Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1865-12-17
The Rev. Henry Ward Becher-@' The
Moral Qualities and their Innu-

encp.
Let your light so shine before mon that they
| may see your good works and glOrify your Father
which IS in Heaven MATHEW, chap. v;
verse IS.
Religious feeling appears TO. be stimulated
in no small degree by genial skies and balmy
zephyrs. Beautiful faces, surmounted by
elegant coif1'ures with costly robes thronged
Plymouth Church on Sunday morning, and
the subdued sunshine of the hour streamed
down on, perhaps, no more fashionable as
semblage in any part of the American Con-
tinent.
When the usual morning exercises had
been finished, the Rev. II. w. Beecher
preached on the above text from Matthew.
The shining of his light he said was of little
account. The implication is that when it
! does shine it reveals something, and Its most
glorious revelation is beauty. When God
shines the light of his countenance is tran
scendantly beautiful to degree that breathes
a universal impression of exquisite good
ness. The passage teaches that moral excel
| lence is beautiful, and that there is that in
all men which responds to goodness. The
moral elements are beautiful, and not only
that, but they have power to excite admit
ration and desire in men that do not possess
| them, and every moral quality, when prop
| erly accepted, has the power of producing
an impression of beauty. Speaking about
the influence of love, he said no creation
that we have ever seen on the canvass have
equalled the simple facts that are taking
place day hv dav He held tha. the mind IL
perpetually lmpressing itself upon the body,
and that gesture, feature walking, speaking,
looking and a thousand other physical APP
pearances are the result of mental pro-
cesses within the soul. A man that il
endued with sentiments of rectitude be-
comes royal not alone in moral aspects,
but in physical az well. Expression is true
beauty, and by expression he meant of moral
feeling conforming the features to It's own
nature. In society at large, physical beauty
increases with culture and refinement.
once paid visit TO Hicks, the artist. He
lived not far from the Five Points, and used
TO be frequently called out by a school
teacher to look at the head of some little
child which she considered a rustic beauty
j asked Hicks if he often found such, and
was surprised at his answer. "No," said he.
'you cannot find real true beauty among the
children of rough and uncultured parents.
There is always something animal, something
coarse in them" As men are civilized and
refined, and come more under the influence
Of conscience, and love and refinement, so
the face lights up, and so it goes on from
generation to generation, until at length
there comes out physical beauty to illustrate
the truth that the moral element was the
prime cause Of it, and not the physical He
spoke at length about the parade some peo-
pie made Of religion, actually investing it
with a kind of responsiveness. He also
alluded to the old Puritan idea of the
1 I
Of it when a child; still there were many
things in that Sabbath which he wished were
retained by us. In conclusion, he said, to
that blessed land let us turn from among the
jars and discords OF this life, where things
that now clash shall be all harmonious, and
things that now separate us shall be all re-
moved