Well may we stand before this white rose THE WHITE 

 bush and hear its parable. It and we and ROSE BUSH 

 all things have come from the One Eternal 

 Source, and the highest and best in man has 

 sprung fundamentally from the instinct which 

 we find in the wild rose. Under the same law 

 by which the rose loses in stamens and gains 

 petals does the human race rise into richer and 

 fuller expression. As the many-stamened wild 

 rose sacrifices the abundance of its stamens 

 that it may become this many-petaled white 

 rose, so are the higher reaches of human life 

 evolved out of the lower, and under the same 

 law. 



Until now we have been looking only at the 

 flower of the rose, and no wonder, for its 

 beauty may well hold us in admiration. But 

 we have had but one little look into wonder- 

 land. If we look at the branches and leaves of 

 this white rose bush, not to speak of the mys- 

 terious things to be found down among the 

 roots, we may peer into a magic spectacle. 



With a microscope we might look into some 

 of nature's deepest mysteries, for here the 

 eternal animate forces are at work, on a minia- 

 [85] 



