Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-10-02
written for the Herald.
MINISTRY OF THE BEAUTIFUL.
BIZ REy.. ". n. AYERs, cAsrLEroN.

DtICC lloo 4CtA AaAStA ~
this to be the only safe and correct STAN
dard of real utility. Thus they deem of
little or no consequence that which sub
serves higher and nobler end than the
manufacture of broadcloths and the pro-
duction of edibles.
If it be '.all of life to live" as very
many seem to think, and if man was
created with all his exalted moral and
intellectual powers, for no higher pur-
pose than merely TO provide for the gro
yelling wants of the body, then viii we
Join hands with the modern practicalists
and contentedly smoke their calumet.
But if life's chief end is something more
than the maintenance of its own exist
ence, and if the true function of man is
what Ruskin has defined it, ''to be the
witness of the glory of God and to ad-
vance that glory by his reasonable ser
vice and resultant happiness, " then we
will stand afar off, and rest firm in the
belief that it is great and palpable er-
ror of our age to regard, as of insignifi-
cant value, that which Infinite Wisdom
designed to shed light upon our path,
and to minister to our higher nature.
We say that the useful has two func-
lions. One thing may be useful by min
istering to some want and necessity of
the body; another, by cultivating the
taste and improving the mind and heart.
The end of the former is nothing more
than the support and comfort Of human
existence while that of the latter is the
development of all those intellectual and
moral qualities which constitute the
chief glory of man. The gross utilitari-
ans, with whom we hold controversy,
restrict their view of the useful to but
single sphere, and that its lowest one.
This fair earth of ours is to them
scarcely more than to the stalled OK.
Her golden fruit carries their thoughts
no higher than the trough or crib. They
glance upon the glorious sunset with ut
ter indifference because it does not TEEN
with paltry gold. They scorn the fine
arts because they have yet TO learn that
the muse with her Tyre, or the artist
with his pencil, ever constructed a
steamboat, projected a railroad, or tun-
neled mountain. In short, they would
exalt the physical man above the intel
lectual and the spiritual.
Now, man is a complex being. having
wants of mind and heart no less impera-
tive than those of the body. The per-
feet stature of manhood requires the de-
velopment of all his powers in symmetri-
cal and just proportion. But a blind
devotion to q low and sOrdid utility,
leads to an entire misconception of the
useful, as related to all the varied wants
of mans whole nature.
Our present object is to show the true
use and office of the beautiful as a means
to the highest culture and the purest
happiness. We must first define the true
nature and character of beauty. Ac-
cording to the theory of Plato, all things
worthy of desire in the universe are di-
vided into three great classes-the good.
the true. and the beautiful, as there pre-
vailed in each the religious, the intelleC-
tual, or the esthetic element Goodness,
truth. and beauty are, however, linked
together, and they cannot exist apart.
They blend into each other like the col
ors of the rainbow, and the three unite
in the unity of God. If we disengage
the purely beautiful from the purely true
and good, it becomes superficial and SEN
su0us, and its influence tends to mental
and moral weakness. 1t is only as the
element is associated with, and
to, the moral and intellec-
tual. that true and genuine beauty and
that which will minister 60 the highest
culture, can be generated.
True beauty is not mainly sensuous, /
but is eminently spiritual; it resides not
merely in material forms, but also in
thought and ideas it does not flow in
shallow streams whose sparkling surfaces
delight only the eye and fancy, but in
channels which are deep, and which find
their way into the innermOst chambers |
of the soul it does not make men pure |
ly ideal, but, in the truest and highest |
sense, practical it does not soon pail |
upon the mind and weary it, but creates |
a growing love and sympathy for the |
pure and the good It's study does not !
produce effeminancy and weakness; but |
gives rise, in both nations and individu-
ais, TO heightened thought, character, /
and action. Such is beauty and such its t
influence. We shall speak of the minis /
try of the beautiful as revealed in nature,
art. and yirtuous action.
Beauty is in nature an ali-pervading |
presence. Wordsworth was not dream t
ing when he said.-
'Beauty-a living presence Of the earth
Pitches her tent before me as move,
An hourly neighbof.'
Mans journey, from the cradle to the
grave, is aioaa. the paths of the beauti- |
fol. The spirit of beauty is perpetuallv |
hovcring over him. 1t greets him with |
Ihe iTst, flush of morn, and he hears its /
softly Tetreating footsteps as he is borne |
away 10 the land of dreams Nature is |
ever unfolding to him scene after scene, |
picture after picture, and glory after |
glory. With each circling year the sea-
sons come and go, trailing their rich gar
ments of beauty over the earth The |
ocean with its mysterious depths, the /
forests which wave upon the hillsides. |
The rivers that roll oceanward like eter- |
nifty, the sunset which illumines the |
chambers of the west when the king of |
lay seeks his couch beneath the hills. |
The mountains, the rocks, the clouds, the |
brooks, the trees, the flowers, are all /
stamped with the impress of beauty. |
Nor is this widely-spread magnifcance |
all meaningless Every object of natural |
beauty is typical of something higher. |
There is not plant that blossoms, not a |
1ew-drop that sparkles, that has not .
spiritual significance, and that does not
point upward to the great author of Gre
alton.
The beautiful of nature has a sacred |
ministry. 1t is its mission TO reveal to |
the finite conception the mind and /
thoughts of the infinite, and thus to |
awaken in the human bosom emotions t
IF love and devotion. 1t would seem, |
indeed, as if no thoughtful student of |
nature could long be bad man. Every |
lesson he learns is a golden thread, wo-
ven into his being, to draw him toward /
he throne of the Invisible He may
'under those threads thousand times, |
put it will be strange if he does not at
ength gather up the severed filiaments
md seek to reunite them in an everlast-