Article November 25, 1905 Issue

The Perennial Bloom of Truth

REV. WILLIAM P. MC KENZIE.

In some gardens one finds only such flowers as have grown from seeds planted in the springtime. When the frosts come the leaves are withered, and when the year is again warmed by the sun, no green shoot comes up from the place where last year color rioted, unless once again the seed be sown. There are other gardens where flourish perennial growths. Should the gardener be gone for a year's space, leaving no hand to tend his much-loved plants, they would still appear to greet the sun in the spring, and their blooms would open at the appointed time. The iris would disclose her royal purple, the fragrance of the shy lily-of-the-valley would pervade the tree-shaded corner, and like a string of pearls the white bells would lie upon the long green leaves. Roses, roses, roses, would be everywhere,—shell-pink like the hues of dawn, or those redder than flame that clamber in ruddy billows upon walls and trellises, or roses with a coloring which surpasses in beauty the finest gold. Perchance you have visited an old home whose tenants had long departed, and in the garden found, amoung weeds and decay, a June rose, perfect, exquisite. Then you have witnessed the wonder of perennial bloom offering its yearly beauty because of its own life and nature.

Thus are we reminded of the offerings made by truth. They are not like human sentiments, theories, and ideals, which bloom and pass with the season. Let the seed of truth be once implanted, and its growth will become perpetual. It may appear as a prophet's vision or a poet's song, and the days of the seer or singer may long ago have ended, but the truth he has sown blooms renewedly for later generations. In the quiet time of thought, in reverie, in the deeps of joy or the depths of sorrow, when the noise and clamant confusion of life has become as it were distant from us, we may enjoy the fragrance of truth's perennial bloom.

What would the writer who implanted in words that comforting truth regarding the divine omnipresence, "Fear thou not ; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness," think of the restless tumult of modern life? He dwelt as one in a quiet garden, at whose foot flowed a placid river, mirroring when night fell the stars of the peaceful heavens. Yet we are the same sort as he, with the same need of God. This was proven to an aged friend, who came to a climax in life when fear almost prevailed. The swift-flashing pulse of the telegraph brought to her ken the words of the old prophet, and then she entered into the garden of peace, and saw the perennial bloom of truth, the rose of ten thousand years; and in all the turmoil of temptation, in all the confusion of crossing currents of thought, when fear was in the way, dread behind, and anxiety whispering near by, the fragrance of that bloom brought assurance and peace, confidence and quietness, till the fear was overpast, and the joy of the Lord had brought restoration and strength.

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