For a Flower Service
George Litting, M. A. Songs 2:10-13 My beloved spoke, and said to me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.… Nothing that we can conceive of is prettier than flowers. People who teach or learn drawing speak sometimes of "the line of beauty," and they bestow vast pains in order to be able to draw it. Did you ever observe a flower which was without a line of beauty? No; — flowers are always, when their growth is not interfered with, as perfect in form as can be, and all the lines of beauty which ever were drawn or designed by man must, I think, have been copied, in the first instance, from leaves and flowers. Of this you may have plenty of proofs by noticing beautiful pillars in buildings, beautiful patterns on vases, beautiful pictures, beautiful forms of man's devising anywhere; in most, or many, of them you will find that the beauty consists in curves copied from flowers and leaves. Ah! there is a lesson for you here, to be learned from the beauty and perfect form of flowers; it is this: — If you wish your lives to be as beautiful and perfect as they can be, you must fashion them after a God-given example. Nobody can make a plant or flower. It must grow in God's appointed way and no other. Having grown, it lends itself to the architect, the painter, the poet, the potter, to anybody having need thereof, to make the copy he desires. So also there is one perfect life, one perfect character, of God's appointment, given to mankind, from which to copy. In so far as you make Christ's life your pattern and example, your life and character shall be full of grace, beauty, and sweetness. Linnaeus, the great Swedish botanist, used to observe the beautiful order which reigns among certain flowers, and so was led to suggest the telling of time by what he called "a floral clock." It was to be composed of plants which open and close their blossoms at particular hours; as, for instance, the dandelion, which opens its petals at six in the morning, the hawkweed at seven, the succory at eight, the celandine at nine, and so on; the closing of the flowers being marked with equal regularity, so as to indicate the progress of afternoon and evening. What a lovely thing it would be thus to bedeck every passing hour of life with grace and obedience, as the flowers do. Shall they be punctual in all that concerns the purpose for which they are made, and boys and girls, who have reason and intelligence to guide them, be unpunctual? Nay, — but let the flowers which open early in the morning remind you of the call to prayer; those which open later, of the call to work and duty; those that close in afternoon or evening may lead you to reflect on the way in which you have spent your day, and teach you to commit yourselves to God's care and keeping during the darkness of the coming night. In this way you will, with undeviating regularity, learn to obey the influence of the Sun of Righteousness, and give each following hour its proper due, just as the flowers accommodate themselves to the influence of the natural sun. Has it ever occurred to you that the common names of flowers often tell us of the way in which they were regarded by the people who first named them? Pansy was originally a French word, meaning thought. The pansy, then, was the thought-flower. It is very fitting, therefore, that it should be found everywhere. The whole world is governed by thought. But, we must remember that thought may be either evil or good. Now the pansy ought never to suggest evil thought. How should it? It is, in itself, so beautiful and perfect that only an ill-disposed and perverted mind could be persuaded to evil by it. People bent on evil deeds do not seek for inspiration how to accomplish them by thinking of pretty flowers. They are not led by the beauty of pansies or other blossoms to be ill-tempered, or spiteful, or disobedient, or untruthful, or to commit thefts, or fall into other crimes. The thought suggested by the pansy, then, is good thought, thought beautiful like its emblem. "The best thoughts are those which a man conceives when on his knees before his God." Thus we should think what God is: a loving, merciful Father; what the Lord Jesus Christ is: a tender, atoning Saviour; what God the Holy Spirit is: a Sanctifier who will dwell in us and make us holy. Again, we should think what we ourselves are: weak and sinful by nature, who need God's help to make us better. Thirdly, we should think of others, and of what we can do to benefit them. Thus our thoughts should really be concerned with what is set before us in the Church Catechism as, "Our duty to God and our duty to our neighbour." I may tell you that the pansy, the thought-flower, has another common name which bears strangely on this subject: It is heart's-ease. A good deal of our duty to our neighbour consists in giving, where we can, heart's-ease, peace of mind. An old ordained minister of the Church, who lived many years ago, used to say: "I see in this world two heaps, one of human misery, and the other of human happiness. Now if I take but the smallest bit from one heap and add it to the other, I carry a point; I feel I have done something." And is this all I am to say? Oh! no. By and by, when you are blessed with means such as are not expected in the case of children, you will dedicate something more than flowers to God s service. In former days there lived a princess Eugenie, sister of the king of Sweden. She set her mind on finishing a hospital which had been begun, and, to do so, sold her diamonds. When visiting this hospital, after its completion, a suffering inmate wept tears of gratitude as she stood by his side . "Ah!" exclaimed the princess, "now I see my diamonds again." Do you understand her meaning? She meant that in those grateful tears she beheld what was to her more beautiful and valuable than the diamonds with which they had been purchased. One thing more: you will dedicate something else to God besides your means, namely, yourselves, your lives, your thoughts, your words, your acts. (George Litting, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. WEB: My beloved spoke, and said to me, "Rise up, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.