“Yes, and make the thing itself the object of our love, rather than him who made it,” said her father, not realizing the several depths upon which Sabina was taking in his words. “All things will pass,” he went on. “Even this lovely garden, all these lovely roses, and our house itself one day will be gone. But the life they gave will live on. Thus we must wisely steward all these wonders God has allowed us to enjoy and take care that they give life, so that when the objects themselves are trampled under the passing feet of time, the life they have given will live on.”

“I do not like to hear you speak of the garden passing away, Papa. I know it is true, but still I don’t like it.”

“Ah, the shortsighted idealism of youth!” chuckled the baron.

“Are you teasing me, Papa?” asked Sabina, smiling but feigning hurt.

“Perhaps I am.”

“I know you are right. But I like to think that one day my own children, and theirs after them, will continue to enjoy the garden as I have.”

The baron’s face clouded. These were not days when he took pleasure in thinking about the future. Notwithstanding the promise of today’s sunshine, a dark cloud hung over the world, and he knew this place he loved so dearly was exactly under the middle of it.

“Who can tell? Perhaps they shall,” he added in a pensive voice. “But then, I would rather my grandchildren, and your grandchildren, and all those who come after us—I would rather they knew but a few of the true mysteries of the garden, than that they possessed a hundred gardens more beautiful than this. Roses and gardens are not ours to hoard or possess, or even merely to love and enjoy, as much as I dearly love and delight in them. They are given us, as are all created things, that we might be awakened to discover their secrets. The whole creation delights in secrets, but secrets whose purpose is to reveal, not hide, mysteries written into the world that we might learn of him who is the Author of secrets and Revealer of mysteries and Maker of beautiful things and Creator of all life and love in the world.”

“You should have been a poet, Papa!”

The roar of laughter that exploded from the baron’s mouth was utterly childlike in its merriment, and strangely incongruous with the serenity of the morning stillness. Not even the cloud over Europe could quench the inherent joy that his being took in the delight of living.

“Ah, what an extravagantly creative God is our Father! And see,” said the baron, pointing, “the sun has exploded over the trees. The colors of the paintbrush have faded already.”

“But he is making another right now for the people in England who are still asleep.”