THE LOVLIEST

  ROSE IN THE

  WORLD

                                                       Once there reigned a queen, in whose garden were found the most glorious flowers at all seasons and from all the lands of the world. But more than all others she loved the roses, and she had many kinds, from the wild dog rose with its apple-scented green leaves to the most splendid, large, crimson roses. They grew against the garden walls, wound themselves around the pillars and window frames, and crept through the windows into

the rooms, and all along the ceilings in the halls. And the roses were of many colors, and of every fragrance and form.

    But care and sorrow dwelt in those halls. The queen lay upon a sickbed, and the doctors said she must die.

    "There is still one thing that can save her," said the wisest of them. "Bring her the loveliest rose in the world, the rose that is the symbol of the purest and the brightest love. If that is held before her eyes before they close, she will not die."

    Then old 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 that garden expressed the highest and purest love?

    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 never 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 him, and no rose 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 silence."

"But I know where it blooms," said a happy mother, who came with her pretty child to the beside 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, he opens his eyes and smiles tenderly at me."

    "Lovely is this rose, but there is one that is 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 him, 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