WHAT TO DO WITH OUR FLOWERS by Mrs. Lula Joseph Ritchie

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Jul 23, 1901

WHAT TO DO WITH OUR FLOWERS.

By Mrs. Lula Joseph Ritchie

MRS. LULA JOSEPH RITCHIE.

There is a department in the W. C. T. U. known as the Flower Mission, which is used with much effect to remove prejudice, and to gain entrance into the homes of the people in the interest of temperance work.

Doubtless many of our sisters have flowers this summer. Could not these flowers be used in the interest of the message we love so much?

Care should be taken not to arrange cut flowers too stiffly. It is better, generally, to leave the flowers just as they come into the hand from the shears. They look more natural, consequently more restful.

Place among the flowers a card on which is written or printed some precious Scripture text. The first part of Isaiah 35 is very comforting. If for a sick person who is able to read, send something from the Apples of Gold Library—something short and comforting.

When a baby is a week or so old, send it a bunch of dainty flowers, with a card on which is written the baby’s name, or the words, “To the Baby,” together with some appropriate Scripture text. Follow up your gift by other kindnesses.

Send the mother a health journal, a copy of the Signs of the Times, or of the Little Friend if there are other children. Lead the mother to think of her responsibility to train the little mind for God.

When an entrance is thus gained, do not forget it. Keep opening the door a little wider week by week, until the whole truth has been presented. Much is lost by not continuing to follow, quietly and patiently, an opening.

Do not be in too much haste to flood your subject with literature. Give one thing at a time, and when that is read, replace with something else, giving our larger books just as soon as they will be acceptable. There is danger of wearying people by giving them too long a course of tract reading. Some persons would rather read a book than a tract. Study your subject, and remember that “continual dropping will wear away the stone,” while the same amount of water in a flood might make no perceptible change.

Keep your eye on an infant to whom you have sent flowers, as long as you are where he is. Even if you lose the parents, it may be that you will gain the child.

If there is a hospital near you, send flowers there, always accompanying them with Scripture texts. A little thought will suggest many variations of the flower-mission work.

The cultivation of flowers is healthful work for children, and has a refining influence upon the soul.