Morning journal and courier., 1885-03-13
xAIErHEoLoG1oAL SCHOOL.

Lecture By Dr. Burton An The Mar. quand Chapel-EsthetIcs And Relig- iom. The Marouand chapel was filled to over flowing yesterday afternoon when Dr. Bur ton began his first lecture on Tropics con- nected with the pastors life" The lecture was on " "lEstheticism and it's relation to re- ligion." He said among his remarks that the body of Christians to which we belong is in vested with an abuse of the beautiful in re- ligion. The architectural edifices are reared and the entire elaborate symbolism of the church is heaped together to form concep- tions which are at war with the most earnest l and deep teachings of Christ. The cross is an emblem of the deepest life of our Lord, l around which cluster most sacred and hal lowed memories, yet in representations it l seems to portray things which rob it of it's holiness. Christian music in it's higher | forms is the most serviceable of the arts; it ! represents the inward life of man in it's mul- ! tiplicity and intense yearning. But what is beautiful in it is overcome by the stiffness of i Journalism and denominational suspicious | ness We are the descendants, ineal or spiritual, of men who discovered and buffeted the fornication of religion. The ! true, the beautiful and religion were the ! three elements of doctrine with them, but | the beautiful was riding the other three. Our fathers righted more than was necessary and put religion in the saddle, and it ami
 Inflated the beautiful. The reality in the movement intended to exalt religion, and it established it on & colossal foundation of it's l own. The heat of the contention keeps up and makes us, the successors, obstinate and self-wi1led. They surmised law of deteri- oration, that religion must grow effeminate and carnal if it did not eschew art; that it
 was enfeebled by holding on to the higher ideas of beauty. Whether the one was the cause of the other not a high stage of art and demoralization of the people have ex- isted together. Byron and Moore were men endowed with a great sense of beauty, yet they were not. men with the kingdom of God established in their hearts; they were not men in the true sense. Artists desl with forms; their business is
 to formulate. If they do only that all is
 well, but they reduce the ideal and the inh-
 nite to sensuous statement. Many great
 Christian ideas when circumscribed with
 artists terms are profaned. Some beings
 cannot be formed adequately, and some not
 at all The attempt of ancient art to DOT
 tray the Almighty is a failure and had better
 not have been made. People make this fail
 ure the basis for covering all art in the re-
 ligious field in the same way. Congregation
 alists look with pleasure on the cultus in a
 history full of God and every conceivable
 moral tonic, but that very cultus is associat-
 ed with barrenness of art and finds itself
 tender toward art. The ancients carried on
 a filtration with art, and the descendants
 have the same tendency. It is mistake to
 mingle aesthetics with religion. Art must
 give way to religion in every contest, for re-
 ligion is superior. We can live without art, l
 but cannot live without religion. But art l
 should be the handmaid to religion, and if 1
 adverse to it it is the work of perverting l
 men and Satan.
 Beauty with funetionl What does it |
 mean? A perception and sensibility of l
 beauty is universal. Even the lowest savage
 has aesthetics such they are Animals |
 have not this sense, but were made by God |
 to act with the sense without being conscious |
 of it. Man has sense of beauty and is |
 iarred with discord of color inhar- |
 monious combination. He was made to com
 prehend the beautiful and to turn it to utili- | ty. It is incredible, too, that God made him | thus without D6lng so nllnSelI, else why uO 1 the words of our Lord show so much sym
 pathy and unrestrained delight in the beau
 ties of nature The writers of the scripture | in their personifcations of peculiar forms of
 nature filled all creation with God and made
 it alive Notice the strong fascination of Christ by nature in hkening "the lilies of
 the field" to the ''glory of Solomon" When
 these words are set to music, music performs
 it's true function and takes us into the pro-
 found depths of Christ's words and tells us
 how he felt. The passage individualizes the lily and illustrations of individuality are the
 most sacred and best.
 People said beauty is beguilement to at tend church It materializes religion and makes it physical spectacle. Yet why did God give to these people an external religious system? Those were the people appointed of God to architectural beauty and yet they now make religion most carnal. How many | times is 8 good thing turned into curse:
 All arts to benefit religion must be wisely adjusted to circumstances and people. Un- der the old order in the Messianic period all institutions and ceremonies were secured by objective command Now the method of action of the Holy Ghost in souls is beyond with the old method. Jesus is the t1ee of life All earth-born growths wither. If they survive they serve only use. The monarchy of Greek art was of the best kind, but the kind is secondary Christian art is queen of | modern civilization. If it is not, it is be- cause people strive against it who fail to see all the sides of life. The work of formula tion was left to men who should b. blessed with the presence of the Holy Ghost-an in dwelling so bright that all others are noth- ing Why should a high element of beauty ands low state of religion exist togethere If secular education tends to keep men out of jail is it not likely that beauty as secular force tends to have a
 ike influence? Material only can be imitat- ed Yet if it expresses thought and feeling, if it is suggestive, then material beauty is not low and dangerous. The beautiful must be interpreted by the material, but how far | need we to enter the material to find the divine element? The infinite must be set forth in finite expressions; its expression is serious and moral Divinity can be shown
 n painting if the artist paints suggestively. He who paints a bare boulder in it's simple defniteness abuses the boulder. has heart, if closely studied, and things should be represented in paint ngs as they usually are,' not as they are at particular moment, for potentiality is the greatest property things possess Nature in ts expressions has moral spiritual, emo ] 1onal and even affectional meanings. Why ny to harness art to religion when the ele- { nents of religion are unstatable by art? We ,an state Christian ideas, but we cannot tate God and infnity. If we cease from the oily of bodily parts, the Almighty can be ,et forth. MT. Burton concluded the dis t course with reference to music and its ( power. Music was born for a purpose. It ( waited for the Messiah and the Holy Ghost z Q fill the souls of men, and then it came the 3 ast born of God.
 Third Annual Exhibition.
 The quiet times in business circles have not 1 leterred MT. Cutler from giving his annual of fine paintings from the artists . n New York. In conversation he expresses 1 + himself as follows: "To be sure times are d Hull and money scarce, but it is just as | carce with the artists as with anybody else, they are willing to sell at lower 'rices. Here is picture that should have old for six hundred dollars two years ago. his year I sell it for four hundred and fifty :. nd similar reduction is made in the prices n a great majority of the artists" There } no doubt but MT. Cutler presents for the and patronage of the public .