No soldier and no priest can scorn her. There were the Wars of the Roses. And there was a Rose in Sharon. Our wandering brother Dante found a great rose in Paradise. There are white roses, sweet ghosts under the pine. There are yellow roses, little suns in the shadow. But the normal bloom is red, flushed with foolish ardors, laughing, shaking off the gossamer years. She remembers Love, but not too well, if love is pain. There is no yesterday that can daunt her and keep her dear heart-laughter down. In springtime her magic petals bring God to the weary and give Heaven’s strength to the wavering of heart. She can turn the slave to a woman, the woman to something a little more than mortal. Oh, how bravely, with the same life-giving red, with the last of her virgin strength, she blooms and blooms on almost every highway. We find her on the road to Benares, on the road to Mecca, on the road to Rome, and on the road to Nowhere, in Tennessee. Her red petals can almost heal a mortal wound. II A MENDICANT PILGRIMAGE IN THE EAST IN LOST JERUSALEM BEHOLD the Pharisees, proud, rich, and damned, Boasting themselves in lost Jerusalem, Gathered a weeping woman to condemn, Then watching curiously, without a sound The God of Mercy, writing on the ground. How looked his sunburned face beneath the sun Flushed with his Father’s mighty angel-wine? God make us all divine. A TEMPLE MADE WITH HANDS I THE DWELLING-PLACE OF FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY I HAD walked twelve miles before noon. Then I had eaten four slices of bread and butter on merciful doorsteps. At four-thirty, having completed twenty-one miles, I entered the richest village in the United States, a village that is located in New Jersey. I was so weary I was ready to sleep in the gutter, and did not care if the wagons ran over me. I should have walked through to the green fields before I looked for hospitality. I knew that the well-meant deeds of the city cannot equal the kindness of the most commonplace farm-hand. Yet I lingered. I purchased a feast of beefsteak and onions at an obscure Jewish restaurant and felt myself once more a man. But it was now too late to leave town. The rule of the country is--one must ask for his night’s lodging before five o’clock. After that, things are growing dark, and people may be afraid of you. After paying for beefsteak and onions, I had twenty-five cents. This twenty-five cents was all that remained after a winter’s lecturing on art and poetry in Manhattan. I am satisfied that the extra money, over and above all paid debts, brought me some of the ill-luck of the night. As I have before observed, money is a hoodoo on the road. Until a man is penniless he is not stripped for action. A sign at the lunch-counter advertised: “Furnished rooms, fifty cents.” I asked the proprietor to cut the price. He dodged the issue. “Say, why don’t you go up there to the mission? They will sell you a good bed cheap.” “For a quarter?”