FINDING GOD IN A FLOWER.
"Such nice work for a rainy day! Look at this rosebud of mine."
"Ah! But look at my fern-leaf, with pansies against it."
Three happy children chattered away over their box of water-colors with the eager delight which comes of anything produced by one's self, with the rather dauby results of their morning's work.
"I mean to run out and get some real flowers," said Hugh, "and see if these are good likenesses."
Under the shelter of a rubber-coat, the lively run in the garden was highly enjoyed by the boy, and by his sisters, who watched him.
"They're so Bright and so fresh, with their faces all washed," said little Jessie, who always lay on a lounge, and to whom every sweet and pretty thing came only through loving hands, for the poor little crippled feet could not carry her to them. "See, -mamma, they, make our painting look dull and smudgy. Look at the velvet on the pansies and on these dark verbenas."
"But these pretty pictures are not dull and smudgy," said May, looking at the embossed pictures they had been using for patterns.
Mamma came near, and put a magnifying-glass over them.
"Ah, they do!" exclaimed Jessie; "the color looks lumpy and ugly, and. the paper looks coarse and rough."
"Now look at the natural flowers." Jessie gave a little cry of delight as she did so..
"O mamma! It's beautiful! It's beautiful!
All the velvet in the verbenas is a great deal prettier, and those little things in the middle are lovely!"
The children amused themselves with magnifying the different flowers, and then other things within their reach.
"Ugh!" said May, looking with great displeasure at her white apron; "just see what coarse, ugly stuff—and look what horrid great threads in the embroidery! And do see the lace on your cuff; mamma—how can you wear such coarse stuff'?"
Mamma smiled as she laid a bit of spider's web beside the lace, which looked so delicate, till the sharp eye of the microscope spied out its defects.
"I think mamma is teaching us one of her lessons," said Jessie, looking thoughtfully into her mother's face.
"What is it, little daughter?"
"Something about the way God makes things, and the way man makes things—"
"Yes, dear. The finest and most beautiful things made by man are seen to be full of flaws and imperfections when they are closely examined, but everything from the hand of the great God is perfect, and the further we look into it the more perfect it appears." '
"I'm glad He is so careful about the little things," said Jessie; "for it helps so to remember that he is going to care for us little ones, and not forget us."
"Never, darling." Mamma laid her hand on the soft hair, which shaded Jessie's pale forehead.
"In weakness and suffering he only comes nearer to us, and watches more tenderly. over us—"
"Look at this alder flower'," interrupted Hugh, in a burst of surprise. "Every one of these little white things is a regular flower all by itself!"
"And the heliotropes, too," said mamma.
"I tried to paint a heliotrope," said May, "and you ought to have seen what a muddle I did make of it."
"And he makes the rocks, and the trees, and the mountains—yes, worlds, too, with the same hands that make these darling little flowers! I like your flower lesson, mamma."
And now the rain was over, and the sun, breaking out of the clouds, showed a million jewels on flower and leaf. May and Hugh ran out to enjoy the fresh, moist air.
"This looks like nothing but heaven, I'm sure,"
said Jessie, softly, talking half to herself, half to her mother, as she looked into the depths of a pink-tinted gladiolus. "O mamma, do look! It is like the gates of pearl and all the foundations of precious stones."
Hugh rushed in and then rushed out, leaving a lily, gemmed with rain-drops, and laden with smells of the summer freshness. The child gazed reverently into its white heart, whispering, as her glass lengthened and broadened the wax-like stamens, "They look like the pillars of the Great White Throne!"
N. Y. Observer.