Voice of Flowers/The Garden and the Rain
THE GARDEN AND THE RAIN.
One summer there had been a long drought, made more painful by intense heat. Young trees drooped; many plants withered away; and the newly-mown grass crisped under the feet as though it would never spring again.
The master of a garden went forth at the sunset to water it. He was grieved to see how his nurslings suffered. The slight branches of the fruit-bearing trees were brittle, and broke at the touch; and the juiceless berries, shrinking away, tried to hide behind their yellow leaves.
The cisterns had become low, and the shallow brooklets were dry; yet he gave water to all his plants, as plentifully as he could. Still they looked languidly at him, as if asking—"Can you do nothing more to help us?" Some were perishing at the root, for the earth to which they clung was like powder and dust.
That night he awoke, and heard the blessed rain falling; at first, gently, and then with power. He thanked the Merciful Giver, and remembered the words, "Can all the vanities of the heathen give rain? or can the heavens without Him, give showers?"
In the morning, when the rain had ceased, he walked in his garden. He rejoiced, with his plants and flowers, in the great goodness of God, Their long season of sorrow had made them dearer to him, as the parent loveth the child who has been sick with a more tender love.
But now their time of suffering was past. The grape-vine, having put on beauty for ashes, wore at every point of its broad leaves a pearl: and the honey-suckle, which was thought to have been dying, was heard teaching its young tendrils where to twine.
The willow, whose long wands had turned yellow, from disease, was weeping for joy. Every infant blossom tried to tell of its new happiness. Birds carolled from the nest, and breathed into their silent praise a living soul.
As he passed among the shrubbery, every reaching bough shed on him a few chrystal drops. They seemed to have saved for the master a portion of what they best loved. The statelier plants secreted a little moisture to bestow upon the lowly. They had themselves known want, and it seemed to have made them more pitiful.
He took in his hand the long leaves of a lily, which, the day before, was ready to perish, and it poured him one fragrant drop from its cup of snow. And the rose-bud gave him, from its heart, a chrystal gem that it had treasured there, saying, "Here! here! take this, thou who didst minister unto me in my need, and when I was thirsty, give me drink."
A forget-me-not, which he had removed a few days before, from the dominion of a thorny raspberry, had reserved a little rain, to bestow upon the grass-cups at her side. As he bent over her, she seemed to raise her blue eyes and whisper, "I was in prison, and ye came unto me; sick, and ye visited me."
Then the master of the garden said, "Oh! thankless human heart, that daily takest thy water, and thy bread, yet yieldest scarcely one smile unto God—perchance art angry because of some smitten gourd, or some rose-leaf doubled upon thy pillow—come forth, after the shower of summer, and be abased. "See, every leaf and bud share the pure essence of their life with all around. The sigh of the lightest breeze wakes their charity. They refuse not, as long as any thing remains to give. Hast thou no surplus drops of Heaven's bounty? Hoard them not from thy brother, the frail partaker of the same clay; but, instructed by the branches of thine own implanting, become wise unto eternal life."
