THE WHITE ROSE. 81 



cate filling-iip, such a perfect correspondence, that 

 the move we study it, the fuller will be our appre- 

 ciation of that expressive promise to the church, 

 "Thou shalt be like a watered garden." 



Watered by the soft dews and cooling rain of 

 spring, we have seen the plants arise from their 

 dark chambers, and shake otf the dust, and unfold 

 their briglit bosoms to the sun. Always to the 

 sun. Called into existence by liis vivifying power, 

 and ripened in its pod by his steady rays, the seed, 

 in its earliest state and most shrouded form, was 

 altogether his work. It never would have been, 

 independent of his influence, and under that influ- 

 ence it was preserved, until, having been placed 

 where it should become fruitful, the germinating 

 process had brought it forth into open day — no 

 longer a seed, but a plant. And when its beauti- 

 ful garments are put on, when it stands so clothed 

 that Solomon in all his glory could not compare 

 with it, what does the flower, in this watered gar- 

 den ? It turns to him whose creative power and 

 preserving care have led it to its new slate of 

 being — it turns to bask in the full glow of trans- 

 forming LOVE ; it looks upward ; and upward it 

 sends that rich fragrance which never dwelt in the 

 original seed, or in the mass of polluted earth 

 where its first habitation was fixed ; a fragrance 

 that belongs only to its expanded state. Thomson 

 has very elegantly expressed this : 



