Faith.

Faith is no weakly flower,By sudden blight, or heat, or stormy showerTo perish in an hour.But rich in hidden worth,A plant of grace, though striking root in earth,It boasts a hardy birth:Still from its native skiesDraws energy which common shocks defies,And lives where nature dies!Oratory, Birmington. E. Caswall.

"Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,God hath written in the stars above;But not less in the bright flowerets under usStands the revelation of his love.And with childlike, credulous affectionWe behold their tender buds expand—Emblems of our own great resurrection,Emblems of the bright and better land."

Of all the poetic and suggestive traditions that linger with us from the early ages—those ages when art revived through religion, and symbolized the truths of eternity by the creation and application of such esthetics which, under the dominion of heathendom, had been perverted to purely sensual enjoyment—of all these traditions, then, we find few more beautiful in their various types, more elevating in their idealization, or which form a stronger connecting link between the soul's aspirations and our material enjoyment, than those frailest children of the beautiful that belong to the floral kingdom. Coeval with the creation, the solace, companions, and delight of our first parents, they shared the punishment, likewise, of man's transgression, in the flood; but when the waters subsided, they were the chosen symbols to announce to Noah the cessation of omnipotent vengeance, and the first to greet the weary wanderers, as their feet again touched the earth; raising their lowly heads from around the tree-roots, and through the rocky fissures, as emblems of the life immortal that springs from decay.

Among those which seem to be the chosen ones, as most expressive of religious sentiment, both in the Old and New Testament as well as in early legendary lore, are the rose, the lily, the olive, and the palm.

To each of these has been given a significance, from the earliest times, that has made them cherished with our households and associated with our faith. Although the rose was perverted by the heathen into a type of sensual love and luxury, yet, through the marvellous beauty and variety of its creation, it was reclaimed by the Christian poets, to be the attendant of the pure and holy, wherever an ornament was needed to paint a moral victory, or glorify decay.

That this flower was largely cultivated by the Jews, and used in their religious festivals as an ornament, is made clear by the frequent use we find of it, as a simile in the Bible. Solomon, in his song, compares the church to the "rose of Sharon and lily of the valley." Again, in the book of Wisdom, we see their appreciation in the admonition, "Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds ere they be withered." Also, in Ecclesiasticus, occurs this metaphor, "I was exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi, and as a rose-plant in Jericho." Again, "Hearken to me, ye holy children, and bud forth as roses growing by the brook."

It was a belief among the Jews, according to Zoroaster, says Howitt, "that every flower is appropriated to a particular angel, and that the hundred-leaf rose is consecrated to an archangel of the highest order." The same author relates, that the Persian fire-worshippers believe that Abraham was thrown into a furnace by Nimrod, and the flames forthwith turned into a bed of roses.

In contradistinction to this in sentiment is the belief of the Turk, who holds that this lovely flower springs from the perspiration of Mohammed, and, in accordance with this creed, they never tread upon it or suffer one to lie upon the ground.

I think it was Solon who held the theory that the rose and the woman were created at the same time, and in consequence thereof, there sprang up a contest among the gods, as to which should be awarded the palm of superior beauty. Certainly there may yet be traced a close resemblance between these native queens, not only in the matter of beauty, but also in the variety and fragility for which the rose, above all others, is distinguished. Everywhere has God planted this exquisite work of his hand. In the bleak polar regions, where the days of sunshine are so short, and so few, there is seen among the first breathings of the summer zephyrs the "Rosa rapa," its slender stem covered with pale double flowers, lifting its head to greet those ice-bound prisoners as they issue from the stifling air of their winter huts. Degraded as are that people in their tastes, the magic of these silent messengers from God is so forcible, that they greet them with a poet's joy, and deck their heads and rough sealskin clothing with their tender blossoms. Even to the broken-hearted Siberian exile, there come a few short days in his life when these frail comforters rise from the frozen earth to greet him, like messengers from his lost home and friends. … It is not to be wondered, then, with all the associations of Eden ever clinging about these eloquent voices, that the early Christians transferred their ornamental and suggestive beauties from the saturnalian rites of heathendom to the honor of God and his saints. Hence it is, that, in so many of the beautiful legends that have come down to us, we find these frail memorials so often associated as types of some noble deed accomplished, or the given reward of some heavy human sacrifice. To those who look upon these legends as myths, or simply religious fairy tales, we can only say, with Mrs. Jameson, that we most sincerely pity all such sceptics from our heart; for, where they outstrip the bounds of even miraculous probability, there may yet be found in their pages both entertainment and instruction. And after all, why should not religion have her fairyland, as well as material life? Why should not the soul enjoy the privilege of an occasional transport into a world of poetical visions, as well as the imagination, which finds in the fairy-dreams of childhood only a dim vista of annual blooms, upon which the breath of heaven can never blow? Weary with the turmoil of life, with the noise and whirl of the shifting scenes that open continuously upon a vista of pain, and sorrow, and unrealized hopes, such legends recall to the soul auroral gleams of childhood's purity, and transport her into fields that are redolent with the flowers of that eternal land where earthly woes can never come. In this Dodona grove, the soul hallows the heart; the impossible becomes the real; and as all the aspirations for the higher life possess it, the skies seem to open, we catch a flutter of the angels' robes, the perfume of the flowers of paradise, and a glimmer even of the golden gates shoots radiantly across the uplifted, tear-dimmed eye; and we feel, for these few moments at least, that God and heaven are very nigh, ay! even in our heart of hearts.What matters it, then, if it be not all truth, since it serves the purpose, and for the time being decks the soul in regal splendor, and makes the unattainable and dim worth the longest toil and hardest battle that the short span of human life can compass? In those early ages, when the heathen idols were tottering on their thrones, and the voice of Pan had died out in a mighty wail at the sound of a feeble infant's cry—in those dawning Christian days there was felt the need of mental food of a nourishing and elevating kind for the masses. Heretofore, they had been kept occupied by public games, periodical saturnalian revels, gladiatorial combats, and other heathen abominations, in order to allow the philosopher to pursue his subtle theories in quiet, and the wheels of government to run smoothly on. As years and numbers, however, increased the Christian fold, and the first fervor began to abate under the influence of human passions and the need of life's varieties, it became evident that some food was necessary to meet the hunger of the craving mind. The time and thoughts of the philosophers and theologians were too deeply engrossed with the abstruse problems of the day—the esoteric and exoteric—to give other time beyond that of the soul's immediate requirements to the ignorant. Hence it was, that, as human blood was poured out like water, in libations to the true God, when beauty and innocence, rank and lowliness, wealth and poverty, found a common centre wherein to pray and suffer—hence it was, that the religious, poetic heart of the people idealized and beatified these deeds of heroic sanctity; and the church, while striving to repress extravagance, yet welcomed and fostered a taste which she saw, in her mighty wisdom, would be productive of elevating thought and emulative example. "And it is a mistake," says Mrs. Jameson, "to suppose that these legends had their sole origin in the brains of dreaming monks. The wildest of them had some basis of truth to rest on, and the forms which they gradually assumed were but the necessary results of the age which produced them. They became the intense expression of that inner life which revolted against the desolation and emptiness of the outward existence; of those crushed and outraged sympathies which cried aloud for rest, and refuge, and solace, and could nowhere find them." Mrs. Jameson disclaims any idea of treating these legends save in their poetic and artistic aspect. But as religion is the root from whence all have their source, so it is insensibly transmuted throughout the whole work. And how could she do otherwise, Protestant though she was? For the great trunk, the massive column, around which all these delicate fibres of poesy cling, is religion. Without such support, they would fall, and be trailed in the dust, and long, long ere this, their ephemeral life would have been crushed out, as were the oracular voices of the marble gods.

This literature, then, "became one in which peace was represented as better than war, and sufferance more dignified than resistance; which exhibited poverty and toil as honorable, and charity as the first of virtues; which held up to imitation and emulation self-sacrifice in the cause of good, and contempt of death for conscience' sake—a literature in which the tenderness, the chastity, the heroism of woman, played a conspicuous part; which distinctly protested against slavery, against violence, against impurity in word and deed; which refreshed the fevered and darkened spirit with images of moral beauty and truth, revealed bright glimpses of a better land, where the wicked cease from troubling, and brought down the angels of God with shining wings, and bearing crowns of glory, to do battle with the demons of darkness, to catch the fleeting soul of the triumphant martyr, and carry it at once into a paradise of eternal blessedness and peace." [Footnote 157]

[Footnote 157: Mrs. Jameson'sLegendary Art.]

Under the influence, then, of these new inspirations, art likewise revived, and the brush and the chisel lent the aid of their immortal touch to give force and perpetuity to these creations; and birds, and flowers, and the elements were introduced as types or allegories of the subjects thus interpreted. Each one possessed a significance and symbolism that united the soul to the eternal source of these gifts, and kept alive in the common heart those principles which the people could admire if not emulate. The rapidity with which artists multiplied at this period belongs to the marvelous. God needed artisans for his work, and truly the old masters seemed, judging from their deeds and spirit, to have risen, like Adam, from the clay moulding of the almighty hand. Possessed by a sense of the lofty nature of their calling, they not only strove for perfection in detail, but also for a religious spirit, which should so inspire the work as to move every heart to piety, and embody for instruction the full force of the solemn truths therein portrayed. They emerged from the impure influences of the old religion and literature, like the chrysalis, into the golden-hued glory that shone in the lives of the ancient patriarchs and prophets; in the auroral beams that hung like sea-foam over the angels as they walked or talked as God's messengers on earth, until, bathed in a glory borrowed from the very smile of the Creator, they saw the divine Son descend like the morning star, and dwell upon earth among men.

In all their work a confession of faith lay embodied; and feeling themselves called to this vocation, hearing the voice and seeing in the enthusiasm of their fervor the burning bush, they purified themselves by prayer, and fasting, and long meditation upon the subject that was to grow into life under the glowing tints of the brush or the magic stroke of the chisel. This mystical spirit so elevated and ennobled the soul-work of those grand old masters that faults in mechanical execution and anachronisms in details are, even to this day, overlooked, for the sake of thatcon amorezeal which pervades the vital treatment of their subjects. Fra Angelico, a Dominican monk, devoted his art life exclusively to the religious mysticism of his subjects. "Whenever he painted Christ upon the cross," says Jarves, "the tears would roll down his cheeks as if he were an actual eyewitness of his Saviour's agony. There is a celestial glow in all his beatified faces that seem to radiate from his own soul." Lippo Dalmasio, an early painter of Bologna, was also noted for his piety in art.

"He never painted the holy Virgin without fasting the previous evening, and receiving absolution and the bread of angels in the morning after; and, finally, never consented to paint for hire, but only as a means of devotion." [Footnote 158]

[Footnote 158: Lord Lindsay'sChristian Art.]

Add to these, Luini, of Milan; Francia, of Bologna; Gentile and John Bellini, of Venice; Fra Bartolomeo, the Florentine monk, and friend of Savonarola; Perugino, and finally, Raphael—and we have the list of those who led the vanguard in the perpetuity of those heaven-toned idealizations that yet greet the eye with their beauty and animate the heart with emotions of grateful homage.

"Such art has left us, and can never again be revived until artists believe and pray as did those men of old; until they can see and feel as they did at all hours, amid their rejoicings or as they slept, holy personages, saints, and virgins, apostles and evangelists, martyrs, and the symbolized faith for which they died. Virtues, and not graces; angels, and not muses; types of spiritual truths, and not expressions of sensuous beauty or lustful passion—these were their daily intellectual food. Amid all things—in church, shop, or bedroom; on the roadside and by the palace; at every street corner, and over every threshold—were the figures of the Redeemer and his holy mother to direct their thoughts still higher heavenward. Religion, at all events, in its external form, and asbelieved, was confessed by all men and in all places. Youth were taught to rely on spiritual powers for their earthly support and sole sustenance. Charity, faith, the due subjection of the body to the development of its perfect strength, humanity, the succor of the oppressed, the relief of the unfortunate,devoir, duty to all men—such were the doctrines of chivalry in the middle ages." [Footnote 159]

[Footnote 159:Art Hints, by Jarves.]

Apart from the palm and olive, we find no mention in the New Testament of flowers, save that exquisite simile of the lilies, made by our Saviour himself; and there can be found no other instance wherein such an illustration is rendered with more beautiful pathos and force. That he appreciated these frail emblems is not only made apparent in this, but is further proved by his choice of the calm repose and soothing influence of these silent sympathizers on Gethsemane's night of woe. No human companionship, no human eye or voice, could aid him then, in that fearful contest of humanity over divinity, as did nature's voiceless comforters—the flowers that were bent down by the weight of their tears, the great shifting sky above, with the eloquent calm of its silver stars, through which floated clear and luminous the angel comforters. Our Saviour proved in all the suffering episodes of his life that lovely groves, and dim funereal forests speak more forcibly to a heart in pain than do the wilder and grander convulsions of nature.

"It is in quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty, the deep, the calm, and the perpetual; that which must be sought ere it can be seen, and loved ere it is understood; things which the angels work out for us daily, and yet vary eternally; which are never wanting, and never repeated; which are to be found always, yet each found but once—it is through these that her lesson of devotion is chiefly taught and the blessing of beauty given." [Footnote 160]

[Footnote 160: Ruskin'sModern Painters. ]

Nowhere have these beautiful accessories in life's pilgrimage been more glowingly and successfully used, not only as an abstract religious emblem, but as a divine allegorical poem, than in the representations of the life and attributes of the blessed Virgin. To this type of all that was pure and noble in woman; to the humanity which was a link in the chain of divinity, a partaker of all human woes, and yet the chosen of the Godhead—to her were specially dedicated those early labors in revived art, and of which she was the inspiration. Herein, as elsewhere, we find the historical, mystical, and devotional treated with every conceivable adjunct that can typify a being so elevated and benign. The beauty and variety of the rose, the purity and fragrance of the lily, were devoted to her special honor, wherever her name was venerated and loved. Even before it was safe for the early Christians to make an open profession of faith, they expressed their devotion to the mother conjointly with the Son, in the darkness and solitude of the catacombs.Therein it was, that the first Christian artist dared give life to his heart's belief; and therein it was, that her image with that of her divine Son and the apostles were impressed upon the walls and sarcophagi of that grand subterranean temple.

As the Annunciation was the door through which all future blessings flowed, so it became a most fruitful theme to the faith and imagination of those great religious artists whose work was a labor of love; and we find it treated from the fifth to the sixteenth century by Byzantine, Italian, Spanish, and German art with a variety, beauty, and significance that only an enshrined saint could inspire. In the earliest representations of this subject, the angel appeared holding a sceptre, but this mark of authority gradually gave way to the more symbolic lily. This was introduced universally, either held in the hand of the angel as he salutes her, or seen growing in a pot placed in some part of the room. Others again, represent an enclosed garden, upon which the Blessed Virgin is looking from a window. In all, from the crudest to the most finished, some floral adjunct gives beauty and significance to the subject. The Assumption—that fitting climacteric of a life whence sprung the Eternal Word—was likewise a theme of devotional and sublimated art-worship, which gathered pathos and beauty from the belief that her body was worthy the care of the seraphim and cherubim, who transported it with angelic harmonies into the home of her glorified Son. Here, too, we find, according to the legend, her floral emblems springing up in the tomb from whence her incorruptible body had just been raised.

In an Annibale Carracci, the apostles are seen below, one of whom is lifting, with an astonished air, a handful of roses out of the sepulchre. In another, by Rubens, one of the women exhibits the miraculous flowers held up in the folds of her dress. Dominico di Bartolo, who painted in 1430, (according to Mrs. Jameson,) omits the open tomb, but clothes the holy mother in a white robe embroidered with golden flowers.

From the time of the Nestorian heresy, when the title ofDei genitrixwas denied the Blessed Virgin, her votaries became even more zealous to corroborate her right to the title and privileges of mother of the man-God; and under the influence of this test of devotion and faith sprang those multitudinous representations of the woman glorified, as the enthroned Madonna. From thence the descent was natural and gradual to those characteristics which distinguished her life in its daily ministrations to her divine Son; and so touchingly natural, so beautiful in their tenderness, are many of these more human portraitures, that the coldest heart cannot withhold its homage, though it may its devotion. Even Mrs. Jameson, herself a Protestant, says, "We look, and the heart is in heaven; and it is difficult to refrain from anOra pro nobis." In a large number of these inspirations of faith and love, we meet the various floral emblems that typify her beauty and purity. Some of the earliest representations are found in many of the old Gothic cathedrals, executed in sculpture. She is therein portrayed in a standing position, bearing the child on her left arm, while in the right hand she holds a flower, or sometimes a sceptre. In a holy family in the academy of Venice, by Bonifazio, "The virgin is seated in glory, with her infant on her knee, and encircled by cherubim. On one side an angel approaches with a basket of flowers on his head, and she is in the act of taking these flowers and scattering them on the saints who stand below."

The Arcadian and pastoral life, with which many of the Italian artists environ the mother and child, is certainly both poetical and natural. Mrs. Jameson gives many instances of this treatment; among them, one by Philippino Lippi, which is a beautiful idea. "Here," she says, "the mystical garden is formed of a balustrade, beyond which is seen a hedge, all in blush with roses. The virgin kneels in the midst and adores her infant; an angel scatters rose leaves over him, while the little St. John also kneels, and four angels, in attitudes of devotion, complete the group." "But a more perfect example," continues the same author, "is the Madonna of Francia in the Munich gallery, where the divine infant lies on the flowery turf, and the mother standing before him, and looking down on him, seems on the point of sinking on her knees in a transport of tenderness and devotion. With all the simplicity of the treatment, it is strictly devotional. The mother and her child are placed within the mystical garden enclosed in atreillageof roses, alone with each other, and apart from all earthly associations, all earthly communions."

Those who are familiar with the Raphael series of Madonnas will recall, in this connection, his exquisite pastoralLa Jardinière. There is also one similarly entitled by a French artist, though differently treated. The virgin is enthroned on clouds, and holds the infant, whose feet rest on a globe. Both mother and child are crowned with roses; and on each side, as if rising from the clouds, are vases filled with roses and lilies. Titian has also left many beautiful and some exaggerated works of the Arcadian school. There is an old Coptic tradition which is very beautiful, and bears somewhat on this subject of nature's aid in glorifying these two lives. Near the site of the ancient Heliopolis, there still stands a very pretty garden, in which (runs the tradition) the holy family rested in their flight into Egypt. Feeling oppressed with thirst, a spring of fresh water gushed at their feet, and on being pursued into their retreat by robbers, a sycamore-tree opened, and hid them from sight. "The spring still exists," says a recent traveller, "and the tree yet stands, and bears such unmistakable marks of antiquity as to make this tradition and faith of the present generation of Coptics at least plausible." But these floral emblematical tributes are as inexhaustible as are the sentiments of love, homage, and tender pity that fill the heart from the contemplation of theMater Dei Genitrixdown to the appealing anguish of theDolorosa. "Thus in highest heaven, yet not out of sight of earth; in beatitude past utterance; in blessed fruition of all that faith creates and love desires; amid angel hymns and starry glories," we will leave enthroned the "blessed amongst women," and turn to other legends, wherein the saints who followed her stand crowned with flowers celestial, awaiting a share of our praise and veneration.

Part Second.

In Thuringia, one of the provinces of Germany, the traveller is attracted by a species of rose that is universally cultivated by the poorest peasant, as well as the richest land-owner. When the question as to its origin is asked, the answer invariably is, "Oh! that is the rose of the dear St. Elizabeth, our former queen; and was grown from one of the sprigs given to her by the angels."One might as well try to turn the faith of these simple people from their belief in the sanctity of her life as from the truth of the miraculous roses. According to Montalembert and others, thus runs the substance of the legend. Elizabeth loved the poor, and was specially devoted to relieving their necessities, frequently carrying with her own hands goods of various kinds, to distribute among them. At one season, there was a great scarcity of crops throughout the land, and caution and economy in the use of the royal stores had been advised even in the palace. Elizabeth could not bear to know of unrelieved suffering among her people; so, by close economy in her own wants, she managed to furnish food for many others. On one occasion, a very pressing case of necessity reached her; and not wishing to encourage her servants in disobedience to the general command, she started alone on her errand of mercy, with some lighter articles of food concealed in the folds of her dress. Just as she reached the back steps of the chateau, however, she met her husband, with several gentlemen, returning from the chase. Astonished to see his wife alone, and thus burdened, he asked her to show him what she was carrying; but as she held her dress in terror to her breast, he gently disengaged her hands, and behold! "It was filled with white and red roses, the most beautiful he ever saw."

Wandering in thought over these scenes wherein the air is redolent with their fragrance, the form of the young and lovely Dorothea, with the radiant boy-angel at her side, rises in diaphonous light before the vision. We see her as she stands confronting her heathen judge Fabricius, who longs to possess her charms; and to his command, "Thou must serve our gods or die." she mildly answers, "Be it so; the sooner shall I stand in the presence ofHimI most desire to behold." Then the governor asked her, "Whom meanest thou?" She replied, "I mean the Son of God, Christ, mine espoused. His dwelling is in paradise; by his side are joys eternal, and in his garden grow celestial fruits, and roses that never fade." And resisting all temptations, all entreaties, she went forth to torture and to death. "And as she went," (continues the legend,) "a young man, a lawyer of the city, named Theophilus, who had been present when she was first brought before the governor, called to her mockingly, 'Ha! fair maiden, goest thou to join thy bridegroom? Send me, I pray thee, of the fruits and flowers of that same garden of which thou hast spoken. I would fain taste of them!' And Dorothea, looking on him, inclined her head with a gentle smile, and said, 'Thy request, O Theophilus! is granted.' Where at he laughed aloud with his companions; but she went on cheerfully to death. When she came to the place of execution, she knelt down and prayed; and suddenly at her side stood a bright and beautiful boy, with hair bright as sunbeams. In his hands, he held a basket containing three apples and three fresh-gathered fragrant roses. She said to-him, 'Carry these to Theophilus; say that Dorothea hath sent them, and that I go before him to the garden whence they came, and await him there.' With those words, she bent her neck, and received the stroke of death. Meantime, the angel went to seek Theophilus, and found him still laughing in merry mood over the idea of the promised gift. The angel placed before him the basket of celestial fruit and flowers, saying, 'Dorothea sends thee these,' and vanished."Amazement filled the mind of Theophilus, and the taste of the fruit and fragrance of the roses pervaded his soul with a new life, the scales of darkness fell, and he proclaimed himself a servant of the same Lord that had won the heart of the gentle maiden. Carlo Dolci, Rubens, and Van Eyck have given the most poetical illustrations of this subject. Many other artists have also treated it, but more coldly.

With the name of St. Cecilia arise visions of angels poised in mid-air, enthralled by seraphic music, which, through the power of its voluminous sweetness, has pierced even the gates of heaven. But the flowers of paradise, as well as its celestial harmonies, are also associated with the name of this beautiful virgin—flowers that were sent to her bridal-chamber, as a reward for her angelic purity and the eloquence which had moved her young heathen husband to respect her vow of chastity. Returning from the instructions of St. Urban, to whom she had sent him, he heard the most enchanting music, and on reaching his wife's chamber he "beheld an angel, who was standing near her, and who held in his hands two crowns of roses gathered in paradise, immortal in their freshness and perfume, but invisible to the eyes of unbelievers. With these he encircled the brows of Cecilia and Valerian; and he said to Valerian, "Because thou hast followed the chaste counsel of thy wife, and hast believed her words, ask what thou wilt, it shall be granted thee."

I stood, early one morning late in the month of June, looking sadly upon the dead, white, upturned face of one who had seemed to walk, while on earth, more with angels than with men. A mystery of sadness had enveloped her life, but, like the cloud in the wilderness, it proved a power that drew her in the footprints of the "Man of sorrows." As I meditated upon the calm etherealized beauty that now absorbed the old earthly pain, and wondered what this secret of a heart-life could have been, her mother entered with tear-dimmed eyes, and placed upon her brow of auburn hair, through which glinted here and there a streak of gray—"dawn of another life that broke o'er her earthly horizon"—in her hands, and over the white fleecy robes, crowns and sprays of mingled crimson and white roses, all glistening with the morning dew.

"Red roses for the dead!" I exclaimed in surprise. "White alone can surely typify such a life and death as hers."

"So you think, my friend, because you with others saw only the outward calm that marked her way. But I—I who loved her so, knew and saw the thorn-crown that pressed her brow, and the hard stones and barbs that strewed every step of her way through life—I place them then here, because she loved them, and because they express, in conjunction with their sister's whiteness, the sorrow and purity of the angelic life now closed to pain and open only to joy.

"Well done of God, to halve the lot,And give her all the sweetness;To us, the empty room and cot;To her, the heaven's completeness.For her to gladden in God's view;For us to hope and bear on.Grow, Lily, in thy garden newBeside the rose of Sharon."

I turned away sadly, marvelling upon the mystery of this life now closed so happily, and involuntarily arose to my mind the exquisite legend of the sultan's daughter.

I."Early in the morning,The sultan's daughterWalked in her father's garden,Gathering the bright flowers,All full of dew.And as she gathered them,She wondered more and moreWho was the master of the flowers,And made them growOut of the cold, dark earth.In my heart,' she said,'I love him; and for himWould leave my father's palaceTo labor in his garden.'II."And at midnightAs she lay upon her bed,She heard a voiceCall to her from the garden,And, looking forth from her window,She saw a beautiful youthStanding among the flowers;And she went down to him,And opened the door for him;And he said to her,'O maiden!Thou hast thought of me with love,And for thy sakeOut of my father's kingdomHave I come hither.I am the master of the flowers;My garden is in paradise,And if thou wilt go with me,Thy bridal garlandShall be of bright red flowers.'And then he took from his fingerA golden ring,And asked the sultan's daughterIf she would be his bride.And when she answered him with love,His wounds began to bleed,And she said to him,'O Love! how red thy heart is,And thy hands are full of roses.''For thy sake,' answered he,'For thy sake is my heart so red,For thee I bring these roses.I gathered them at the crossWhereon I died for thee!Come, for my father calls,Thou art my celestial bride!'And the sultan's daughterFollowed him to his father's garden." [Footnote 161]

[Footnote 161:Golden Legend, by Longfellow.]

Throughout all the early church legends, we find whatever is pure and beautiful in sentiment and exalted in art carefully cherished, and constantly presented to the contemplation of the votary in some glowing form that could act as a counterpoise to the corrupting influence of heathen passions and pursuits.

When the holy mother stood on Calvary, her heart steeped in agony unutterable, not the least cause of her anguish was to see the waste of those precious drops of blood as they bedewed the hard insensible ground. But behold! as she gazes, and her tears fall, delicate bell-shaped crimson blossoms spring up, and absorb the human dew; and thus, through these frail beautifiers of suffering and consolers of grief, the heart of the mother was comforted, and the soul is drawn to look upward, away from the agonizing ignominy of the cross to the beatified glory to which he is translated at the price of so much woe.

Thus also, in the horrid details of the early martyrdoms, we constantly meet these compensating, suggestive metaphors of the glory won. The painful agony of the downward crucifixion of St. Peter, the waste of blood from that congested head, springs into a fountain of clear gurgling water, from which flows healing for all suffering flesh that seek its miraculous aid. As St. Grata bears the decapitated head of her friend St. Alexander to the tomb, lo! flowers spring up as the blood falls, and are gathered by the mourners to deck his grave.

Among the little band that followed Mother Seton more than fifty years ago, in her divine mission of self-abnegation and Christian love, was a delicate young woman whose life had been spent in ease, amid the devoted love and admiration of a large family circle. Dreamy and poetical by nature, her talent, then rare among American women, was revered and looked up to by seven young brothers as something marvellous; and no implement more fatiguing than the pen or needle was ever allowed to weary her dainty fingers. One day as she sat amid her flowers and books, conning a new inspiration, suddenly the open door of heaven seemed to stand before her, and she felt a voice saying, "He who would come after me must take up his cross and follow me."And believing that her heavenly spouse had called, she closed her books, and turned her face steadfastly away from her weeping friends, and went cheerfully forth to privation and labor. Faithful to her new vows, religion yet did not forbid the exercise of the talent God had given her; only now her themes had become more exalted, and the love and perennial sublimity of heaven took the place of the perishable and annual blooms of time. The privations and labors spent in the service of suffering humanity soon reduced her delicate frame to patient helplessness; but the beauty and love of God in his works and ways triumphed over all her bodily infirmities, and her strength was never too frail to raise asursum cordain his praise. Whitsuntide of 1813 rose in the light of a glorious May morning, and the sufferer lay panting for breath, after a night of exhausting hemorrhage, and she knew that the angel, with palm in hand, stood by her side ready to conduct her to God. In blissful hope of the fruition that now dawned upon all those past sacrifices, labors, and sufferings, she fell, to the music of those unseen, undulating wings, into a sweet sleep. Mother Seton, who had left the sufferer's bed for a breath of the fresh morning air, just then returned from the garden, bearing in her hand the first rose of the season, knowing how refreshing and suggestive such a gift would be to the weary sufferer. Rejoiced to find her in repose, she gently laid the flower upon her bosom, above the white, folded hands, and quietly left the room. The fitful fever sleep was soon ended, and as Mary opened her eyes, first the fragrance, then the beauty of this heavenly symbol, caught her eye. Wasted and dying though the earthly tenement was, the soul, the poet's soul, yet glowed with vital power; and raising from a little table at her side a pencil and paper, she thereon breathed her last pean of poetic utterance in these lines:

"The morning was beautiful, mild, and serene,All nature had waked from repose;Maternal affection came silently in,And placed on my bosom a rose."Poor nature was weak, and had almost prevailed,The weary eyelids were closed;But the soul rose in triumph, and joyfully hailedThe sweet queen of flowers—the rose."Whitsuntide was the time, the season of love:Methought the blest spirit had choseTo leave for awhile the mild form of a dove,And come in the blush of a rose."Come, Heavenly Spirit, descend on each breast,And there let thy blessing repose,As thou once didst on Mary, thy temple of rest;For Mary's our mystical rose."Oh! may every rose that blooms forth evermore,Enkindle the spirit of thoseWho see it, or wear it, to bless and adoreThe hand that created the rose."

When Mother Seton returned, she found the lines with the rose still lying on her bosom; and looking into the sweet upturned face, she saw the signet of death stamped upon the luminous eyes, and knew by her short, heavy breathing that ere long she would be singing her songs in the rose-gardens of paradise.

Suggestive of peace and lowliness as are these creations, yet even they have been perverted by the passions of man into insignia of blood and shame. The thirty years' war of the houses of York and Lancaster make the white and red rose ever associated with the sorrows and humiliations, the heroic endurance, and true womanly nobility of Margaret of Anjou. We see her as she stands under her rose-banner, on the heights of Tewksbury, with dauntless courage in her heart, and a mother's wild prayer upon her lips; standing there, amid the wild havoc, unflinchingly, until the wailing, weird blast of the trumpeters tells her that her beautiful white rose is broken at the stem, and its leaves scattered, trampled, and bathed in the life-blood of her only son.

Tracing, then, these exquisite adumbrations throughout the spiritual aspect of life, is it strange that we have learned to look upon these frail children of the beautiful as one of the connecting links with heaven? Of such every heart has its conservatory; every home its storehouse of withered, scentless mementoes, that recall, when the gates of the sanctuary are unbarred, memories deep and voiceless, and faces whose beauty has paled, like them, in dust. Here is the remnant of a cross of whiteimmortelles. It was taken from the breast of a loved one who died far away in a foreign land, among strangers. It was sent with the last spoken words to comfort and uplift the heart of the mourners; and as we lift it from the sacred casket, the echo of those words seems to take form in the rustle of its blighted leaves, and the old, subdued sorrow breaks out afresh before the multitudinous memories and images evoked by a withered flower.

Here lie together a sprig of orange blossom and a white rosebud, double memorial of a happy bridal and an early grave. Ere the perfume of the orange blossom had faded from her brow, the white rose lay on her pulseless heart. Ere the echo of the wedding march had died on the air, it was merged into a requiem dirge of woe.

Ah this spray of brown leaves! what memories lie folded in its veins! A picture of a lone, far away grave rises, and by its side kneel a wife and daughter, come from a great distance to pay some tribute to a beloved one's last resting-spot in a land of strangers. Desolate looked the bare, uncultivated mound; but at the head some tender stranger's hand had placed a plain wooden cross to mark the spot for the absent ones, and planted a wild rose which twined its arms over and around the cross in graceful beauty, as if to offer a poor substitute for the visits of loving friends. How warmly the prayers of the widow went forth for that unknown one who had thus filled the place and thoughtfulness of the absent!

A prisoner walks rapidly up and down the parapet of the Capitol prison in Washington, the wild throbbings of his heart keeping time to the tramp, tramp of his restless feet, which long for space, for liberty, and the sound of the brother voices that send their wild echo from the other side of the Potomac. Suddenly the laughter of a child's voice sounds above him, and, as he in surprise raises his eyes, lo! a cherub head looks from a window down upon him, and the little hands drop at his feet a half-blown rose.

"War's wild alarum call" suddenly dies out, and the soldier's dream of glory gives place to the man's warm love. The wide blue sea no longer rolls between him and home, and over and above the din of battle floats the voice of mother and sister in loving prayer for the absent one, who, impelled by a noble people's cry for aid, hastened to the rescue, and found instead of theélanof battle the cold, dark walls of a prison home. Lo! the power and pathos of a little child and a fragile flower within the walls of a dungeon.

A father kneels in grief unutterable by the soulless body of a little daughter. In the agony of his rebellious grief, he prays to God to send him one ray of comfort, one gleam of light, to see and know that the transition is at least well for her. As he raises his head, his eyes fall upon the family Bible, and with the prayer still in his heart he opens its leaves, and his finger, as if guided by an angel, falls upon these lines, "And he took the damsel by her hand, and said unto her, I say unto thee, arise."With the sacred verse, there came shining down into his heart a clear, sweet perception of the fact that at that very moment our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is the resurrection and the life, was raising up out of her cold and lifeless form that beautiful, spiritual body in which little Lucy will exist as an angel for ever. He plucked some white and green leaves from the flowers which lay in the dead child's hands, and placed them on that verse of the sacred volume.

"Years have passed away, and they are there still, pale and withered, sacred little mementoes of the consolation which came like a voice from heaven in his hour of need. When he is haunted by sorrowful memories, and falls into states of desolation and despair, he opens that holy book, and kisses those faded leaves, and his spirit is sometimes elevated into that mount which the three disciples ascended with their Lord, and there, by the permission of the same Redeemer who makes every child an image of himself, he sees the body of his little daughter transfigured in glory!" [Footnote 162]

[Footnote 162:Our Children in Heaven, by W. H. Holcombe, M.D. ]

In a white alabaster box, yellowed by the mould of years, are lying, side by side, a crisp, golden curl, a sprig of lily of the valley, and a tuberose. Through the mist of tears that fill the eye rise the angelic features of a little girl, the first-born of her mother. The joyous laughter, the music of the little feet, the endless activity of the waxen fingers, ere they closed lifelessly over those tender lily sprays, all take form and life in presence of these mute memorials. Other children God sent to console the mother for the loss of this little one, and long, long years have ripened them into men and women, and sent them forth to fill the various missions of life that separate them from mother and home. But to the long and early lost, the maternal heart now yearningly turns, as still, above all others, the child of her love. No stronger earthly ties stand between them even now; themotherholds her place supremehere, and feels that for her, above all others on earth, those little hands are folded in prayer, and that sweet-toned voice raised in songs of supplication.

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