Novelties and How to Regard Them

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Acts 17:21-31

(For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)…

"Did you not say that there was a green rose in this place? There are many lovely flowers here, but I had rather see the green rose than anything else." So said a visitor as he stood in a garden where palms, and aloes, and all manner of rare plants, from many lands, were to be seen in perfection; and we should not be surprised if our reader, in like case, were to make the same observation. Yet, when the green rose was seen, it was at once denounced as nothing at all desirable, not a tenth as beautiful as a red or white rose. Just so, there are many folks in this world who must see that which is special, outré, unusual; yet, when they see this freak of nature, or of grace, they turn back to the more usual order of good things with considerable relief, for they feel that "the old is better." It is a pity when a man, especially a preacher, is merely a green rose, with a name for being something remarkable, but with no special excellence with which to maintain a reputation. He attracts only for a moment, but sustains no permanent attention, for there is hardly as much about him as there is in the ordinary unpretending teacher of the gospel. Those wanderers who are always running all over the world after green roses, are by no means so wise as those who are content with the perfume and colour of that flower which grows over their own porch, whether it be red or white. The affectation of the unusual is a trick of the charlatan; the craving after it is the weakness of the shallow-minded. Yet, be it noted, that we do not wish to depreciate the green rose. You see we have almost fallen into that unfairness, but the fault was not intentional. We are glad to have seen it, for as a green rose it has charms of its own. Yet this eagerness to see it, this passing over of lovelier objects, this crying up of one beauty above another, inevitably leads to an undervaluing of that which has obtained undeserved prominence. Your foolish partiality has made your favourite a target for excessive criticism; but we will not yield to the temptation. God has made the green rose, and He makes nothing amiss. Your remarkable friend has his excellencies, and God be thanked for them. Your eccentric preacher has his own adaptations for usefulness. Because you cry him up, we are not going to cry him down. Let each rose display its own colour, and let each man be himself, and let the Lord be glorified in all.

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