All "the grace
of the fashion of it perishes," and there is no more beauty in the fields
till the return of spring makes them bloom again.
In a country where wood is as scarce as it is in the Holy Land grass and
flowers are all cut down together, and burnt to heat the ovens in which
bread is baked. The flowers of the field may live but a day, and then
wither on their stalks under the hot breath of the desert-blast; or they
may be cut down and "cast into the oven." But the Lord spoke of them that
He might teach His disciples that they must not be anxious about how they
were to live in this world, because God their Father who "so clothed the
grass," cared for them much more than for the birds, and all the helpless
living things which are never forgotten by Him.
The flowers have no care. Those crimson lilies, which shine like stars
among the grass in Palestine in the spring-time, do nothing to make their
own rich dress. But God has thought it worth while to clothe them, as well
as the daisies of our English meadows, in grace and beauty; and fair and
sweet as they are, not for themselves, but as the overflowings of God's
brimming cup of love, From His own word we learn to "consider the lilies
how they grow," and receive through them the same lesson which the
Fork-moss taught the lost traveller.
"For who but He that arched the skies,
And pours the day-spring's living flood,
Wondrous alike in all He tries,
Could rear the daisy's purple bud?
"Mould its green cup, its wiry stem,
Its fringed border nicely spin,
And cut the gold-embossed gem,
That, set in silver, gleams within?
"Then fling it, unrestrained and free,
O'er hill and dale and desert sod,
That man where'er he walks may see,
In every step, the stamp of God.
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