LEAVING the village to which I introduced my young friends last month, I approached the Manor House, which is a noble-looking structure between 200 and 300 years old. It is ornamented with an elegant garden, and nearly surrounded by an extensive park, containing an ancient rookery, and a stock of deer. I cannot help sometimes wondering whether the occupants of such beautiful residences are really happy. In many instances, I fear that they are not. Of one thing, however, I am certain, and that is that, if they are happy, and their happiness is to be enduring, it must not be based upon their high station, nor upon the many elegancies and comforts of life which attend them. Of all who ever lived, Solomon, I suppose, had the fullest opportunity of making the most of this world; and what does he say about it? Let us hearken. “I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity. I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it? I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do, under the heaven all the days of their life. I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards I made me gardens and orchards, aid I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees: I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me: I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men and precious stones heaped up like coals in a cellar are not seen every day; nor, indeed, any day except in German dreams, but whether Hans was only dreaming I can’t say; if he was, he was very active in his dream, and very, very greedy too; in fact, his greed seemed to increase with every double handful that he grasped. How he trembled with excitement! what a hungry light glared in his usually dull and quiet-looking face I with what nervous haste he grasped the gold and jewels, clutching each time with each hand enough for two, nor waiting to pick up the coins which slipped from his covetous grasp, or to make any selection from the pile. Ah, depend upon it, it is the same covetous nature that leads the little boy to leap with greedy haste upon the marbles he has won in the playground, and grasp more than his little hands can retain! Yet God’s Word says, “Thou shalt not covet.” How can He allow it? Yet how can we obey it when it is our very nature to covet? And, if we cannot obey it, how can we escape the curse Only through faith in Him who was (Rom. 4). Then we become “dead to law by the body of Christ;” “dead to sin;” “new creatures in Christ Jesus,” and “the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Well, but the poor cowherd knew nothing of all this, he had cast aside the key-flower, and his whole soul was occupied with the pile of gold and jewels before him. At last every pocket was full to bursting, his pouch was crammed, the breast of his shepherd’s frock stuck out like a pouter pigeon’s. Still upon his knees before the pile of gold, he looked around to see if he could spy a sack, a bag, anything he might fill, but nothing of the kind was visible in the dreamy light of that spacious vault; again that voice seemed to fall upon his ear, “Take what you wish, and don’t forget the best.”
“I can’t,” groaned Hans in reply, meaning he could not take what he wished, for he wished to take all. Suddenly it occurred to him that he would hurry home and get a wheelbarrow, and he staggered to his knees; yet how to turn his back upon that glittering pile he knew not. At last, making a desperate clutch, he crammed both hands filled even his mouth till he was in danger of being choked, and then tore himself away.
Hardly able to stand beneath the load he carried, and still wistfully gazing on the wondrous scene of wealth, he stumbled on to reach the rocky stair. Slowly and laboriously he climbed the narrow steps. As he once more turned to take a last lingering look along the vault, that voice once more said, —
“Take what you wish, and don’t forget the best;” and the last words repeated by the echo in the staircase he was ascending seemed to fall like a whisper in his ear: “Don’t forget the best.”
“I won’t, indeed,” said Hans half aloud, “if I get back with that wheelbarrow.”
As to the bright blue flower which he had in his hand when he entered the cavern, the gold and silver and precious stones had quite put that out of his mind altogether. It lay on the rocky floor where he had thrown it, shining like a bit of heaven’s own blue fallen to the earth. With much difficulty poor Hans managed at last to climb the steps and stagger into the daylight, anxious to hasten home for the wheelbarrow. But before he left the place he turned once more to mark the exact spot in the mountain-side where the door was, that he might make no mistake on his return. Judge what his astonishment must have been as he slowly turned his head to find that the door had disappeared! He rubbed his eyes and looked again, but no door could he see! Had he been really dreaming all this time, and was he awake at last? Had the warm summer air lulled him to sleep as he sat watching his cows in the shadow of that old ruin on the hill, and were the key-flower, the door, the vault, and the treasure all a dream?
Well, but what of the gold and silver and jewels he had brought away with him, and the weight of which he still staggered under?
“Ah, well,” thought Hans, with a heavy sigh, “if I can’t get any more, I have something to carry home;” and, as he thought this, he opened his clenched hand to feast his eyes on the precious stones he held so tightly. Stones they were, indeed; but his bitter disappointment cannot be told when he found that, instead of the sparkling jewels he had seen, or thought he had seen, in the vault, his hand was full of common pebbles! Nervously thrusting his hands into his pockets, he drew them forth filled with—what do you think? Stones and yellow buttercups, gravel and other trash! Yes, all his much-coveted treasure had turned to rubbish!
Alas, poor Hans! Was it indeed only a dream after all—a dream which had awakened all the latent greed of a covetous nature only to mock him with bitter disappointment? Or was it, as the tradition says, that all the gold and jewels had turned to rubbish because he had forgotten the best? The old legend says that the key-flower was the best—better than all the treasure he had borne away, because, had he not cast it aside, but kept it in his hand, the mine of wealth laid open by its power would, so the legend says, have remained ever open to him, and, instead of the trash with which his pockets were laden, he would have had real treasure—treasure which would not have changed into rubbish, but would have abided with him always.
However this may be, whether Hans really dreamed it at all, or whether some old saint of a far-gone time invented this strange story about the beautiful blue key-flower and the treasures that it opened to the cowherd, doesn’t much matter. One thing is very certain, and that is, that there really is a key-flower—a flower of heavenly beauty, aye, and of heavenly birth, too. Can you not guess what it is Many have had the opportunity of possessing it like poor Hans the cowherd, and, like him, have turned from it for the sake of other things. Some have even seemed, as it were, to hold it for a moment in hand, and then they have cast it aside, and “the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches” have caused them to “forget the best.” And yet it is a precious flower—brighter than any star that shines. Its root is in heaven, and yet all on earth may have it if they will. Do you ask what it is? I answer, It is GRACE—the grace of God. Grace is the key-flower to every blessing in heaven and earth.
“By grace ye are saved.”
“‘Grace is the sweetest sound
That over reached our ears,
When conscience charged and Justice frowned,
‘Twas GRACE removed our fears.
‘Tis freedom to the slave,
‘Tis light and liberty;
It takes its terror from the grave,
From death its victory.
Grace is a mine of wealth
Laid open to the poor;
Grace is the sov’reign spring of health,
‘Tis LIFE FOR EVERMORE.”
It blossoms in the Gospel of Christ, its heavenly radiance shines in every word. It is offered to all who hear that Gospel: it is offered to you. Those who will but take this precious KEY-FLOWER will find a Door open to them, not into a vault, but into everlasting life (John 10:99I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. (John 10:9)); they are “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ;” they “have promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come;” they possess the “true riches,” and an inheritance “that fadeth not away.” When the treasures of earth “shall melt with fervent heat” and be “burned up,” their treasure will still endure and never perish. But he who “loves the world and the things that are in the world,” and for their sake has cast away the grace of God, will find at last that he has indeed forgotten the best,” and only “laden himself with thick clay” (Hab. 2:66Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and to him that ladeth himself with thick clay! (Habakkuk 2:6)). How bitter the disappointment he will feel when “the door is shut” to open to him no more, and he finds he has forever lost THE KEY-FLOWER!
J. L. K.