Our great teacher, Nature, exhibits to us in her most glorious works two pronounced, distinct and harmonious colors — Purple and Gold. Opening and closing each day with those gorgeous displays of sunrise and sunset, with a rich and rare combination of these two colors, is produced a grand and ever recurring object lesson that cannot fail to forcibly impress the contemplative mind with the example it embodies. It does not seem that this ever present panorama of the shifting lights, the brilliant display and intermingling of the two most harmonizing colors of the spectrum, were for mere passing show. There is a deep meaning, a great occult truth, that is continually before us in this particular from of Nature's varying beauty.
The peculiar charm of a sunrise, or a sunset, appeals to the most benighted of mankind. In the early stages of the world we find innately planted in the human heart a deep veneration and adoration of the orb of day, typifying the two great opposites, life and death; and "Sun Worship" (as it has been wrongly termed), became the all prevailing method by which man sought to come into full accord with these divine sentiments appealing to the Purple and Gold within himself, presented daily before him, unchanged and unchanging for all time. For the morn was ushered in —
"Bathed in the tenderest purple of distance,
Tinted and shadowed by pencils of air."
Filled with the grand thoughts actuated by the dawn, the sunset must have intensified and deepened them when —
"The dying light,
Ere it departed, swathed each mountain height
In robes of purple; and adown the West,
Where sea and sky seemed mingling — breast to breast —
Drew the dense barks of ponderous clouds, and spread
A mantle o'er them of a royal red,
Belted with purple — lined with amber — tinged
With fiery gold — and blushing purple fringed."
Thus, ages ago was implanted in us this truth which makes us unconscious "sun worshipers," whether we bow down in adoration like our ancient brethren, or whether the Purple and Gold within ourselves thrill responsively with Nature's showing.
Nature, too, ever embodies the purple in the outlines of the distant hills and mountains. Standing as specimens of her handiwork, lasting through the centuries, outliving the ordinary earth-life of man, there they remain uplifting their purple-crowned heads — a symbolic example and lesson for mankind. Intensified with the rays of the golden luminary, they are constantly before us, an incentive to imitate Nature, to study the divine plan, and embody the same in our lives.
To those who go "down to the sea in ships," the purple and gold of Nature are unstinted, and amid the waste of waters are lavishingly exhibited these same great touches of color.
Purple is the true Fire Color. It was esteemed by the ancients more highly than any color, and was the distinctive badge of royalty. Purple and gold were used extensively for the decorations of temples and for the habiliments of priests. Nature again incorporates in the flowers these sympathetic hues. I care not how low in the scale of humanity the working of the Law may have placed one; how degraded and obtuse man may have become, the sight of a mass of flowers, or even a tiny bloom of either of these colors will arouse something in the heart corresponding to the divine, for the touch of the divine is in them, soul appeals to soul, and it knows —
"The meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
I once sent a little bunch of purple and golden blossoms to a convict serving out a life sentence for murder. It was "Flower Day," of a women's mission society, and each prisoner was to have a bouquet in his cell. We had contributed a quantity of flowers for this purpose, and as I handed this little bouquet to the lady in charge, I said: "I picked these flowers especially for some one who is serving a life time. They have a story of their own; they will tell it to him." As those little blossoms shed their influence about that lonely cell there did come to that prisoner the divine truth, the appealing of something interiorly that had been buried for many years, and the Purple and Gold within that man recognized the heart touch, his better nature responded, and an effulgence of soul divinity emanating from him and the humble flowers, filled that cell with a peace — with a heaven, indeed.
Now, as man is a miniature copy of the universe, and has within him the essence of all there is in Nature, why should we not follow her teachings and cultivate in our lives the Purple and Gold lying latent within us? The prismatic colors of the universe have their counterpart in man, and these colors evolve and develop according to his life and thought. Every thought, every word, every act forms a color of its own, affecting our surroundings, influencing those with whom we come in contact, and is recorded indelibly in the great "Cosmic Picture Gallery," where it adds its force and influence to that which has been stored there since the birth of time, and which is for the weal or woe of unborn millions
Once we grasp the full meaning of the Purple and Gold of life, and that we can make our lives radiant with these hues, we have made a long stride in the right direction. This can be done in the little acts of our daily lives. Make them full of Purple and Gold, let our aspirations be richly colored with these hues, and by our example we shall radiate joy and peace from these harmonious reflections of Nature's prism. Let us attend more to the cultivation and care of flowers — especially those producing the soulful bloom of purple and gold. Do we think that these tiny things have no souls? Have we ever studied closely these seemingly inanimate symbols of Nature's chosen colors? There is much to be gleaned from these humble productions which lie free to all.
The Purple and Gold of life can be awakened, and the divine responds in harmonious measures, reviving old ties and associations, the eternal oneness of us all. I know of scores of instances that have come under my own observation, of the great uplifting of the inner consciousness; the strengthening of the soul; the presence of a great peace, all made possible by a few clusters of purple and gold blossoms, reared and nurtured with an idea of their symbolic significance. There is potency in them. There is divinity. Sweet, fragrant emblems of Nature's best and most beneficent colors, they do influence, sanctify and strengthen.
If such results can be obtained from flowers, how much more can we accomplish by patterning after them; by engrafting into ourselves the purple and gold which is our heritage; by living the simple life of the flower, enriching and beautifying all; conveying the heart touch to our brother man; shedding the aroma of good deeds broadcast; and when, like the flower, we, too, fade and wither, we may have shed into some darkened soul the Purple and Gold of Eternal Life.