Again the Pool of Bethesda is brought to mind, as love for the sick
and suffering is shown in a way hitherto unthought of. In 1875, the
Home of Industry became a centre of the now well-known Bible Flower
Mission. One of the much-loved helpers recorded this touching
incident:--
"In the early spring of 1874, a snowdrop, primrose, and two or three
violets which had been casually enclosed in a letter from an East-end
worker to Mrs. Merry, were passed round her sewing class of 200 poor
old widows, 'for each to have a smell,' and then divided and given to
three dying Christians, one of whom breathed her last fondly clasping
them. From that time flowers were collected through the medium of
'Woman's Work,' etc., and during the season distributed by the ladies
at the Home of Industry among the sick in the neighbouring courts,
and in different hospitals.
"Again the hedges, tipped with tiny coral buds, primroses, and
daffodils peeping up amid the brushwood, golden-eyed celandines and
daisies lifting their sweet faces with smiles of welcome, remind us
of the near approach of the bright spring-time. But the heart is
saddened, and the joy of seeing this fresh burst of resurrection--
loveliness is clouded, when we turn to gloomy, stifling courts and
lanes in the crowded cities, where gleams of sunshine scarce ever
penetrate; the lives of whose miserable inhabitants are yet more
utterly devoid of brightness; to whom the voice of spring is an
unmeaning sound; to sick ones in these courts, who have no easier
couch for the pain-filled limbs than a heap of shavings on the hard
floor of a room filled with noisy children, and disorderly men and
women; to other sufferers tossing feverishly in hospital wards, with
nothing softer for the tired eyes to rest on than the endless stretch
of whitewashed walls, the background of long rows of patients whose
sad pale cheeks vie in whiteness with the sheets and walls: and the
cry ascends?
"'Oh, that a tithe of the wealth of fragrant, many-coloured flowers
so lavishly spread over gardens, fields, and hedgerows, could be
brought to cheer those who so dearly prize each separate bloom!'
"And once more down, deeper down, into the haunts of vice, smiling
so sweetly with the radiance of heavensent gifts, these messengers
may go--ready-made missionaries--to open doors and hearts fast locked
hitherto, but which must yield to their gentle influence; and thus
prepare the way for the ministry of the word of salvation.
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