[Illustration:  Albert Victor iris, from Mr. Harrison’s garden—­about one-third size.]

If you want to be in the realm of miracles, lay down your hoe awhile and sit among your flowers.  Your brain devised the plan, your hand planted the seeds and bulbs.  “Behold the lilies, how they grow.”  Now sit there and think it out.  At your feet are artists no human skill may imitate.  Two peonies grow side by side.  Golden Harvest opens with yellow petals fading to purest white.  In the center is a miniature Festiva Maxima—­blood drops and all.  How can those roots send up the golden tints, the snowy white and the red, and never have the colors mixed?  Close by is a Plutarch, deep brilliant red.  The roots intermingle.  How is it possible to pick out of the dull soil, Nature’s eternal drab, that brilliant color for your peony?  There are your iris, the new sorts absolutely undescribable.  There are a dozen different shades in a single bloom.  But those blind artists at work in their subterranean studios never make a mistake.  The standards must have just such colors, the falls just such tints, and where did they get that dazzling radiant reflex such as you see on Perfection, Monsignor and Black Knight?  But it is always there shimmering in the sunlight.  There is a fairy—­a pure snowy queen.  How was that sweetness and purity ever extracted from the scentless soil?  Every bloom uncorks a vial of perfume which has the odor of the peach blossom.

Did you ever sit down in your kingdom and see what a royal throne you occupied?  What a reception your flowers give you!  The ambrosia and nectar of the feasts of the deities of fable are overshadowed by the fragrance and sweetness of your worshippers.  It would seem that every flower, like a royal subject, was bent on rendering the most exalted honor to her king.  No company of maidens preparing for nuptials were ever arrayed like these.  Each one is striving to do her best.  The highest art ever displayed in the palaces of kings is no comparison to the beauty and splendor of your reception.  By divine right you are supreme.  The fertile soil puts her tributes at your feet; for you all the viewless influences of nature are at work; for you the sun shines and the showers fall.  So brothers, don’t creep but mount up as on eagle’s wings.  Invoice yourself and see how great you are!  Don’t live all the while in the basement—­spend some time in the upper story of your calling!

You are not making the earth weep blood.  You are not spreading on the fields a carpet of mangled forms.  You are not dropping ruin and death from the skies or polluting God’s pure waters with submarines.  You are not turning all your energies into the work of destruction, despoiling the treasures of art and the pride of the ages and turning the fairest portions of the earth into desolations.  You are not changing yourselves into demons to gloat over starvation and ruin.  You are soldiers of peace.  Behind you was the somber earth.  You touched it with the wand of your power, and beauty, health and pleasure sprang up to bless you.