LEGENDS OF " SAINTLY FAME " 149 



making Rosa muscosa one of the sweetest and 

 daintiest of all flowers. 



" A veil of moss the angel throws, 



And, robed in nature's simplest weed. 

 Could there a flower that rose exceed ?" 



The rose for many years seems to have been 

 selected by the Catholic Church as her particular 

 emblem, and is pre-eminently Our Lady's flower, 

 her children in all ages delighting to refer to her as 

 Rosa mystica, and the Rose of Sharon, and the Lily 

 of the Valley. 



The rose is also said to be the '^ flower of the 

 field " spoken of in the Psalms, an expression which 

 has been taken to mean the flower of all flowers, 

 symbolical of the Church. 



The Legend of the Snowdrop. 



Amongst the old books of plant lore there is an 

 interesting account of the origin of the Snowdrop. 



One day, after the Fall, Eve sat weeping for the 

 beauties of lost Paradise and the many lovely flowers 

 she had tended there, and as she wept and meditated 

 thus, an angel was sent on the earth to comfort 

 her. Now since the Fall no fl.ower had grown on 

 the earth, but incessantly the snow fell, and as the 

 angel sweetly talked with Eve he caught a passing 

 flake and breathed on it, and forthwith there fell 

 to earth a beauteous, fragile flower. 



" And lo ! where last his wings have swept the snow, 



A quaintly-fashioned ring of milk-white snowdrops blow." 



Another very old legend accounts for the origin 

 of the snowdrop in quite a different way: At the 



