Ecclesiastes 3

The Month Of Color

He hath made every thing beautiful. Ecclesiastes 3:11.

One wet Saturday I went into a cottage in a country town, and there I found two little girls who were very* happy. They had a paint-box; furthermore, they had got permission to color the prints in some old numbers of a children's magazine. What gorgeous pictures they were making! Bright blue skies, and fields pretty beyond any I had ever seen. Then there were little girls who played in the fields; they had golden hair, and were dressed in colors that made one think of the rainbow. On that rainy day the hearts of those two children were happy; they were in a world of sunshine, for they had a paint-box, and were allowed to use it.

All boys and girls love colors to a certain extent. Even a baby will be attracted by an orange, not because she knows how it tastes, but because there is something about its color that makes her want to grasp it. As for you older children, you cannot pass a field where scarlet poppies or blue corn-flowers are growing without wanting to fill your hands with them. The wild roses in the hedge too, how often have you plucked an armful at the cost of many scratches and borne the flowers home in triumph only to find that after all wild roses look lovelier growing than stuck in a vase?

I wonder if any of you, when in the country, ever went out for milk early in the morning? I remember very well one road that led to a dairy farm. A burn ran alongside of it, and its banks were covered with “queen of the meadow.” I do not believe that the “queen of the meadow” would by itself have attracted the little milk carriers, but in July “ragged robin” grew beside it. As you know, it is purplish pink. And there were “ox-eyed daisies” in a field quite near. The girls used to go home, their sun-bonnets decorated with pretty flowers, and even an occasional boy might be seen with a “buttonhole.” I used to wish with all my heart that I were one of the company.

Gardens are very beautiful in July; in them, however, you often get color arranged after a particular plan. It is not so in the open country. Flowers, quite little in themselves, seem to grow in patches; they startle and delight us with an unexpected line of color. After the same manner, we have the daffodils of spring. Some of you must have seen a field of them. The poet Wordsworth wrote a beautiful little poem about daffodils, which you are sure to learn at school one day.

Then the trees! Near where I live is a fine avenue. Trees are said to be green, and nothing but green, yet I never tire of looking from one end to the other of this straight, familiar road. The trees that line it on each side are of many shades; one appears almost grey, another bright green, while a hoary example shows itself so dark that I sometimes think its place should be the forest. There are just a few copper beeches, and they give a delightful variety. If I were a poet I should write a sonnet about that avenue.

Color is part of the scheme of God's earth, and He means us to love it. Travelers tell us that round about Nazareth there are a great many flowers. We know that there were flowers there when Jesus was a boy, and although the town itself must be different today from what it was when He lived, the gaily-colored flowers that grow on the hill just above Nazareth must, we believe, be almost the same as those on which Christ gazed. He loved them, and doubtless learned many things from them. Looking abroad on the fields one day as He preached, He said, “Consider the lilies of the field.... Yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

God loves the flowers, Christ loved the flowers, we all love flowers. Do we? Then why do we pick bunches of them only to throw them away on a dusty road, where the horses will trample them, and the wheels will crush them, and they will die of thirst? We love them! Then why do we break young branches off the trees only to toss them aside in a few moments?

Boys and girls, the flowers you cast aside would be priceless treasures to some people. Have you ever gone down the slummy streets of a great city with a bunch of flowers in your hand? If you have, you won't have forgotten the experience. As you passed along the narrow streets you were besieged with a crowd of eager children crying, “Gie's a flo'erie oh, gie's a flo'erie!” and they meant it. There was a real hunger in their eyes for just one tiny blossom. You felt you couldn't refuse their request. And you may be sure that the flowers you gave were cherished in some old broken bottle or cracked teacup till they were more than faded, and their smell was not the original perfume but quite another!

Dear children, we don't half prize the treasures that God has given us so freely. The next time you are going to cast aside a flower stop! Think of the trouble God has taken to color the tiniest blossom by the wayside. Remember it is living and breathing, and that its life is as precious to it as yours is to you. Treat with loving reverence that which God has made so sweet and exquisite, so glorious and pretty.