and young came from every side with roses, the loveliest that
bloomed in each garden, but they were not of the right sort. The flower
was to be plucked from the Garden of Love. But what rose in all that
garden expressed the highest and purest love?

And the poets sang of the loveliest rose in the world,--of the love of
maid and youth, and of the love of dying heroes.

"But they have not named the right flower," said the wise man. "They
have not pointed out the place where it blooms in its splendor. It is
not the rose that springs from the hearts of youthful lovers, though
this rose will ever be fragrant in song. It is not the bloom that
sprouts from the blood flowing from the breast of the hero who dies
for his country, though few deaths are sweeter than his, and no rose is
redder than the blood that flows then. Nor is it the wondrous flower
to which man devotes many a sleepless night and much of his fresh
life,--the magic flower of science."

"But I know where it blooms," said a happy mother, who came with her
pretty child to the bedside of the dying queen. "I know where the
loveliest rose of love may be found. It springs in the blooming cheeks
of my sweet child, when, waking from sleep, it opens its eyes and smiles
tenderly at me."

"Lovely is this rose, but there is a lovelier still," said the wise man.

"I have seen the loveliest, purest rose that blooms," said a woman. "I
saw it on the cheeks of the queen. She had taken off her golden crown.
And in the long, dreary night she carried her sick child in her arms.
She wept, kissed it, and prayed for her child."

"Holy and wonderful is the white rose of a mother's grief," answered the
wise man, "but it is not the one we seek."

"The loveliest rose in the world I saw at the altar of the Lord," said
the good Bishop, "the young maidens went to the Lord's Table. Roses
were blushing and pale roses shining on their fresh cheeks. A young girl
stood there. She looked with all the love and purity of her spirit up to
heaven. That was the expression of the highest and purest love."

"May she be blessed," said the wise man, "but not one of you has yet
named the loveliest rose in the world."

Then there came into the room a child, the queen's little son.

"Mother," cried the boy, "only hear what I have read."

And the child sat by the bedside and read from the Book of Him who
suffered death upon the cross to save men, and even those who were not
yet born. "Greater love t