In like manner, we find flowers held sacred to heathen goddesses lifted out of that association and invested with higher and purer emblematic meaning. The _Lily_, the flower of Juno, became the flower of the holy Virgin, and its snowy whiteness the symbol of Christian purity. It is often seen in the conventional form of the fleur-de-lis. The _Rose_ before the coming of Christianity was a mystic flower among Northern races. Among the Greeks and Romans it was the flower of Venus and the symbol of earthly love. Its symbolism felt also the redeeming touch of Christian sentiment. The love of which it is the emblem became not an earthly, but a heavenly love. As the lily tells of her purity, so the rose tells of the love that was in the heart of the Blessed Virgin. But this was but the reflection {82} of a higher and a divine love, of which the rose was also the symbol. How that thought of the love of heaven coming down to earth was expressed emblematically by the rose, we may see in the story of its origin which the Christian fancy of the middle ages invented. It was said that a holy maiden of Bethlehem, "blamed with wrong and slandered, was doomed to the death; and as the fire began to burn about her she made her prayers to our Lord that, as she was not guilty of that sin, He would help her and make it to be known to all men, of His merciful grace. And when she had thus said, anon was the fire quenched and out, and the brands that were burning became red roseries, and the brands that were not kindled became white roseries, full of roses. And these were the first roseries and roses, both white and red, that ever any man saw." So the rose became the flower of martyrs, the presage of the beauty and joy of Paradise. With the same thought, the early Christians decorated with roses the graves of martyrs and confessors on the anniversary of their death. It has been conjectured that it is from this connection of the rose with Paradise, and with the thought of the love which accomplished our salvation, that the rite of {83} the "golden rose" has been derived--the rite in which the Pope, on the Fourth Sunday in Lent, blesses a golden rose adorned with jewels, which he afterward bestows upon some person he desires especially to honor. In the prayers which are used in this rite, our Lord is alluded to as the "eternal Rose that has gladdened the heart of the world."