The Glory of the Flower
Illustration★★★Ruskin has a beautiful story of a flower. told him by a friend, whom he asked to write it down for the benefit of Ruskin’s St. George’s Guild. I can- not give it to you at full length, but here is the gist of it.
It is the story of his first flower. He was a poor boy at the time and in a needy state, when he became the owner of his first flower, “a poor, peaky, little sprouting crocus.”
He tells of the care with which he tended it, protecting it from the searching March winds, The Art of Sermon Illustration covering it with a flower pot till the season got milder. It was ever uppermost in his thoughts, whether sleeping or waking. Until, at length, one sunny, silent Sunday morning it opened its glowing, golden sacramental cup, gleaming like light from heaven dropped in a dark place -living light and fire. So it seemed to his poor vision, and he called the household and the neighbours from their cares to share his rapture.
But, alas! his dream was ended: the flower had no fascination for those who came at his call. It was but a yellow crocus to them.
Some laughed, some tittered, some jeered him, and old Dick Willis, poor man! who got a crust by selling soft water by the pail, he only rubbed his dim eyes, and exclaimed in pity: “God bless the poor boy!” Little thinking-adds Ruskin-how much he was already blessed (Matt. vi. 28).
REV. J. S. MAVER.
The point
A poor boy's rapture over his first crocus flower is met only with mockery from his neighbors, except one poor old man who blesses him -- unaware of how richly the boy was already blessed.