The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-04-05
Written for the Morning Starl
RELIGION E1(RLEl[ED IN FLOWERS.
BY JACQUELINE.

God hath written in the above
But not less in the bright fow'rets under us
| Stands the revelation Of HIS love.
| We behold their tender buds expand;
R@sem Of the ans
| OF all the poetic and suggestive traditions
that linger with us from the early ages-the
ages when art, revived through faith, and
| symbOlized the truths of eternity, by the crea-
ton and application of those aesthetics, which,
under the dominion of heathenism had been
used for purely sensual enjoyment; of all these
traditions, then, we find few more beautiful i'll
! their various types, more elevating in their
| idealization, or which form stronger connect
ing link between the souls aspirations and our
! material enjoyment, than those frailest children
of the beautiful, that belong to the floral king
dom.
| Coeval with the creation, the sOlace, COM
panlOns, and delight of our first parents, they
shared the punishment likewise of mans trans
gression in the flood but when the waters sub
sided they We're the chosen symbols to announce
to Noah the cessation of Omnipotent vengeance,
touched the land, raising their lOwly heads
from around the tree roots, and through the
rocky roc assures, as embiems OF the life immor-
tai, that springs from decay.
Among those which seem to be the chosen
ones, as most expressive of religious sentiment,
both in the Old Testament, and in the early
ASSShu0AJ AVAc, dEc Ouo IOSc, tuc tue OANc,
and the palm. To each of these has been given
Significance, from the earliest times, that have
made them cherished in our households, and
associated in our faith, and though the rose was
perverted by the heather into n type of sensual
love and luxury, yet through the marvellous
beauty and variety of its creation. it was
claimed by the Christian poets to be the at
tentlant of the pnre and holy wherever an or
nament was needed to paint a victory glorify
decay.
That this flower cultivated by the Jews,
Il kI,,.u -,
nament, we may believe, from the frequent use
of it a smile in the Bible. Solomon in his
song compares the church to the I" rose of Sha-
ron, and lily of the valley" In Ecclesiastics
occurs this metaphor: L was exalted like a
palm tree in Engaddi, and as a rose plant in
Jericho" Again: "Hearken unto me, We holy
children, and bud forth as roses growing by the
brook" 1t was belief among the Jews, says
Hewitt, according to Zoroaster, "that every
flower is appropriated to particular angel, and
that the hundred leaf rose is cOnsecrated to an
archangel of the highest order" The same
author relates that g the Persian fire worship
ers believe that Abraham was thrown into IL
furnace by Nimrod and the flames forthwith
turned into a bed of roses" In contra.listinc-
ton to this, i'll sentiment, is the faith of the
Turk, who holds that this flower springs from
the perspiration of Mahomet, and in accordance
with this belief they never tread upon it, or
suffer one to lie upon the ground.
think it was Scion, who said that the rose
and woman were created at the same time, and
in consequence thereof, there arose contest
tut SouS, siS 10 WHICH DC given
the palm of superior beauty. Certainly, there
may be traced II close resemblance, not only in
the questioned beauty; but also in the variety
and fragility for which this flower above all
others, is distinguished. Wherever the one
creation is found, the other is to follow.
Everywhere has God planted this exquisite
work of his hand in some FORM In the bleak
polar regions, where the days of sunshine are
so short and few there is among the
first breathings of the summer the " Rosa rapa,"
its slender stem covered with pale double flow
issue ftom the sitting air of their winter huts.=
Degraded IL. are these people i'll their tastes,
the magic of these silent messengers from God
is forcible, that they greet them with a
poets joy, and deck their head and rough seal
skin clothing with their tender blossoms. Even
to the broken-hearted Siberian exile, there
come few short days in his life when these
frail comforters rise from the frozen earth to
greet him like messengers from his lost home
and friends.
1t is not to he wondered, them that with all
the associations of Eden ever clincing about
these eloquent voices, that the early Christians
transferred these ornamental and suggestive
beauties from the saturnaiian rites of heathcn-
dom to the honor of God and his saints. Hence
it is that in many of the beautiful legends
that have come down to us, we find these beau
tiful memorials so often associated, as types of
some noble deed accomplished, the given re-
ward of some heavy human sacrifice. To those
who look upon those legends myths, or
simply religious fairy tales, we only say,
with Mrs. Jameson, that we most sincerely pity
all such skeptics- For where they outstrip the
bounds of even miraculous probability, there
may yet he found i'll their pages both entertain
ment and instruction; and after all, why
should not religion have her fairyland rs well
as material life. Why should not the mind
enjoy the privilege of an occasional transport
into land of poetical views we'll as the inn
agination, which finds in the fairyland of child
hood only dim vista of annual blooms upon
which the breath of heaven can never blow.
Weary with the turmoil of. life, with the noise
and whirl of the shifting scenes that open con-
tinuousy upon vista of pain and sorrow and
unrealized hopes they recall to the soul auroral
into fields that redolent with the flowers of
the eternal land, where earthly woes can never
grow In this Dodona grove, the soul h;,llows
all the aspirations for the higher life possess
1t, the skies seem to open, and we catch tiut-