“May she be blessed,” said the wise man; “but not one of you has yet named to me the loveliest rose of the world.”

Then there came into the room a child, the Queen’s little son.  Tears stood in his eyes and glistened on his cheeks; he carried a great open book, and the binding was of velvet, with great silver clasps.

“Mother!” cried the boy, “only hear what I have read.”

And the child sat by the bedside, and read from the book of Him who suffered death on the cross to save men, and even those who were not yet born.

“Greater love there is not”—­

And a roseate hue spread over the cheeks of the Queen, and her eyes gleamed, for she saw that from the leaves of the book there bloomed the loveliest rose, that sprang from the blood of Christ shed on the cross.

“I see it!” she said:  “he who beholds this, the loveliest rose on earth, shall never die.”

A VISION OF THE LAST DAY

By HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Of all the days of our life the greatest and most solemn is the day on which we die.  Hast thou ever tried to realize that most sure, most portentous hour, the last hour we shall spend on earth?

There was a certain man, an upholder of truth and justice, a Christian man and orthodox, so the world esteemed him.  And, in sooth, it may be that some good thing was found in him, since in sleep, amid the visions of the night, it pleased the Father of spirits to reveal him to himself, making manifest to him what he was in truth, namely, one of those who trust in themselves that they are righteous and despise others.

He went to rest, secure that his accounts were right with all men, that he had paid his dues and wrought good works that day; of the secret pride of his heart, of the harsh words that had passed his lips, he took no account at all.  And so he slept, and in his sleep Death stood by his bedside, a glorious Angel, strong, spotless, beautiful, but unlike every other angel, stern, unsmiling, pitiless of aspect.

“Thine hour is come, and thou must follow me!” spake Death.  And Death’s cold finger touched the man’s feet, whereupon they became like ice, then touched his forehead, then his heart.  And the chain that bound the immortal soul to clay was riven asunder, and the soul was free to follow the Angel of Death.

But during those brief seconds, while yet that awful touch thrilled through feet, and head, and heart, there passed over the dying man, as in great, heaving, ocean waves, the recollection of all that he had wrought and felt in his whole life; just as one shuddering glance into a whirlpool suffices to reveal in thought rapid as lightning, the entire unfathomable depth; just as in one momentary glance at the starry heavens we can conceive the infinite multitude of that glorious host of unknown orbs.

In such a retrospect the terrified sinner shrinks back into himself, and finding there no stay by which to cling, must feel shrinking into infinite nothingness; while the devout soul raises its thoughts to the Almighty, yielding itself up to Him in childlike trust, and praying, “Thy will be done in me!”