"Will the sun's rays now prove too hot for it? Will the winds be too rough and stormy? Will the cold air bite, or the storm beat and bruise it unto death? Pointing ever skyward, does it stop to shiver at the prospect of dark and cold and heat, or windy violence?
"Let us see. Bravely the young shoot goes its way. As soon as it sees the light it displays new beauty, and the reflected glory clothes it in a brighter robe—the fresh, dainty green of spring's supernal dress, emblem of everlasting youth. But a storm of wind and rain assails it. Dense cloud-curtains hide the sun, and the air is cold and chilling. Sometimes for days this benumbing coldness lasts. But after the storm our little friend is greener and brighter and larger than ever. It has withstood the storm and wind, by using them for its own advancement. Everything has been turned into good by recognizing only the good.
"When the sunshine comes again the little slip is baptized with dew and warmth and light, and joyously springs on toward budding time, and then another and different experience befalls. Instead of rolling every new leaf outward to be bathed in the light and kissed by the wind, there is a rolling inward, a curling up and shutting in of the new and delicate leaves. A hard, unlovely roll or lump now displays itself on the green stem, and every day the roll becomes larger and harder. The green stalk never questions, though for a time her face is veiled. She lives in the waiting silence, content with what is. One bright day she looks at her ugly bud and finds it a rare blossom of surpassing beauty and sweetest fragrance. Thus is born the fair-robed lily, pure emblem of the child of God.
"But we have many and various symbols of divine thought in the many and various flowers, from which we learn divine lessons. There are the violets that come so early in the spring, with their wildwood fragrance and dainty blue cloaks, and the lovely roses of summer, the goldenrods and asters of autumn, while among the rarer kinds we have the night-blooming cereus, the beautiful but slow blossoming century plant, and many others. These are types and symbols of ourselves and our process of birth and unfoldment.
"The new birth is a development from material to spiritual knowledge. The individual corresponds to one or another plant, but none may know at what particular stage.
"Some blossom early, some late, some manifest a nature like the violet, others the rose, the water lily or the century plant. I can not tell, you can not tell, none can tell. Even the Master said, 'The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth, so is every one that is born of the spirit.'
"The wonderful seed (desire for truth) we have planted must be moistened by the water of right words, warmed by the sunshine of faith, fed by the dew of patience.
"Our trials will be similar in character to the flowers, and the outcome will be the same in proportion as we follow their example of unquestioning faithfulness.
"The very desire to grow is a challenge to the elements that seem to oppose growth, but the plant overcomes all obstacles by its non-resistance, and herein lies one of our most valuable lessons.
"In our progress we meet with many conditions and circumstances that try us, that seem indeed to call in question our earnestness in thus starting out, with new assumptions. Sometimes these adverse conditions are called trials of faith and they may come to us in one way or another, sometimes in sickness, sometimes in misunderstandings, sometimes in grief, sometimes in disagreeable duties.