Article May 28, 1904 Issue

A Floral Lesson

JULIA WALKER STANYAN.

I have a beautiful hydrangea which I call my Christian Science plant because it was raised from a little, crushed and wilted slip, and because it has reminded me so forcibly of the passage of Scripture which says that God made "every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew." It also made clear to me the statement that "God creates all through Mind, not through matter; that the plant grows, not because of seed or soil, but because growth is the eternal mandate of Mind" (Science and Health, p. 520).

The hydrangea slip was sent to me a year ago in the springtime, and I placed it in a glass of water with other slips and left them on the sill of an open window. A fewdays later as I was examining them to see what progress they were making, I discovered that the hydrangea slip was missing. I searched for it but it was nowhere to be found. I was sorry to lose it, as it was the second one my friend had given me and I wanted very much to raise it, but I finally gave up the search. One day, some time after, having occasion to open the window, which had been closed ever since, I found beneath it, all crushed and withered, the missing slip. I took it up gently and placed it again in water with the thought that it would revive, remembering the beautiful words of our text-book, "By its own volition, not a blade of grass springs up, not a spray buddeth within the vale, not a leaf unfolds its fair outlines, not a flower starts from its cloistered cell" (Science and Health, p. 191).

It did revive, and in due time sent out tiny white rootlets: and I then placed it carefully in a pot of earth where it thrived all summer. Later in the season, to great delight, I discovered that my hydrangea was budding, and although it was repotted during this time, it went on growing just the same; and as the buds expanded and the flowers unfolded it became a thing of great beauty, and all who saw it said it was the largest and the loveliest they had ever seen. It remained in perfect bloom until after Christmas.

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