Morning journal and courier., 1883-07-23
Dwight Place Church.

The Uses of Art and Beauty in Religion
 Sermon.by Rev. MT. Bacon.
 At Dwight Place church yesterday morn ing Rev. T. R, Bacon preached an able ser mon on the use of art and beauty in religion from the text, Rev.:21,22, 'tAnd I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven prepared as bride adorned for her husband.' MT. Bacon said, it has been remarked that the book of Revelation begins in a garden and ends in 8 city. The memory of the human race looks backward to garden, the hope of the soul looks forward to city. Each branch of the human race emerges into the light or twi- light of history from the country places, as from 8 garden. The savage is always fo und early in the development of race. After generation upon generation it gradually de- velops into civilization. In the de- that development reaches it's cul- mfnating point in cities It is only when civilization centers in cities that it controls an influence on the world at large. When all the light of the world became centered in the holy city of Jerusalem the real power of religion first became felt. Not until Athens became powerful do we find the Greek power. It was not to the Greeks of the earlier days that the world owed it's power in art and poetry. It was to Athens, the fair and the beautiful. To Athens the world goes back to where art had it's home, to where learning and philosophy had it's l seat. It was only when light and beauty be- came centered in imperial Rome that Italy | made itself felt AS long as 8 race is going upward it is building cities, and when it 1 has reached the culmination of it's career, the limit of it's possible usefulness in the world, then cities spring into life. It is from the l ruins of it's mighty cities, it is from their waning greatness that we learn the history of the race.
 It is not strange therefore that we find in I the Bible the whole progress of the race. It is not strange that great things were re- veaIed to John the Hebrew. From the evanescent city of his earthly life he learned of the gleries of the city which is above. And yet to the dwellers of this earth it is testful to go out to the everlasting hills, or | to go down by the sounding sea, or to look up into the starry heavens. We love some times to turn away from all that city life can l give and commune with Gods own works of nature.
 It is sometimes remarked that the pre- sen age is very susceptible to beauty in it's ex- | ternal forms. It has made us more suscepti- ble than ever to the beautiful works of God. In the early part of this Century a philoso- pher arose who declared that all those works | had meaning Underlying it all is the | thought of God. The universe is the ex- pression of the thought of God. The beau | tiful dwells in the universe 8 type of the ! divine beauty of truth and right | eousness. When we see this cannot doubt that beauty is 8 part of the souls \ very texture. The soul lives for beauty. ! The beauty of the quiet lake mirroring the | very stiffness of summers day, the beauty I of the everlasting hills, the landscape. the . o1n | through the summer sky, are but types of the architypal thought of God. ''When we 1 awake we shall be satisfied with his likeness ' The beauty of nature is the gift of God. Not less so is the beauty of art The idea in the mind of the artist Is only vision from the thought of God. From God they | come and are part of that revelation of the
 beauty of God which is in the earth.
 'sThe hand that rounded Peters dome | And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, ' Wrought in a sad sincerity;
 | He buiIded better than he knew;
 T The conscious stone to beauty grew.
 Knowst thou what wove yon weodbird's nest \ Of leaves and feathers from her breast? \ Or how the fish outbu1lt her shell,
 ! Painting with morn each annual cell ! Or how the sacred pine tree adds
 To her old leaves new myriads ?ss
 Such and so grew these holy piles
 whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
 \ Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,
 | As the best gem upon her zone;
 | And morning opes with haste her lids, ' To gave upon the Pyramids
 \ Ger EngIands abbeys bends the sky,
 ' As on it's friends, with kindred eye;
 ' For, out ofsThoughts interior sphere,
 \ These wonders rose to upper air
 ! And Nature gladly gave them place,
 ' Adopted them into her race,
 \ And granted them equal date
 \ With Andes and with Ararat."
 It is sometimes said that morality and ar \ bear no relation to each other. Art ask
 what is beautiful, morality asks what is right just as political science asks what is expedi
 ent But it is all from him whose beaut,
 fills the universe and in whom all these at
 tributes are. blended in perfection, tn
 true, the beautiful and the good.
 I 'sThanks to the human heart by which we live,
 Thanks to it's tenderness, its joys and fearA; To me the meanest flower that blows can give I Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears" ! It is right, then, that we find all the beau
 ty of nature, all the beauty of art like untt
 the beauty of God. It is right and seeml. ! that we should look aloft to the heavens ant
 see the glory of his works. It is right that
 we should take delight in the beauty whicl
 he has put into the human soul.