“Don’t you know? Chautauqua is a beautiful place in the woods, shut in from the world by a high fence all around it, with locked gates. It is on the shore of a lovely lake. Many people come there every year, and they have meetings, and they sing beautiful songs about birds and flowers and sky and water and God and angels and dear little babies and stars. Men come there from all over this world, and stand up and talk high, grand thoughts, and the people listen and wave their handkerchiefs till it looks like an orchard full of cherry trees in blossom. “They have lovely singers—ladies who sing alone as sweet as birds, and they have great grand choruses of song besides, by hundreds of voices. And they have instruments to play on,—organs and pianos, and violins and harps.” “How beautiful,” murmured the flowers. “Tell us more,” said the brook; “tell us more, more, more,—tell, tell, tell!” “More, more,” said the wind. “It lasts all summer, so the people who can’t come at one time will come at another, though my cousin said she thought that one day all the people in the world came at once. There must have been something very grand to bring so many that day. There were not enough rooms for visitors to sleep in, and Chautauqua is a large place, the largest I was ever in. Yes,” reflectively, “I think all the world must have been there.” The little white violet looked up. “There was one day last summer when no one came through the pasture, and no one went by on the road, and all day long we saw not one person. It must have been that day, and they were all gone to Chautauqua,” she said softly. “I shouldn’t wonder at all,” said Bachelor. Then they all looked sober and still. They were thinking. The idea that all the people in the world had come together for a day was very great to them. At last one spoke: “How nice it would be if all the flowers in the world could come together for a day,” said the little violet. “And all the birds,” chirped a sparrow. “And all the brooks and lakes and ocean,” laughed the brook. “And all the trees,” sighed the tall elm. “Oh! and all the winds. We could make as beautiful music as ever any organ or piano made.” “But what is it all for?” asked a bright-eyed daisy. “To teach the people all about the things that the great God has made, and show them how to live to please Him, and how to please Him in the best way,” promptly answered Bachelor. “There is a great good man at the head of it, and I heard a lady say that God Himself sent him there to take care of Chautauqua for Him, for it is all made to praise God. They have schools,—everybody studies, but it is all about God that they learn,—about the things He made, or how to praise Him better, and all the talking,—they call it lecturing,—is to help men to praise and love God more. They have three beautiful mottoes: “‘We study the word and works of God.’ ‘Let us keep our Heavenly Father in our midst,’ and, ‘Never be discouraged.’”