Many Faces

     The ground is full of pansy seeds and Johnny jump up seeds.  One of the first flowers to wave its face in the spring is the pansy and they are everywhere.  They will last a long time no matter where you put them.  The faces are of great interest to me on each one the color and design will be a little different. 

 

    

 

     They smell nice too and you just can’t help but smile back at them and recognize that the Creator has a sense of humor with all these little faces nodding throughout the garden. 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

            

 

 

 

 

 

 

      The fresh ones keep popping up so you always have super pansies to keep you smiling all the way to winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




 

"Our Little Ones.


 The King's Garden"  


HEART'S-EASE


"You all know this pretty little flower, do you not? Very likely you have gathered in the fields the tiny Heart's-Ease, or wild Pansy, with its smiling face; and of course you all know well its larger and more beautiful sister, the garden Pansy.  

Do you know what this name means? It is from the French, pesee, meaning thoughtful. And this is a good name to put with the other while we think over together some Thoughts that give Heart's-Ease, ease or rest of heart.  

We found out that each little seed contains a thought of God. His Word is the seed through which He puts His thoughts into the garden of our hearts. We have already talked of three of these wonderful seeds, and the beautiful plants that come from them; and it is in the fourth that we find the seed of Heart's-Ease or Rest.  

"Remember the rest day, to keep it holy? Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the rest day, and hallowed it."  


EVERLASTING REST


Do you know what it is to be so very tired that you long to rest? You would never have known what this feeling of weariness is if sin had not come into the world, bringing "death, and all our woe." For when God made men He "caused him to rest" in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve had plenty of work to do, and yet they had rest all the time that they were doing it, and so they were never tired. Was not this a happy state to be in?  

The word Sabbath means rest, and so to keep the Sabbath of the Lord is to keep God's rest. And this every one may do, for God has given it to all. He made the Sabbath, which is His rest, for man, and He tells every one to keep it." 





June 27, 1901 EJW, PTUK 410 




 

 



 "All of you would, I feel sure, if I should ask you which you think the sweetest and loveliest of all the fair flowers, agree with me in giving the crown of honour to "sweet Queen Rose." 

We might almost say that all that Ii beautiful in flower life, meats in this crowning wonder, which seals up the sum, "perfect in beauty." The purity of the lily, and the snowdrop; the fulness of the peony and the hyacinth; the perfect shape and delicate moulding of the lilac and the Egyptian lily; the exquisite colours and shading of the sweet pea, the petunia, and the pansy; the richness of the gladiola and the geranium; the precious fragrance of the violet, the wallflower, and the mignonette;-all the virtues which distinguish the different flowers, we find combined, bound up, and sealed, in this "perfection of beauty," which stands as the type of all. 

Now we are going to talk about that flower in the King's Garden which He calls "the bond of perfectness," and so we have taken the rose as the fit emblem of it. Can you tell what it is?   

Do you remember that we said last week that each of the commandments of God is a divine seed from the Father's own heart, which He plants in the heart gardens of His children, to bring forth the fragrant flowers of His own lovely character? But there is one word that sums up all the commandments, and has in it the grace of every one of them. It is Love; "for all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love."  

And so God says that Love "is the bond of perfectness." As the Rose, the emblem of perfection, is the Queen of the flowers, so Love, is the bond of perfectness," reigns in the King's garden, and gathers up and seals within itself the graces of all the fair flowers that bloom there.  

Each commandment, as we shall see when we come to look at them more closely, contains some special grace of God, that it may be unfolded and revealed in the hearts of man. But in love, the crowning grace, or rather the summing up of all the graces, "all the fulness of God" shines forth, for "God is Love."  

The Rose seems to us the summing up of all that is beautiful in nature; and Christ, who is "the One altogether lovely," calls Himself, "The Rose of Sharon."  

Since God is Love, and the seeds of all that is fair in His garden come from His own heart, they must all spring from Love, and show to us its different characteristics."





 May 30, 1901 EJW, PTUK 346