The Lily. 
275 
and asserting that its splendour is so great that it sheds beams 
of light on the valley below. 
The following affecting sketch, in which the lily plays a 
part, is given by Lady Herbert, in her “Impressions of Spain.’’ 
In a cemetery near Seville is a very beautiful though simple 
marble cross, on which is engraved these lines in Spanish: 
‘ I believe in God ; 
I hope for God; 
I love God.’ 
It is the grave of a poor boy, the only son of a widow. He 
was not exactly an idiot, but what people call a natural. Good, 
simple, humble, every one loved him; but no one could teach 
him anything. . . He could remember nothing. In vain the 
poor mother put him first at school, and then to a trade; he 
could not learn. At last, in despair, she took him to a neigh¬ 
bouring monastery, and implored the abbot, who was a most 
charitable man, to take him in and treat him as a lay brother 
Touched by her grief, the abbot consented, and the boy entered 
the convent There all possible pains were taken by the monks 
to give him at least some ideas of religion, but he could re¬ 
member nothing but these three sentences. Still he was so 
patient, so laborious, and so good, that the community decided 
to keep him. 
When he had finished his hard out-of-door work, instead of 
coming in to. rest, he would go straight to the church, and there 
remain on his knees for hours. ‘But what does he do?’ ex¬ 
claimed one of the novices; ‘he does not know how to pray.’ 
* . They therefore hid themselves in a side chapel, close to 
wheie he came in. Devoutly kneeling, with clasped hands 
and his eyes fastened on the tabernacle, he did nothin^ but 
repeat over and over again, ‘I believe in God; I hope for*God- 
I love God.’. One day he was missing ; they went to his cell’ 
and found him dead on the straw, with his hands joined, and 
an expression of the same ineffable peace and joy they had 
remarked on his face when in the church. They buried him in 
this quiet cemetery, and the abbot caused these words to be 
graven on the cross. Soon a lily (emblem of innocence) was 
seen flowering by the grave, whereon it had been sown: the 
giave was opened, and the root of the flower was found in the 
heart of the orphan boy.” 
18 -ii 
