'Perhaps it may thrive better elsewhere, and here it is certainly doubtful if it be worth cultivating longer.' So it came about that the rosebush of humanity was transplanted, and set in sweet, warm, dry earth, where the sun bathed it, the stars wooed it, and the south wind caressed it.

Then it appeared that it was indeed a rosebush.

The vermin and the mildew disappeared, and the bush was covered with most beautiful red roses, whose fragrance filled the world.
"It is a pledge of the destiny appointed for us that the Creator has set in our hearts an infinite standard of achievement, judged by which our past attainments seem always insignificant, and the goal never nearer.

Had our forefathers conceived a state of society in which men should live together like brethren dwelling in unity, without strifes or envying, violence or overreaching, and where, at the price of a degree of labor not greater than health demands, in their chosen occupations, they should be wholly freed from care for the morrow and left with no more concern for their livelihood than trees which are watered by unfailing streams,--had they conceived such a condition, I say, it would have seemed to them nothing less than paradise.

They would have confounded it with their idea of heaven, nor dreamed that there could possibly lie further beyond anything to be desired or striven for.
"But how is it with us who stand on this height which they gazed up to?
Already we have well nigh forgotten, except when it is especially called to our minds by some occasion like the present, that it was not always with men as it is now.