Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1883-07-13
Sunday.SchOol Lessons.
THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS.

A truth not always as clearly promi-
neut in Christian teaching as it should
be is the truth, expressed in many forms
in the Bible. that righteousness is excel
lent and beautiful in itself. The right
deed is worth doing for its own sake,
aside from its results. There is an in
trinsic value in goodness, and an intrin-
sic loneliness. In art the curve is called
the line of beauty, but in morals the
line of beauty is the straight line.
Whatever may be said of theories or
doctrines, that which is true and pure
in conduct justifies itself always to the
unperverted Judgment. Because their
vision is perverted by sin, men often
see, or fancy they see, attractiveness in
that which is evil, as an unframed eve
may see beauty in crude and artistic
ally false painting. But the attract
iveness of evil exists only for the de-
PRAYED soul.
Ii is often the case that we do not find
our motive for doing good in the good
itself, nor even in the sense of Divine
mercy to us Weakening gratitude, but in
the desirable consequence of the good.
Or we find negative impulse to we'll
doing in fear of ill-result sure to follow
on ill-doing.
The truth is that right conduct is al
ways beautiful and intrinsically excel
lent. 1t justifies itself to conscience,
and, in proportion as the beholder is
pure in heart, it wins him to admira-
ton. With all its errors and perverse-
ness of judgment, the world again and
70 10 hno 6
holiness" 1t gives the place of emf
.nence in literature to those who spoke
words of untlinching honesty. 1t cher
ishes most proudly the name of those in
history who could choose to do right and
refuse to do wrong in the face of temp
tation and opposition and death. 1t
counts among its sweetest saints those
who have forgotten self and given them
selves to the service of others in pure
passion of Christ-like charity.
There is radiance in good deed,
because of its simple goodness, that
places it among the consultations which
illumine the world darkness. As Por-
tia said:
''How far that little candle throws his beams,
So shines good deed in naughty world"
And the beauty of Righteousness is
not mere surface quality which may
please and attract him who witnesses it.
1t is source of deep delight also to
him who practices it. Well-doing,
beautiful conduct (kal0n pOieO), is not a
jewel worn on the breast, but warmth
and brightness suffusing the innermost
being of the well-doer.
This, then, is the truth that calls fol
fresh and larger utterance, in pulpi,
and press. Goodness is good in itself
| and for its own sake. 1t is worth prac.
ticing because of its intrinsic excellence
aside from its far-reaching results. The
true speech is beautiful, though the
language may be uncouth. The gen
erous or upright deed is beautiful and
precious, though it cost pain and strife.
The character that is clean and trans
parent is beautiful, though it be en-
bodied in physical weakness and home
illness, and surrounded by the contra
dictiops of evil custom. Nero in his
palace may have all the adornment
which art and luxury and physical grace
and strength can afford, but he is hide
GUS by the side of the afflicted and
bodily-contemptible but great-souled
Paul in his gloomy prison. The society
queen who robes herself in the soft
splendor of costly attire, and blazes
with diamonds, and lives selfishly in
this needy world, is far surpassed in
loneliness by the humble girl whose lot
is one of toll and poverty, but whose
heart is sunny with love and whose
hands are busy with kind actions. Evil
is never beautiful. Ill-doing is ugly.
doing. The bad man is hideous, and nc
device can hide his essential deformity
No one can ocer make an unkind or a
dishonest or corrupt deed anything
else than hateful. Vice may be gilded
but it is never golden. Poetry may
| throw glamor over RIGHTEOUSNESS, but
the glamOr is transparent vail that
conceals not the loathsome thing be-
meath it. Art may yield its service to
evil, but it can not make evil beautiful
A graceful rhetoric may adorn falsehood
with flowers, but it can not make lie
other than despicable. AS "beauty i:
its own excuse for being" so righteous
ness is its own radiant justification. 1t.
patent of nobility is in itself, for it is o.
God, and in God is the highest beaut,
because in God is perfect righteousness
Philosophers have discovered much O
the true, the beautiful and the good
but the true and the good are foreve
the beautiful Philip s. Moron, u
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