“Every day our lives are drained and our treasures rifled to adorn with living beauty the banquets of great men, and to strew the halls of marble palaces, and yet every day, as the sun comes forth again, our parent stem is laden once more with exhaustless riches and a more abundant harvest of loveliness, even as the lavished treasures and the scattered wealth of the daily chalice are ever being shed without intermission from the altar into the hearts of thankless men.” And the sweet low voice came back from the shrouded altar: “Yes, dear emblems of God’s loving prodigality, for hath he not said: ‘Cast your bread upon the waters, and after many days it shall return to thee‘’?” The scarlet fuchsia shook its clusters of purple bells, planted on a blood-red cross, as if it would say to men that none could proclaim God save they proclaimed him from Calvary. The tall Nile lily, whose cup is as a spotless shroud wrapped round a golden nail, swayed in the night air as if whispering that the way to the resurrection lay across the instruments of the passion: the ivory-tinted roses, the first-born among their kind, whose clustering, half-blown buds made a sculptured reredos of living alabaster behind the altar-cross, wept tears of dew when the midnight breeze shook their curled petals, as if weeping like sinless virgins over the wrongs they knew only by name. A carpet of violets was spread below, the last offering of Lent, the fringes of the sweet pall of penance under whose folds the church spends her yearly vigil of reparation. The heart of the child Benignus was breaking with joy and love, and he longed to be a flower himself, that he might sing the hymn the living grove had sung. The voice of the angel of the bell answered his unspoken wish: “Wish not that thou wert other than that thou art, for Jesus said, ‘Unless ye become even as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.’” And the flowers sighed, and gave forth a sweeter fragrance, because they longed to be little children, and could not. Then Benignus wished he might be an angel, if he could not be a flower, and the voice from the altar sounded very softly, so low he thought no one could hear it but himself: “This wish will I put into my cup, and when to-morrow dawns, and Jesus finds the first-fruits of this new Easter laid at his feet, thou shalt have thy answer.” Then came a soft chorus of welcome and congratulation, breaking forth among the flowery worshippers, but the angel of the bell held his peace.