The star of the north. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1849-1866, 1857-09-30
From, the Home Journal.
INTER ESTING TO LADIES.


INTER ESTlNG TO LADIES.
PERSONAL BEATUY-Irs RELATION TO MORAL
BEAUTY AND TO ARr.--BY 0EhIo C. scoTr.
Immediately after The Creation, the Father
of all looked on hrs work and saw that il was
good. Since the Fall his best children have
looked on the same and pronounced il beau.
tiful. Despite the great calamity, the mark
of Gods finger is still upon US for man,
though he went forth from the presence of his
Maker aud stunned His eye, was never for
saken by Him.
Now, although Goodness end Beauty were
not synonymous terms, yet in this essay we
shall sndeavor 10 show how intimately they
are connected The Pagans represented
Psyche, or the Soul, as delicately beautiful,
with force that almost seemed to speak, so
eloquent was (which, indeed, could be
read, for II symbolized innocence, loveliness,
and goodness and the books which we now
peruse merely symbolize The thoughts devel-
oped in the souls of writsrs. Not 90 Venus !;
fuller and more lusciously beautiful, she cre-
ated merely sensual desire, and inspired the
best of her worshippers with almost inextin-
gushabls yearnipg 10 become like her, loose
zoned and careless Of all higher aspirations
Blu, when Psyche was born, .(or, in other
words, the soul was lighted up,) pleasure
loving as the Greeks were, they were not SO
degraded iha, they could not perceive the
greater worth of their new acquisition, and
they left tie shrine of Venus with all her fac
nations, for that Of her Ines,imable rival
That they returned the better from their jour-
ney Who may deny, seeing that The children
Of her worshippers became philosophers of
Greece, the humanizsrs of Rome, and the
art teachers Of the Universe.
Rome, too, embraced external beauty ere
she sought internal. She wophipped Venus
before she became Christian; but she never
forgot her Greek instruction. She adored her
churches, aud her sons sought ont the fairesl
slaves to wait at their tables, which love of
the beautiful brought Christianity TO the An
| eo-Bntish children for sale to Rome, and
there in the markei-place Gregory admiring
them, pronounced these remarkable words,
"Non Angi, ssd angslf (no: Angles, but An
gels.) Tha, :hey must have been beautiful
who can doubt when they called forth such
an exclamation from the father OF the Church
from one who dwell in the old metropolis
of the world, into which all The spolls OF ev-
cry nation had once been emptied.
That when England became Christianized
she did not decrease in besuiy, is sufficiently
evident from the many records which have
come down TO us. The statutes which re-
main of the ladies Of the thirteenth century
in their graceful draperies have almost al
ways beautiful faces; aud the Troubadours
of France who perpetually abuse the Eng
Iish, cannot help calling The women the 'most
fair of earih's angels.' Flaxman, too, a man
who prided himself on being classical, was
constrained TO praise these monuments Of
English besu,y. But jus, about Elizabeth's
reign, art in England perished for above two
hundred years. A few portrait painters re-
mainsd, because English beaniy could not
be destroyed forever. And in Elizabeth's
reign, too, personal beauty eliminated in
her great men and women, and with the
wane Of art declined lovelness of mind, body
and soul.
Bu. the love of art has again risen in Eng
land, and with il will her sons and her daugh.
iers return to the beauty Of their ancestors, for
mind moulds matter, II is the brain of the
potter, and not the hand, which fashions the
beautiful vase; The hand Is the slave--lmbel
Helot Of the graceful Psyche-and is often
uutrustworihy; not carrying out the artists
conceptions. 1t is the fiat of God that makes
life what il is. Men is only the instrument,
and he likewise is ohsn unmindful Of his
/ trust. k.A@ 8 ~.
That Il is the mind which moulds the mat
Ter, we may easily convince ourselves by .
little ordinary reflection. We walk into the
city, and there ws zee anxious faces--wha'
makes These but business7 We meet The