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.
