eauty
entered into us.

Who can describe that harmony of colour, a Lotus-pool in blossom in
clear shining after rain! The grey old walls, the brown water, the dark
green of the Lotus leaves, the delicate pink of the flowers; overhead,
infinite crystalline blue; and beyond the old walls, palms.

With us was a young Indian friend. "I will gather some of the lilies for
you," he said, with the quick Indian desire to give pleasure; but some
one interposed: "They must not be gathered by us. The pool belongs to
the Temple."

It was as if a stone had been flung straight at a mirror. There was a
sense of crash and the shattering of some bright image. The Lotus-pool
was a Temple pool; its flowers are Temple flowers. The little buds that
float and open on the water, lifting young innocent faces up to the
light as it smiles down upon them and fills them through with almost a
tremor of joyousness, these Lotus buds are sacred things--sacred to
whom?

For a single moment that thought had its way, but only for a moment. It
flashed and was gone, for the thought was a false thought: it could not
stand against this--"All souls are Mine."

All souls are His, all flowers. An alien power has possessed them,
counted them his for so many generations, that we have almost acquiesced
in the shameful confiscation. But neither souls nor flowers are his who
did not make them. They were never truly his. They belong to the Lord of
all the earth, the Creator, the Redeemer. The little Lotus buds are
His--His and not another's. The children of the temples of South India
are His--His and not another's.

So now we go forth with the Owner Himself to claim His own possession.
There is hope in the thought, and confidence and the purest inspiration.
And, stirred to the very depths, as we are and must be many a time when
we see the tender Lotus buds gathered by a hand that has no right to
them, and crushed underfoot; bewildered and sore troubled, as the heart
cannot help being sometimes, when the mystery of the apparent victory of
evil over good is overwhelming: even so there will be always a hush, a
rest, a repose of spirit, as we stand by the Lotus-pools of life and
seek in His Name to gather His flowers.

CHAPTER II

Opposites

BALA is nearly four. There are so many much younger things in the
nursery, that Bala feels almost grown up: four will be quite grown up;
it will be nice to be four. Bala takes life seriously, she has always
done s