
 Save to the pure, and in their purest hour, 
 Life, and life's effluence, cloud at once and shower, 
 Joy, lady ! is the spirit and the power. 
 Which wedding nature to us gives in dower, 
 
 A new earth and new heaven, 
 Undream't of by the sensual and the proud; 
 Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud — 
 
[46 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 We in ourselves rejoice ! 
 And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, 
 
 All melodies the echoes of that voice, 
 All colors a suffusion from that light." 
 
 I have come down once more to my nook 
 beneath the ehn-tree, and have been drinking 
 in the new delight — for surely 
 
 " 'Tis one of the charmed days 
 When the genius of God doth flow." 
 
 Earth and sky sit gazing each on the other's 
 beauty. The breeze is fluttering more lightly 
 than the butterfly that flits to and fro. There 
 is not a blade of the fresh springing grass that 
 does not seem to say, — ''I have been satisfied. 
 I have drunk of the rain of heaven and I give 
 thanks." There is a hush of holy rest in the 
 air; the very birds are resting somewhere, save 
 one little humming-bird that comes with its 
 marvellous whir of wings to sip nectar from the 
 fuchsias at my feet. The hum of insects is al- 
 most inaudible, for every thing alike seems bathed 
 in bliss. 
 
 All sweet things ever said or sung of such 
 prime hours as this, come flitting through one's 
 memory. And last of all, there come words 
 that are older than all, that sing themselves 
 
AFTER THE RAIN. 147 
 
 over and over to my listening heart, as I look 
 out upon my garden after the rain. 
 
 "Their soul shall be like a watered garden." 
 
 *' Thou shalt be like a watered garden. 
 And like a spring of water, 
 Whose waters fail not." 
 
 And so I sit and think of all the blessedness 
 of heavenly rain, falling in due season upon the 
 heart; of soft showers, of still dews, and of un- 
 failing springs, of all the many ways in which 
 He who watereth the earth, refreshes also the 
 soul. In all these many ways has my little gar- 
 den been watered, and in ways as various are the 
 needs of thirsting spirits met. 
 
 There are some who make the unwise demand 
 that the visitations of the Spirit to their souls 
 should be overwhelming — sweeping all before 
 them, like tropical tempests. But for refresh- 
 ment and the quickening of growth, there is 
 nothing like the gentle shower. God's best 
 ways are quiet ways: and it is only when the 
 earth has been long parched, and the very 
 springs fail at their sources, that there is some- 
 times a need to have the great fountains of heav- 
 en unsealed, and the rain to descend in torrents. 
 
148 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 Sitting here with my Bible in hand, and turn- 
 ing from one passage to another where the rain 
 is spoken of, I am especially struck with its 
 being always recognized as a special and sover- 
 eign gift of God. We live in a universe of law, 
 and God Himself has been well pleased to place 
 His fixed ordinances even in His covenant of 
 mercy. "While the earth remaineth, seed-time 
 and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer 
 and winter, and day and night, shall not cease." 
 Not so with the winds and the rain. These 
 He reserves for His providential dealings, only 
 to a limited extent subjecting them to any 
 order. 
 
 I read then that for His people's sin " He 
 shutteth up the heaven that there be no rain " : 
 and again upon their repentance *' He giveth 
 rain" — *' He causeth it to rain whether for cor- 
 rection, for the land, or for mercy" — ** He saith 
 to the snow, 'Be thou on the earth,' and to the 
 small rain and the great rain of His strength." 
 All is as He saith. It is no chance then, nor the 
 working of a fixed law, that decides in every 
 storm of winter, which of the thousand forms of 
 snow crystals shall then fall; nor in the summer- 
 time whether it shall be the small rain or the 
 
AFTER THE RAIN. 149 
 
 great rain. The very size of the rain-drops is 
 ever as " He saith." 
 
 Nothing therefore in nature brings us so close 
 to the immediate decisions and present acts of 
 God the Creator as does the rain. Each spot 
 where it shall fall He also determines. "I caused 
 it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain 
 upon another city; one piece was rained upon, 
 and the piece whereupon it rained not, withered." 
 
 The barrenness of the Holy Land has long 
 witnessed to the truth of God's warning word. 
 
 '' And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken 
 diligently unto my commandments which I com- 
 mand you this day, to love the Lord your God, 
 and to serve Him with all your heart, and with 
 all your soul, 
 
 ''That I will give you the rain of your land in 
 his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, 
 that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy 
 wine, and thine oil. 
 
 "Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be 
 not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other 
 gods, and worship them; 
 
 ''And then the Lord's wrath be kindled against 
 you, and He shut up the heaven, that there be 
 
150 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit." 
 (Deut. xi. 13-17). 
 
 The fulfilment of this is all the more striking 
 that it is not the lack of rain, but the lack of 
 its timely distribution as ''the first rain and the 
 latter rain" that causes the present absence of 
 fertility. More rain it is claimed actually falls 
 each year in Palestine than upon any equal area 
 in the United States. The drouth and dearth 
 are due simply to the fact that at present there 
 is only one rainy season. The Prophet Jeremiah 
 distinctly assigns this as the cause: ''The show- 
 ers have been withholden, and there hath been 
 no latter rain" (Jer. iii. 3). 
 
 So too of days that are yet to come upon that 
 land Ezekiel prophesies, " I will cause the shower 
 to come down in his season; there shall be show- 
 ers of blessing" (Ezek. xxxiv. 26). And again 
 Zechariah writes, "Ask ye of the Lord rain in 
 the time of the latter rain; so the Lord shall 
 make bright clouds, and give them showers of 
 rain, to every one grass in the field" (Zech. x. i). 
 And most striking is it when the same prophet 
 announces that in that millennial time the Lord 
 will still so control the rain that the nations 
 which go not up to Jerusalem to keep the feast 
 
AFTER THE RAIN. 151 
 
 of tabernacles shall have none fall upon their 
 lands (See Zech. xiv. 16, 17). 
 
 But it is not by rain and showers alone that 
 God will water the land. Along with almost 
 every prophecy that foretells the future blessed- 
 ness of restored Israel, we find the promise of 
 fountains and rivers, while the entire context 
 indicates that this is to be understood literally. 
 Thus Isaiah tells us more than once how "in the 
 wilderness shall waters break out, and streams 
 in the desert"; while Ezekiel describes the won- 
 derful waters that flowing from the temple, are 
 to widen and deepen, and bring life along their 
 path, and healing even to the Dead Sea. And 
 yet again, Zechariah foretells still more wonderful 
 and convulsive physical changes that will place 
 Jerusalem upon a highway of waters, and connect 
 it thus with the two great seas upon the east 
 and the west. How it thrills me to sit here in 
 this little garden and read those words written 
 thousands of years ago, and waiting still for their 
 accomplishment, which in the end will come and 
 will not tarry. Do any of you ask what can 
 Judea be to me } Then I must answer that it is 
 much to our Lord. ** A land which the Lord thy 
 God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God 
 
152 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 are always upon it, from the beginning of the 
 year even unto the end of the year " (Deut. xi. 
 12). It is as plainly His elect land as Israel 
 is His elect people ; and to me nothing can be 
 more natural, as I see my own little garden 
 that I so love and care for refreshed by the 
 rain, than to consider sadly how His land still 
 lieth desolate; and then to think exultingly of 
 all the beauty and glory that shall yet fill it. 
 My lips involuntarily burst forth in the song of 
 Isaiah (Ixii. 5), 
 
 "For as a young man weddeth a virgin, 
 So shall thy Restorer wed thee; 
 And with the joy of a bridegroom in his bride, 
 So shall thy God rejoice in thee ! " 
 
 My Bible grows real to me in its most neg- 
 lected regions, as I see it thus link together 
 the past and the future, things earthly and 
 things heavenly. 
 
 But I must not overlook other passages which 
 speak of God's fatherly faithfulness in sending 
 rain upon the just and on the unjust. I linger 
 long over these beautiful and most suggestive 
 words of St. Paul at Lystra — 
 
 ''Who in times past suffered all nations to 
 walk in their own ways. 
 
AFTER THE RAIN, 153 
 
 '^ Nevertheless He left not Himself without 
 witness, in that He did good, and gave us rain 
 from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts 
 with food and gladness" (Acts xiv. 16, 17). 
 
 So while the people who had His law were 
 placed under that special training of reward and 
 punishment, which now gave and now withheld 
 their rain, those other nations who had it not, 
 and whom He suffered to walk in their own 
 ways, were all the time receiving this powerful 
 witness that there was a God of love — "rain 
 from heaven and fruitful seasons." How won- 
 derful that being what they were — and that St. 
 Paul elsewhere tells us in solemn, fearful words — 
 yet nevertheless God filled their hearts with food 
 and gladness ! What gladness was left for them — 
 our narrower thought might ask — but still God 
 made them even glad. So as I sit here in my 
 garden this morning after the rain, how can I 
 but think of all the heathen also, and of this 
 loving attitude of God towards them, as so 
 clearly preached to themselves by St. Paul ; 
 and how can I but offer the secret prayer that 
 in all our thoughts of the heathen, and in all 
 our messages to them, we may be truly the chil- 
 dren of our Father which is in Heaven. 
 
154 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 And now that we have seen what is the min- 
 istry of the rain for the Jew and for the Gentile, 
 let us learn finally what use the Bible makes of 
 it in teaching us who are of the Church of God. 
 
 In the sublime song of Moses, the oldest poem 
 in the world, we have as the first promise there 
 given by God, these rhythmic words, that sound 
 not unlike the falling rain itself, 
 
 "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, 
 My speech shall distil as the dew; 
 As the small rain upon the tender herb, 
 And as the showers upon the grass." 
 
 Deut. xxxii. 2. 
 
 Divine doctrine is then to the soul what the 
 rain is to the earth. Not the most perfect seed 
 in the most propitious soil, can ever reach its 
 full development without the rain of heaven; and 
 in proportion to its timely supply will be the 
 beauty and fertility of the land. The earthly 
 elements, however rich, can never suffice without 
 the heavenly aid; as most surely no soul that is 
 not constantly nourished by the Spirit of God 
 working through His word and truth can ever 
 be developed according to the eternal purpose. 
 
 Most remarkably is the analogy between the 
 
AFTER THE RAIN. 155 
 
 two processes sustained, even in minute modes. 
 It is a wonderful provision, which it is to be 
 feared many have never even thought about, that 
 the rain should fall in globules, and not as the 
 sheet of a cataract. The gentleness with which it 
 mostly falls so as to bring no harm to the tender 
 herbage, is one of the most perfect of the pro- 
 cesses of nature; while on the other hand the 
 time thus allowed for the absorption of drop after 
 drop, is usually so adjusted that there is little 
 waste of the treasure. 
 
 How I watched the rain as it fell yesterday 
 upon my newly mown grass. Not a blade was 
 overlooked. All around, with the utmost im- 
 partiality, each of the tiny drops stole into its 
 place, steadily, swiftly; and as eagerly the earth 
 received them, so that nowhere the rain stood in 
 little pools. How my thoughts followed them 
 chasing each other down to the thirsty roots, 
 while life began so visibly to course its upward 
 way. How green it grew with every hour of the 
 still falling rain; and this morning how glowing 
 and brilliant it was in the sunrise, with every 
 blade of grass crowned with a diamond. Even 
 so God does not let loose His truth in overwhelm- 
 ing torrents upon our souls. It is here a little 
 
156 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 and there a little as His word reaches our hearts. 
 Are they the words of His prophets, or apostles, 
 or more precious still, the teaching of our Lord 
 Himself — then each holy word falls softly on the 
 spirit, and there is not a thought or emotion or 
 hidden power in our being that does not drink 
 in the refreshment. One after another the rev- 
 elations of His love, and power, and purpose, and 
 of Himself, follow and follow still, sinking deeper 
 and deeper, as we eagerly receive them; and of 
 very necessity every grace is quickened from its 
 deepest root into new vigor of life. Most blessed 
 reality that His doctrine drops as the rain ! 
 
 I overheard this morning the counsel given to 
 a young Christian to ''Let doctrine alone." 
 Alas ! that its accepted sense should have come 
 to be that of cumbrous systems and formal plans ! 
 But such is not doctrine in the scriptural sense. 
 The doctrine that falls as the rain is '' the name 
 of the Lord ; " all that makes known to us His Per- 
 son, His character, His acts, His thoughts, His 
 love. These we receive into our inmost being, 
 and His divine nature is thus imparted to us, so 
 that Christ liveth in us, as the rain lives in all 
 our flowers and fruits and forests. Slowly and 
 surely our spiritual being expands as the words 
 
AFTER THE RAIN. 157 
 
 He Speaks to us become unto us spirit and life. 
 In proportion only to our receptivity can be our 
 return of new life to Him. 
 
 But some one asks sadly, " What if the rain 
 do not fall } What if the Spirit does not give us 
 these special seasons of refreshing .? What com- 
 fort is there for us, who knew indeed what it was 
 to be so watered in the bright spring-time of our 
 spiritual life, but who dwell now in a dry land, 
 and have no latter rain; who pray for showers and 
 yet they come not } " 
 
 An answer awaits us in nature that is in per- 
 fect harmony with the Word of God. Fertility 
 and growth attract the rain. Wherever it is so 
 drunk in, and comes forth in humid greenness — 
 whether it be of grass, or harvest fields, or wood- 
 lands, there the clouds will gather and the rain 
 fall. It is as our Lord taught us: "Whosoever 
 hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have 
 more abundance." 
 
 If, drinking in His rain as it fell oft upon you 
 at the first, you had brought forth the herbage 
 that is meet for Him whose husbandry you are, 
 then without fail His further and final blessings 
 had been given you. But what use did you make 
 of your spiritual refreshings in the past } Did 
 
158 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 you receive them selfishly, to let them evaporate 
 in some mere luxurious emotion ? or were they 
 wrought out in a holier life of loving service to 
 the Lord and to one another ? 
 
 Churches and communities sometimes bewail 
 their dearth and drought, and marvel why in the 
 days of old the showers of heaven were so abun- 
 dant. Ah, but how many godly men and women 
 in those days, stood like trees of righteousness, 
 and by their prayers and by their service, drew 
 down the blessing of God not only on them- 
 selves, but on others. As these have fallen 
 there are few of like loftiness of soul to take 
 their places. And when the forests are felled 
 we need not wonder if the fountains fail, and 
 the rain tarries. Most clearly it lies within the 
 scope of our spiritual power to reclaim these 
 blessings. 
 
 But how precious is that other part of the 
 promise that *' His speech shall distil as the 
 dew." Not every day can we have those extra- 
 ordinary refreshings which so uplift our souls; 
 nor would it be best for our growth. But con- 
 tinually may we enjoy the still sustenance of the 
 dew. It is one of the rarest exceptions when no 
 dew falls in my garden, and perhaps it is nour- 
 
AFTER THE RAIN. 159 
 
 ished even more in this way than by the rains. 
 As I go to my morning work among the flowers, 
 the dew rests everywhere, often as heavily as 
 though a shower had fallen — that is everywhere 
 that there is life to receive it; for I do not find 
 the dew upon my garden walks, nor on any bar- 
 ren spot. But every leaf is laden, and every 
 flower is fresh from this baptism by the Hand of 
 God. And then as I lightly stir the soil around 
 my flowers, where it is becoming hard and im- 
 pervious to air, these heavy dews contribute 
 their little quota of rich refreshing to the soil 
 itself. 
 
 ''Oh blessed dew of the speech of God." How 
 faithful and constant is thy coming ! How thou 
 visitest us in the still hours and in the hours of 
 shadow ! How dost thou utter thy wisdom al- 
 most inaudibly ! We see no cloud, we hear no 
 sound, and yet thy presence is with us and our 
 souls are rejoicing. Thy love bathes our souls 
 with delight. We bow down beneath its gentle 
 pressure in adoring gratitude. The fragrance of 
 our souls goes forth to thee as every pore of our 
 being opens at this soft touch. We are alone 
 with thee, and thou speakest to our hearts. 
 Thou canst not come to us thus in the broad 
 
:6o GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 light of the busy day, and we bless thee for the 
 still hours in which our souls are charged anew 
 with life. 
 
 Whenever in the hours of night I waken to 
 hear the winds soughing in the thick boughs of 
 the oaks above my roof, I know that I shall find 
 no dew in the morning. It falls only in stillness. 
 And if my soul be perturbed with any wind of 
 passion, or any restlessness, how well I know 
 that I am not in that receptive state in which 
 God's heavenly dew can distil upon me. How 
 can the still small voice of His speech be heard, 
 if I be not quiet } 
 
 And how often is it literally in the night sea- 
 son that these spiritual refreshments come. How 
 full are the Psalms and Prophets of this. **I 
 have remembered thy name O Lord in the 
 night" — "With my soul have I desired thee in 
 the night." 
 
 "My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; 
 And my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: 
 When I remember thee upon my bed, 
 And meditate on thee in the night watches." 
 
 Ps. Ixiii. 5, 6. 
 
 But most wonderful of all are those words that 
 
AFTER THE RAIN. i6l 
 
 tell US how true it was of our Lord also, that **the 
 dew lay all night upon His branches." ''And it 
 came to pass in those days that He went out 
 into a mountain to pray, and continued all night 
 in the prayer of God." — A unique expression for 
 a prayer unlike other prayers, and implying as 
 Prof Godet has so beautifully shown, the most 
 intimate and loving communion between the Fa- 
 ther and the Son. 
 
 A dear friend who has been often in my garden 
 sent me lately these sweet thoughts of McCheyne 
 on this subject — 
 
 ** In Hosea the gift of the Holy Spirit is com- 
 pared to dew, * I will be as the dew unto Israel.' 
 Now it is peculiarly true of the dew that it 
 moistens every thing where it falls ; it leaves 
 not one leaf unvisited; there is not a tiny blade 
 of grass on which the diamond drops do not de- 
 scend; every leaf and stem of the bush is bur- 
 dened with the precious load; just so it is pe- 
 culiarly true of the Spirit, that there is not a 
 faculty, there is not an affection, or power, or 
 passion of the soul, on which the Spirit does not 
 descend — working through all, refreshing, reviv- 
 ing, renewing, recreating all. And if we are 
 really in Christ Jesus, abiding in Him by faith. 
 
1 62 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 we are bound to expect this supernatural power 
 to work through our understanding." 
 
 But while my garden rejoices in all these bless- 
 ings, rain and showers and dews, still such is the 
 excessive heat and dryness of this climate that 
 without one more gift it would often be desolate. 
 But as I have said before, the very centre of my 
 little domain is '*a spring of water whose waters 
 fail not." This it is that makes glad my garden. 
 And now I must at last redeem my promise to 
 give its little history. 
 
 In accepting this location as my future home, 
 the one pressing necessity to be met first of all, 
 was the supply of water, and some friends came 
 over with me -to discuss the matter. The valley 
 below me was full of its healing springs, and 
 other springs of pure water gushed all along the 
 hill-.side. But from this one spot, so far beyond 
 the others in all else, the gift of water seemed 
 strangely withheld. So we stood rather sadly in 
 the little hollow yonder, looking at the bracken 
 and rushes at our feet. 
 
 *'This is at least a damp spot," I said; *'why 
 may there not be a spring below the surface ? " 
 
 My good friend smiled a little as he answered : 
 ''Because if it could be there at all it would be 
 
AFTER THE RAIN. 163 
 
 there already. The soil is so sandy that there 
 is nothing to hinder it from springing up." 
 
 To this wisdom I could make no answer; but 
 just then his little boy who had come with a 
 garden trowel in his hand, stooped to dig up 
 a pretty fern, and as our eyes followed his work 
 we saw as the roots were lifted, bright drops of 
 sparkling water bubbling up. ''A good omen at 
 least," I urged — " If a little springs up, why not 
 more } " So a man was soon set to w^ork. A 
 space was excavated ; the water rushed in and 
 filled it, and when allowed to settle, it was per- 
 fectly clear and pure. But it failed to overflow, 
 and therefore it was not yet a spring. Again he 
 dug deeper, but with the same result. It was 
 clear and full to the brim, but after a long wait- 
 ing, there was no more. There was plainly some 
 mystery about the matter, and one after another 
 those who were counted wise in such matters 
 came to examine it — but could give no explana- 
 tion. Still my instructions were — "Dig deeper." 
 This had gone on for some days, the wonder 
 constantly increasing how there should be so 
 much water and no more, when as I stood 
 watching the workman he gave a sudden shout, 
 
 "Ah, lady, I've got it !" 
 
.64 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 " Got what ? " I asked. 
 
 ** An old underdrain," he answered, as he went 
 on to explain how in the first settlement of the 
 country, a very rude but effectual underdrain was 
 often made by laying the trunks or branches of 
 trees in a trench, and then covering them with 
 earth. Such a one had been laid here, it was 
 plain, from a once copious spring; but now as 
 soon as the axe had done its work, and the tree 
 was removed, it ceased to steal away this treas- 
 ure of waters, and to carry them along this hid- 
 den pathway to the broad stream in the valley. 
 And now up gushed at once the living waters, 
 and overflowed, and overflowed, as though they 
 would sweep all before them. It has flowed ever 
 since, and so abundantly that it could quench the 
 thirst of thousands, daily. It meets all the needs 
 of my home, and all the needs of my flowers, and 
 when it has fed the little fountain below, and per- 
 formed all its manifold services, there is still the 
 half of it to flow away. 
 
 I always associate this deep spring with that 
 promise of our Lord — ''The water that I shall 
 give him, shall be in him a well of water, spring- 
 ing up into everlasting life." Yet in reality, how 
 few know either the fulness or the overflow. 
 
AFTER THE RAIN. 165 
 
 How few can call the gift of the Spirit to their 
 souls, a well for depth, and a fountain for fresh- 
 ness. How few can claim in their inner life, the 
 spontaneity and the unwearied energy of a foun- 
 tain. 
 
 It is not every home that has an unfailing 
 spring. The majority of the country-folk are 
 well content with pumps: and it is the pump 
 rather than the fountain, that may best repre- 
 sent the activity of a multitude of Christian 
 workers. We all know the law of a pump; 
 that it is simply a stroke and a stream, an- 
 other stroke and another stream; and then when 
 you stop, it stops. In like manner we see all 
 around us, effort, effort, with blessing following, 
 but short-lived blessing: then redoubled effort 
 till the laborers grow weary. And yet a pump 
 is a good thing. I am only saying that a foun- 
 tain is far better. 
 
 I have, however, a most vivid recollection of 
 an old pump, familiar to my childhood, that had 
 a sad trick of running down. How often have I 
 stood looking on, as the vain attempt was made 
 to raise it. Up and down the strong hands would 
 ply the handle, swifter and swifter, till the sigh 
 of utter impatience would be heard. And then as 
 
66 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 the last resource, some water would be brought 
 from another well, with which to start it; but 
 still, as soon as it was left to itself, down it 
 would go, and the same process have to be re- 
 newed. Is the antitype far to seek? The soul that 
 has lost all its own power, and that can only bor- 
 row a brief stimulus from some other full soul, 
 and then sink back into its own emptiness — there 
 is something utterly wrong about it all. Such 
 lives are not according to the purpose and pro- 
 vision of our Lord. 
 
 The old prophets were full of the thought of 
 spiritual spontaneity. The first psalm is alive 
 with it: the tree is planted by the rivers of 
 water, and that secures its growth and fruitful- 
 ness. But nowadays, Christians seem ever sink- 
 ing into a stupor from which they try to rouse 
 themselves by galvanic shocks. Only a second- 
 class work can ever be. the result. The first 
 great need of a servant of Christ is an inner 
 and impelling power, like a fountain springing 
 up. Human energies are full of restless effort: 
 the Spirit of God is full of quiet power. We can 
 never find any thing that will supply its place 
 in the work of God. 
 
 And why is it, we all ask sorrowfully, that we 
 
AFTER THE RAIN. 167 
 
 see so little of His power. We know that as 
 truly as we are Christ's, we have the Spirit of 
 God, that He does dwell already in each believ- 
 ing heart. There can be no staying of the hand 
 of God in pouring out abundantly, this His best 
 gift. Into every spirit renewed from above the 
 living waters, surely come. But alas, for all our 
 underdrains, that will not let them gush and 
 flow. Some other affection, or interest, or pur- 
 suit, enters into the life, and the stream disap- 
 pears. It matters very little what it is, so it be 
 any thing coming between us and our devotion 
 to our Lord. I can not tell whether that tree, 
 which for a hundred years had caused one spring 
 less to be numbered along the hill-side, were oak 
 or pine. It matters not, it was an underdrain. 
 And ask me not to say, whether this or that 
 pleasure or pursuit be wrong; but let us ask 
 ourselves rather, ''does it at all withdraw my 
 heart from God ? " A little thing or a great, an 
 evil thing or a good, may alike prove the hin- 
 drance. We can not at once live unto ourselves 
 and unto Him who died for us. And what is 
 there so good, that it is worth the loss of the 
 living waters, gushing in our hearts, and over- 
 flowing; that can for a moment, be worth a full 
 
.68 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 and overflowing, and abiding love and joy and 
 peace. God give us all the grace to go down 
 below the surface of our lives, till somewhere in 
 its hidden depths, we find our hindrance, and 
 thrust it away forever; and so may He fulfil to 
 each of us. His gracious promise — ''Thou shalt 
 be like a watered garden, and like a spring of 
 water, whose waters fail not." 
 
YIII. 
 
VIII. 
 Wije iLife aSegonli. 
 
 "Shadow and shine is life, flower and thorn." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 " There is no death ! The leaves may fall, 
 The flowers may fade and pass away; 
 They only wait, through wintry hours. 
 The coming of the May." 
 
 Sir E. Bulwer-Lytton. 
 
 I have come back to my long-deserted cottage 
 and garden. I left them just as the frost began 
 its deadly undoing of my loving labors, and the 
 tender things were hurried off to their winter 
 housing. I stood and watched them, as with 
 all their bright beauty, they were carried away 
 from my sight, to be seen no more, till another 
 spring should come; and then closed the door 
 and came within, saying to myself, ''And that 
 is life, to hold our treasures a brief summer-time, 
 
172 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 and then to miss them; to abound awhile in all 
 bright things, and then suddenly to be stript and 
 desolate. And yet that which is so taken out 
 of life, is not dead, but living; is not lost, but 
 cared for more tenderly elsewhere, beyond the 
 reach of wind and frost, to be given back to us 
 some coming day, in a new beauty, and with a 
 new joy. 
 
 I have been away since that day, in more sun- 
 ny regions, among the hills and the mountains, 
 watching the glory of the October forests. Surely 
 none who have seen them this year, can soon for- 
 get the extraordinary charms they have put on, 
 as though celebrating some jubilee among the 
 years; now arrayed in soft soothing harmonies 
 of color, and then startling us with some group 
 of rich and marvellous contrasts. It is almost 
 enough indeed to reconcile us to their death, to 
 see such glory in their dying; one might apply 
 to them the eulogy pronounced on the thane of 
 Cawdor, 
 
 "Nothing in his life 
 Became him like the leaving it." 
 
 But to look down from heights where the eye 
 could sweep over thousands of roods of wood- 
 land, to see those ruby and golden trees set like 
 
THE LIFE BEYOND. 17^ 
 
 flower-beds in the deep valleys, to see the hills 
 turn to glowing mosaics, and the mountains pur- 
 pled with them, till in the sunset glow they paled 
 " though rose and amethyst," — all this was to 
 have some little earnest of the glory of the new 
 heavens and new earth. 
 
 This morning I have re-entered my study. 
 Truly the summer is ended. The blazing wood- 
 fire is heaped high upon the hearth, for warmth 
 and cheer, and the shutters are folded back to 
 give leave to the sunshine to slant in across the 
 floor. The days for my arbor are over. 
 
 I could hardly bear to go out and see it — the 
 helpless death and dying everywhere, half cov- 
 ered with heaps of fallen leaves, with bits of 
 broken boughs tossed in their midst. I hurried 
 on, trying to look only at the little life that still 
 lingered, and gathering in m.y hand a few brave 
 and loyal blossoms. In the days of my summer 
 wealth, I would have disdained them; but as 
 they stand upon my table, they seem as precious 
 as the last smile on the face of one we love. 
 There are only a few sprigs of green or purpled 
 leaves, some graceful grasses draping the vase, 
 and then for flowers, sweet alyssum and mig- 
 nonette (not very fragrant now), the petunia, 
 
74 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 and Drummond phlox, and a few bright faced 
 pansies; and last of all, a few sprays of forget- 
 me-not; alas, what ails the little blue eyes, for 
 they are reddened as if with weeping. Scanty 
 gleanings these, and yet they suffice to fulfil 
 their blessed mission: 
 
 " To comfort man, to whisper hope. 
 Whene'er his faith is dim; 
 For whoso careth for the flowers, 
 Will much more care for him." 
 
 As I have placed them thus together, I have 
 found that this simple act, touched a chord of 
 sympathy with heart after heart. I looked round 
 upon one after another in the wide circle of my 
 friends, of whom some in advancing years, many in 
 the mid-day of life, and not a few even at its very 
 dawn, had found themselves stripped of almost 
 all that had been the light of their eyes. And 
 yet how had I seen them cheerfully gather up 
 the little that remained, and thank God without 
 a murmur, that He still permitted them so much 
 of brightness. 
 
 And to you, and such as you, shall this hour 
 be sacred. The garden was for the glad, that 
 they might learn to temper joy with thoughtful- 
 
THE LIFE BEYOND. 175 
 
 ness. But now the welcome to my fire-side, and 
 these remnants of my garden graith, is for those 
 only, who have known sorrow. 
 
 Stricken ones, with wounds too tender for any 
 but God's own hand to touch, come in, if haply 
 He Himself may speak to your hearts. Lonely 
 ones, draw hither in thought, that so some lov- 
 ing smile may light on you. Weary ones, who 
 have found that time is a slow healer, enter, that 
 we may seek some balm of holy patience. And 
 ye who have not so much as dared to say, "I suf- 
 fer," but must hide it from all eyes, here is your 
 sheltered corner. And as we thus gather, to 
 learn the last lesson from His book of flowers, 
 which surely must be the hardest and yet the 
 wisest, may God give us each the grace to know 
 the sacredness of all true sorrow, and to touch it 
 with no careless hand; and may He give us all 
 the grace not to refuse to be comforted. 
 
 And yet, dear friends, we should not do wisely 
 were we to speak much of grief itself. The grief 
 is the unalterable fact ; to the world an awful 
 necessity, but to those who are not of the world, 
 a faithful ** needs be," the meaning of which they 
 set themselves humbly to learn. 
 
 Nor will we seek our deepest lessons first. 
 
176 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 As I have considered to-day, how many losses 
 besides those of bereavement, life must meet 
 with as it speeds on its way, how the unpity- 
 ing frost seizes one blossom after another, I have 
 thought how wise it were to bear this in mind in 
 the early seed sowing and planting, and to cul- 
 tivate especially such pleasures and pursuits as 
 we may hope to retain the longest. 
 
 Come with me for a moment to these wide 
 south windows, and let your eye sweep along 
 that thickly wooded hill — "a hanging wood" 
 as it is called in England. The brilliant tints 
 have all passed; only a few pale clarets still 
 linger. But you can not fail to see that the 
 pine-trees make the glory now. They were 
 barely noticed in the crowded green of summer; 
 now they stand up in all their majesty. And 
 along the more open hill, how beautiful are the 
 groups of fir and cedar. How deep and rich 
 their noontide shadows on the grass. What 
 were autumn and winter without our evergreens; 
 and what were age without the sympathies and 
 affections that no time can chill, and that never 
 can reach their highest value save through some 
 other loss. 
 
 By the way, did you ever think out the im- 
 
THE LIFE BEYOND. 1 77 
 
 port of that beautiful promise in Isaiah, "In- 
 stead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree ? " 
 Hosea says, ''I am like a green fir-tree." In 
 my mind the association of this tree with that 
 which it is like, is so vivid that I soon forget 
 the fir-tree, for the reverence that comes over 
 me for the good and great of earth. In all that 
 we are now looking at, of whatever height, you 
 notice that each has a leader pointing directly 
 upward. That always says to me, *' This one 
 thing I do" — *'One thing have I desired of the 
 Lord, that will I seek after." The Christian has 
 always one heavenly aim higher than all others. 
 And then beneath that leader, in what perfect 
 balance and symmetry the boughs spread out, — 
 like the fully rounded, much embracing life that 
 should be ours. As with each year the leader 
 rises higher, so is a new circle of boughs formed, 
 and every old circle widened; — like the ever-in- 
 creasing interests and growing breadth of sym- 
 pathy, which are so sure to follow a true devoted- 
 ness to God. 
 
 "Where Thou art most 
 Beloved, is room for all ! the heart grows wide 
 That holdeth Thee ! a heaven where none doth 
 Upon the other." 
 
178 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 And last of all the fir-tree is evergreen; — yes, 
 even brighter now than in the summer. How 
 well I remember those noble trees as they grew 
 upon their native Scandinavian hills, in such lux- 
 uriance and grandeur as are never seen here. 
 They alone, would make any land beautiful. 
 And oh, how beautiful would the whole earth 
 be, if each of God's children were like a fir-tree ! 
 "But your poor heart is more like the thorn" — 
 did you say } Ah well, that is no hindrance to 
 His blessing you, and making you a blessing. 
 It is this very change that He has promised; — 
 ''Instead of the thorn shall spring up the fir-tree." 
 This is His everlasting sign that He has said 
 shall not be cut off. Let Him at once replant 
 your heart and life. 
 
 But look now at the grace of my elm-tree. 
 See the bold springing arms and interlacing 
 boughs, now that the last leaf is gone, and mark 
 that bright aureola of flame that circles its lofty 
 trunk, where the crimsoned stems of the creeper 
 are still clinging. How the eye never wearies 
 in following all the perfect tracery against the 
 blue sky. It has seemed to me almost more 
 delightful than the summer greenness. And 
 have you never seen in adversity, the true man 
 
THE LIFE BEYOND. 1 79 
 
 Stand out like that, not only in majesty but in 
 grace, quite unharmed by the loss of all that 
 was adventitious, and never until then, fully seen 
 and known ? 
 
 I am sure that you noticed as you entered, 
 that cut-leaved birch near the walk, with the 
 silver bark of its most graceful trunk, and its 
 brown pendulous branchlets, shimmering through 
 the pale gold of its rapidly thinning leaves: — 
 and does it not remind you of the true woman's 
 self, never so abounding in delicate grace and 
 rare beauty, as when she seems to the common 
 eye to have outlived them? 
 
 The oaks too — only look for a moment up 
 into the midst of those grand old arms, that al- 
 ways bring to my mind the most vigorous verse 
 that Cowper ever wrote — fragment as it is — his 
 "Yardley Oak." 
 
 "A giant bulk 
 Of girth enormous, with moss-cushioned root 
 Upheaved above the sod, and sides embossed 
 With prominent wens globose." 
 
 But covered as they now are, only with dull 
 leathery leaves clinging to the last, and giving 
 them a more death-like look, it is not death that 
 
l8o GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 I behold, but essential life. Not one of them 
 is yielding to decay. To not one could it pos- 
 sibly be said, *' Cut it down; why cumbereth it 
 the ground 1 " — for all that each has been to me 
 in the past, that, and even far more will each be 
 to me in the future. I can not think as much 
 of their past life, as of their life that is to be. 
 
 That which my mind has been most busy over 
 this morning, is the future of my garden. Ac- 
 cepting this necessity of a passing dreariness, I 
 am not occupied with that. I am looking on- 
 ward, storing away in safety seeds and bulbs, 
 and directing the decay around me to be gath- 
 ered up to minister to richer life. Out of these 
 fallen mouldering leaves shall yet leap the life 
 that shall be "beautiful exceedingly." I am 
 planning for another summer that is to be. To- 
 morrow I must go forth and plant some of my 
 bulbs in the chilly soil. As I do it, I shall have 
 before me a vision of hope. I shall see the 
 swelling buds. I shall hear the singing of birds. 
 The great joy of a new life will fill my heart. 
 No, it is not all ended, and here upon the thresh- 
 old of death, seems the true beginning of the 
 new year. Now every plan is matured, every 
 purpose settled; and very much must now be 
 
THE LIFE BEYOND. i8l 
 
 done if I am to have any real delight in another 
 summer. In the midst of the gloom, I summon 
 all my skill to the happy task of making ready 
 for that bright future. 
 
 And thus it seems to me that in any true view 
 of life, the coming on of age brings out into such 
 prominence the life beyond, that instead of weary 
 retrospect, a bright anticipation fills the heart; 
 and all of this life assumes to the eternal life, a 
 relation so like that of infancy to maturity, that 
 the spirit can indulge in the most eager dreams 
 of youth. Blessed "second childhood " this, for 
 all who find it. We lose most precious hours 
 when we only sit down in our gardens to brood 
 over their desolations. Listen to this earnest 
 remonstrance from a woman's soul: — 
 
 "Blaspheme not thou thy sacred life, nor turn 
 O'er joys that God hath for a season lent 
 Perchance to try thy spirit, and its bent, 
 Effeminate soul and base — weakly to mourn. 
 There lies no desert in the land of life; 
 For e'en that tract that barrenest doth seem, 
 Labored of thee in faith and hope, shall teem 
 With heavenly harvests, and rich gatherings, rife. 
 Haply no more, music and mirth and love, 
 And glorious things of old and younger art, 
 Shall of thy days make one perpetual feast: 
 
1 82 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 But when these bright companions all depart, 
 
 Lay there thy head upon the ample breast 
 
 Of Hope, — and thou shalt hear the angels sing above."* 
 
 And by the side of this let me place another 
 sonnet, by Mrs. Browning, entitled, '' Patience 
 Taught by Nature": — 
 
 ♦* * O dreary life ! ' we cry, * O dreary life ! ' 
 And still the generations of the birds 
 Smg through our sighing, and the flocks and herds 
 Serenely live, while we are keeping strife, 
 With Heaven's tme purpose on us, as a knife 
 Against which we may struggle. Ocean girds 
 Unslackened, the dry land: savannah-swards 
 Un weary sweep: hills watch unwoni; and rife, 
 Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees, 
 To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass 
 In their old glory. O Thou God of old ! 
 Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these, — 
 But so much patience, as a blade of grass 
 Grows by, contented through the heat and cold." 
 
 But if my work of seed sowing called for care, 
 how much more this, the planting of my bulbs. 
 I must choose the sunniest spot and the ripest 
 soil. I must place them where the heavy rains 
 will not wash them, nor the frosts lift them. 
 
 * By Frances Anne Kemble. 
 
THE LIFE BEYOND. 183 
 
 And only with such painstaking as very few are 
 willing to give, will some of the loveliest suc- 
 ceed. You see that little package on my table 
 covered with foreign stamps. It contains anem- 
 ones that have just reached me from Rome. 
 There is something exhilarating to me in the 
 thought that I am to have some of the flowers 
 of "the eternal city" — that the dust of past 
 ages wrought into a flower, and then treasured 
 in these dry and knotted and most unshapely 
 of all tuberous roots, is now to ally itself with 
 the dust of this modern world, and grace my 
 garden as they graced those southern hills. 
 This has made indeed the poetry of my garden, 
 that it was so rich in delightful associations. 
 Many a home where I have been the happy 
 guest, has sent some of its treasures hither, to be 
 welcomed and beloved for the giver's sake. 
 There are few things here that have not an 
 honored pedigree. These roses, still so full of 
 buds that are waiting for the Indian summer, 
 speak of the untiring devotion of one who has 
 made it her delight to shed brightness along 
 my path, by all loving, thoughtful kindnesses. 
 My flowers grow almost human in this way, and 
 can you wonder that I sometimes stoop to kiss 
 
1 84 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 them as though they were the beloved givers. 
 So too, all those fair lands beyond the sea where 
 my feet have wandered, have each something 
 here to keep them in remembrance; and how 
 fitly do they speak to me of all the varied in- 
 fluences out of the past, and out of the present, 
 from afar, and near, that come to enrich our lives. 
 So, my little Roman pilgrims, you are more 
 than welcome to these western shores, and you 
 will carry me back to all that Rome has ever 
 been to me; to her old historians and orators 
 and poets, to the words that were so largely the 
 food of my young intellectual life. In you I shall 
 have living links that will make Virgil and Hor- 
 ace blossom again in the garden of memory, and 
 revive the olden spell of Tacitus and Cicero. I 
 can not cast them aside, and I need not; for do 
 I not find the truth of what Keble has taught us — 
 
 "What seemed an idol hymn, now breathes of Thee, 
 Tuned by Faith's ear to some celestial melody." 
 
 "There's not a strain to memory dear, 
 Nor flower in classic grove, 
 There's not a sweet note warbled here, 
 But minds us of Thy Love. 
 O Lord, our Lord, and spoiler of our foes, 
 There is no light but Thine; with Thee all beauty glows." 
 
THE LIFE BEYOND. 1 85 
 
 As I plant my autumn bulbs, it seems so 
 strange in one respect. In the spring I watch 
 every thing; but these I leave unwatched. I 
 give all possible present care, and then go far 
 away, and not an eye will look on, or a hand 
 touch them, for nearly half a year. It seems 
 such an act of faith; — and how like it is to the 
 many things that loved and desired, are yet left 
 behind, not buried, but planted , biding that time 
 when all that has been committed in faith and 
 hope to Him, who both died and rose again, will 
 be ours. 
 
 "Thou bringest all again; with Thee 
 
 Is light, is space, is breadth and room 
 For each thing fair, beloved and free 
 To have its hour of life and bloom. 
 
 "Each heart's deep instinct unconfessed; 
 Each lowly wish, each daiing claim; 
 All, all that life hath long repressed, 
 Unfolds, undreading blight or blame. 
 
 "Thy reign eternal will not cease; 
 
 Thy years are sure, and glad, and slow; 
 Within Thy mighty world of peace 
 
 The humblest flower hath leave to blow." 
 
 Who that should look upon this earth for the 
 
 first time, on some dull November day, seeing 
 
1 86 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 only its leafless trees and bare patches of soil, 
 would ever venture to dream of all that it will 
 be, when no more unclothed but clothed upon. 
 But this earthly life must surely bear much the 
 same relation to the heavenly, that winter bears 
 to summer; and most foolishly do we often judge 
 of it, having never seen that glory beyond. As 
 we look over the world with all its wrongs and 
 sorrows, its darkness and degradation, how many 
 are ready to ask, ''Is life worth living.?" But 
 though God Himself may seem to have turned 
 away from the work of His hands, and to visit it 
 no more, He never fo7^gets. His plans are set- 
 tled, His purposes sure. When once our eyes 
 see ''the end of the Lord," then we shall know, 
 that "the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender 
 mercy." I have been strangely touched to-day 
 in reading some words of Dora Greenwell in a 
 little poem called, ''Agnes among the Sisters." 
 
 "My heart runs o'er 
 With pity and with love, for these were made 
 For noble creatures, that within the shade 
 Kept by man's fraud, and cheated of their right 
 In the great Father's heritage of light 
 And warmth, have shrunk to mildewed forms like these ; 
 So will they die, methinks, and never knovf 
 
THE LIFE BEYOND. 187 
 
 What life was made of, till they pass above 
 
 To sun themselves forever in the love 
 
 Whose blessed reflex they have missed below.'''' 
 
 To how many others one might apply these 
 words. The great burden of human sorrow would 
 become insupportable to us, did we not learn ha- 
 bitually to look at the things which are not seen. 
 
 My chief remaining work in my garden this 
 autumn, will be pruning and ''cutting back." 
 My choicest and most fruitful vines will have to 
 suffer most. My sweet roses will be cut down 
 nearly to the root. I fondly imagine them en- 
 dowed with consciousness for a moment, and 
 looking at me in amazement, at such a return 
 for all their fruit and flowers; to be touched not 
 at one point only, but at all points — to find their 
 growth arrested, and life driven back upon itself, 
 as though its energies were not at all wanted. 
 " Dost thou indeed slay us .^ " — they seem to ask. 
 But lest we should say it — our great Husband- 
 man speaks as He touches us, — '* Every branch 
 that beareth fruit, I purge it that it may bring 
 forth more fruit." It has been well said — *' Some 
 of the grandest work which God in the interests 
 of His kingdom has to accomplish, can be trusted 
 only to those, who broken and crushed by earth's 
 
1 88 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 disappointments and failures, nevertheless rise 
 out of it all to say, ' I am crucified with Christ, 
 nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth 
 in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, 
 I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved 
 me and gave Himself for me,' and 
 
 "'Who for all loss high recompense will give; 
 Nor now unheeding marks our bitter smart 
 When dies our project, that His plan may live.' " 
 
 It has often occurred to me that if Christians 
 would regard a little more the analogy of nature, 
 they might be spared a vast deal of self-reproach 
 that is quite unmerited. As it is, if permitted 
 for once to render some blessed service to the 
 Lord, forthwith the whole life is tested by that, 
 and its subsequent uselessness deplored. But 
 while Faber is right when he says, '' We do per- 
 haps a tenth of the work for God which we might 
 do," still God only requires the best of His trees 
 to bring forth its fruit in its season. Once doing 
 that, what matters it that for a whole year it can 
 not repeat the act. It needs, and so God gives, 
 that little space of rest; and oftenest too it needs 
 to pass through a second year, in which it yields 
 very little, but is gathering up its forces to be 
 
THE LIFE BEYOND. 189 
 
 ready to yield much fruit again. If this plan be 
 thwarted by artificial means, and the poor tree 
 pressed into constant bearing, it soon sinks ex- 
 hausted; as many a servant of God does, worn 
 out before his time. 
 
 A more real trial of faith is this: that the life- 
 work at longest is so soon over; that at the mo- 
 ment often when one seems fully trained and 
 skilful, then he is set aside, and another less skil- 
 ful takes up the work. Or on the other hand, 
 however serviceable the work has seemed, yet 
 the growth of wisdom puts it all to shame, so 
 that one is tempted to regard it as utterly use- 
 less. Improved methods of work, new ardor in 
 the workers, and grand new successes, cast a 
 suspicion of failure on all that has preceded 
 them. Yet the poorer work may have been the 
 sufficient scaffolding, and in ways we know not 
 of, *'our failures are worked into the texture of 
 the eternal plans, which can not fail and never 
 falter." 
 
 Meanwhile, as to our true place in the contin- 
 uous work of the world, I think there is a most 
 obvious lesson taught us in the successive circles 
 of growth in a tree. Each has to give place for 
 fresher life to enter; but always that which has 
 
190 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 become effete in one way, acquires new power in 
 another. It can never again repeat its work of 
 conveying the nourishment, and so increasing 
 the growth of the tree. But while in that sense 
 it ceases to live, it is no less a portion of the liv- 
 ing tree. It is a part henceforth of that tower of 
 strength, of that column, which uplifts the fresher 
 and tenderer growth. So all that God's power 
 and love have wrought in past ages, is now our 
 stay and strength, while He works anew in us for 
 wider growth. Each generation counts one cir- 
 cle in this living tree. Each of us counts one 
 fibre. This continuity of life is a most precious 
 thing to realize, whether it be as individuals look- 
 ing back to our forefathers, or as the Church look- 
 ing back through the long line of growth till we 
 find Christ the beginning and the centre. The 
 strength of the past is our strength. And as the 
 work and responsibilities and perils of each suc- 
 ceeding age in which the tree rises higher and 
 higher, are sure to increase, so does God increase 
 His grace, upholding us with more of His might, 
 and nourishing us from wider sources. 
 
 Little leaf up among the wild winds, trembling 
 in thy weakness, and drooping with the fierce 
 heat, fear not ! — Christ will keep thee green by 
 
THE LIFE BEYOXD. 191 
 
 pouring' fresh currents of life into thy veins, and 
 He will sustain thee by all that strength which 
 He gave once to others, and now adds to thine. 
 All that Christ has ever been for His whole 
 Church, He is for thee — one man, one woman 
 only, one leaf upon that tree. And it is thy 
 blessed privilege, small as thou art, to be both 
 ministered unto and to minister, so that the 
 whole tree may make its increase with the in- 
 crease of God. 
 
 And now as we turn away our eyes at last 
 from my withered garden, waiting for its new 
 life — can we not also wait .'' and as we wait can 
 we not rejoice } 
 
 Yes, one at least rejoices. It seems to her so 
 good and glorious to look thus to the life be- 
 yond, that her heart is too full of praise to suffer 
 it to be pent up in silence. She passes over to 
 the organ, and setting free its utmost volume of 
 rich sound, she bids it help her lift up the voice 
 to the God of Hope who will hereafter so fully 
 triumph over all death and sorrow: — 
 
 "Hark Avhat a sound, and too divine for hearing, 
 Stirs on the earth and trembles in the air! 
 Is it the thunder of the Lord's appearing ? 
 Is it the music of His people's prayer? 
 
192 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 'Surely He cometh, and a thousand voices 
 
 Sliout to the saints and to the deaf are dumb; 
 
 Surely He cometh, and the earth rejoices 
 
 Glad in His coming who hath sworn, I come. 
 
 'This hath He done, and shall we not adore Him? 
 
 This shall He do, and can we still despair? 
 Come let us quickly fling ourselves before Him, 
 Cast at His feet the burthen of our care, 
 
 ' Flash from our eyes the glow of our thanksgiving, 
 Glad and regretful, confident and calm, 
 
 Then through all life and what is after living 
 Thrill to the tireless music of a psalm. 
 
 *Yea, thro' life, death, thro' sorrow and thro' sinning 
 
 He shall suffice me, for He hath sufficed : 
 Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning, 
 Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ."* 
 
 As heart and voice soared upward each eye was 
 lifted also — and at that moment I saw what I 
 had never so seen before. Above the organ 
 hung a picture, a gift from the city of the golden 
 gate. The massive frame held simply a large 
 cross of the choicest abelone-shell, draped with 
 the most exquisite of sea-weeds. Just then the 
 light of the fully opened window streamed in 
 upon it, lighting up the cross till it shone like 
 
 * "St. Paul," by Frederick W. H. Myers. 
 
THE LIFE BEYOND. 193 
 
 one of the pearl gates of heaven, while it brought 
 out in the most distinct yet delicate relief every 
 tissue of the fair frail ,sea flowers. I had always 
 counted it among my treasures, but now its 
 beauty and significance shone in a new light. 
 
 Yes, God makes a garden for Himself in the 
 very sea. " Whatsoever the Lord pleased that did 
 He, in heaven, and in earth, m the sea, and in 
 all deep placesT Down in those dark depths, 
 away from all human sight, it pleased Him to 
 create this marvel of beauty. The chill waves 
 could not thwart Him as He built for the hum- 
 blest of His creatures a house of pearl; and in 
 the midst of the bitter brine, beating restlessly. 
 He nourished these fragile flowers. 
 
 How transfigured they look as they are lifted 
 up upon the cross ! Yes, blessed Lord, Thy cross 
 took Thee down into the deep, where all the bil- 
 lows and the waves went over Thee. Thou 
 couldst say as none other, ''Out of the depths 
 have I cried unto Thee, O God." But now Thy 
 cross is no more in the great darkness, but 
 stands jewelled with light. It is no more in the 
 depth, but highly exalted; and there is nothing 
 so little, and nothing so hidden, that thou wilt 
 not lift it up in triumph on Thy cross till it shine 
 
:94 GARDEN GRAITH. 
 
 in Thy glory. Thy suffering is finished forever, 
 but Thy redemptive reign is not yet ended. Thou 
 art ''expecting," and we ^re ''waiting." Thou 
 art ascended now, but what is it but that Thou 
 didst first descend into the lower parts of the 
 earth. Thou couldst go nowhere save to lead 
 captivity captive; and when cometh the end then 
 they that bow before Thee shall be " those in 
 heaven, and those on earth, and those under the 
 earth." Alike out of the depths of our anguish, 
 and out of the depths of Thy universe, canst Thou 
 bring the trophies of Thy dying love, and Thine 
 all-sufficient sacrifice. Lord Jesus, what sudden 
 light may yet flash upon the glory of Thy cross ! 
 What poor despised things may yet be glorified 
 together with Thee ! 
 
 The last cadence of the song had long since 
 died away; for what could one do but sit in a 
 hushed silence, looking upward to that sun-light- 
 ed cross ! And then once more, but very softly 
 now, the simple melody went on: — 
 
 "What can we do, o'er whom the imbeholden 
 
 Hangs in a night with which we can not cope? 
 What but look sunward, and with faces goiden 
 Speak to each other softly of a hope? 
 
THE LIFE BEYOND. 195 
 
 "Can it be true, the grace He is declaring? 
 Oh let us trust Him, for His words are fair! 
 Man, what is this, and why art thou despairing? 
 God shall forgive thee all but thy despair." 
 
 Dear friends, who have forgotten your sorrows 
 in the consolations of Christ, I leave you there 
 before that blessed vision, of which my picture 
 is but the shadow — of the cross glorified and 
 glorifying. 
 
 *'Now the God of hope fill you with all joy 
 and peace in believing, that ye may abound in 
 hope through the power of the Holy Ghost." 
 
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