The Message of the Rose

BY WALDO PONDRAY WARREN

Flower Mission Magazine

A rose once bloomed in a flower garden, and grew to be sweet and fair. By daily drinking in the loveliness of her surroundings she became wondrously wise, because she was living in harmony with all that is beautiful and true. She lived in the sunshine and breathed the odor of the fragrant flowers, till she seemed to catch the meaning of life in all its grandeur and goodness. A hope sprang up in her heart, a hope that she might go forth among the children of men and tell them the Glad Message from heaven which had been imparted to her.

By-and-by a tender hand, moved by unselfish love and sweet sympathy, carried her to the bedside of a Woman who lay wasting away in sadness and pain. Soon the Rose and the Woman were left alone, and, as their eyes met, they understood each other, and, in her own language, too pure and delicate for mortal words, the Rose told heaven's message to a saddened heart. It was the same message of "Peace on earth" which the angels sang on the first Christmas morn. But the Rose told her they had not ceased to sing, for their rejoicing was the forever victory song of good over evil. And the Woman looked toward heaven, not upward, but inward, and listened for the music of the angel chorus. Faint and far off it seemed, yet so grandly sweet and true. The Rose told her 'twas harmony that forever swelled in triumphant strains throughout the invisible realm of supersensible life; that love was the infinite impetus of being, creating and governing the universe of Mind in perpetual harmony.

The Woman sighed. "But whence this discord, pain, and darkness which fill my life with woe? Did Love create these that they should forever be?"

The Rose smiled triumphantly, as though she held the key to an eternity of joy. "Oh, peace, be still, to human fears and tears," she said. "Thou but dreamest of pain, and all discord is but a dream, and not a part of Life. Awake to see Being in all its beauty and harmony, and thy dreams shall melt away into nothingness, and the sunshine of Love shall give thee light forever. This, the message the angels sang, the Christ-Truth that healed the lepers in ancient days! I bid thee awake to-day and see that Life hid with Christ in God, for it is thine."

An echo faint from far-off days came, gently wafted across the plains of centuries, "Arise and walk, thy dream is over, awakened art thou to Life and Love."

The Woman arose, so free and strong, her heart aglow with a new-found Universe of Light and Love. The Truth had made her free. She kissed the Rose, and, kneeling there, laid upon the altar of the world's great need, her future years. "I will tell this message to all the world, awaken dreamers everywhere, till heaven resounds with their rejoicing, and will unfold to human sight the Universe thou hast shown me to-day."

Some day angels of the infinite will reckon up the joy that went forth and grew from this idea; and amid the mighty deeds of the ages will record the mission of the Rose, placed by loving hand, beside a bed of pain.

Flower Mission Magazine.

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