Summer Meeting. 11 



not yet clean enoiigli. Once more the child left the room, and came 

 back with another layer of dirt removed, but it was not until the third 

 exit and return that she felt convinced that her hands were pure enough 

 to touch that flower. One dainty finger was timidly extended until it 

 merely touched a white petal, and the little one was satisfied. Here was 

 a lesson in cleanliness taught .without words. It was purity calling for 

 its own, and the soul of the child understood the demand of the flower, 

 and gave a pure response. 



"Innocent child, and snow white ilower ; 

 Well are ye paired in your opening hour ; 

 Thus should the pure and the lovely meet. 

 Stainless with stainless, and sweet with sweet." 



— Willis. 



A young man recently staggered into a saloon in a western city. 

 He had been on a debauch for hours, his money was gone, he had nothing 

 left to give for the drink he craved, but on the lapel of his coat was a 

 cluster of fragrant white lilies of the valley. The bar tender noticed 

 them and said, ''T will give you a glass of whiskey for that bouquet." 

 The young man started quickly, looked down at the flowers, then burst- 

 ing into tears, sobbed, "My God; ISTellie, have I come to this," and 

 rushed away from the place. I regret that the story ends here, for I 

 am sure that we should rejoice to know that the pure, fragrant life of 

 those lovely blossoms had won back a soul to purity and peace. 



"A rose," once said Henry Ward Beecher, "is the sweetest thing 

 God ever made, and forgot to put a soul into." But did He forget? 

 Who can declare just what soul force is ? The rose lives, its life is a 

 portion of all life, a part of the mysterious soul of the universe. Lowell 



declares that 



• 



"Every clod feels a stire of might. 

 An instinct within it that reaches, and towers, 



And groping above it — blindly, for light 

 Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers." 



— Bryant. 



I comprehend this thought and fully appreciate its mysterious sig- 

 nificance. Flowers have a mission to perform, a service to render. They 

 teach purity, and love for the beautiful, besides. Do they not fore- 



