flower of Venus
and the symbol of earthly love. Its symbolism felt also the redeeming
touch of Christian sentiment. The love of which it is the emblem
became not an earthly, but a heavenly love. As the lily tells of her
purity, so the rose tells of the love that was in the heart of the
Blessed Virgin. But this was but the reflection {82} of a higher and a
divine love, of which the rose was also the symbol.

How that thought of the love of heaven coming down to earth was
expressed emblematically by the rose, we may see in the story of its
origin which the Christian fancy of the middle ages invented. It was
said that a holy maiden of Bethlehem, "blamed with wrong and slandered,
was doomed to the death; and as the fire began to burn about her she
made her prayers to our Lord that, as she was not guilty of that sin,
He would help her and make it to be known to all men, of His merciful
grace. And when she had thus said, anon was the fire quenched and out,
and the brands that were burning became red roseries, and the brands
that were not kindled became white roseries, full of roses. And these
were the first roseries and roses, both white and red, that ever any
man saw."

So the rose became the flower of martyrs, the presage of the beauty and
joy of Paradise. With the same thought, the early Christians decorated
with roses the graves of martyrs and confessors on the anniversary of
their death. It has been conjectured that it is from this connection
of the rose with Paradise, and with the thought of the love which
accomplished our salvation, that the rite of {83} the "golden rose" has
been derived--the rite in which the Pope, on the Fourth Sunday in Lent,
blesses a golden rose adorned with jewels, which he afterward bestows
upon some person he desires especially to honor. In the prayers which
are used in this rite, our Lord is alluded to as the "eternal Rose that
has gladdened the heart of the world."

The interesting plant known as the _Passion-flower_, although of
comparatively modern origin, is now freely used to symbolize the
passion of our Lord. The ten faithful apostles,--omitting St. Peter
who denied and Judas who betrayed our Lord,--the hammer and the nails,
the cross, the five sacred wounds, the crown of thorns, the cords which
bound Him, are all, by an exaggerated symbolism and straining after
analogy, supposed to be represented by its various parts. It was
discovered by early Spanish settlers in Americ