St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-11-02
Bright Discoursos From the Two Most
Brilliant Pulpit Orators Of the
New World.
Mr.. Beecher Talks on the Single Word
Beautiful" and Incidentally Com
pliments Old Maids.
DR.. Talmage DweIls Upon the
"Queen's Visit'' and Turns
Thoughts Logical.
A Tempting Dish of Mental Pabulum
Alike Entertaining to the Cody
and Ungod1y.
ssBeaufifWl.S
Special to the Globe.

el ) CUSTOM 10 nave Tile ucdu Ol Ills S6IluOl
written down for reference, the sermon
itself being mainly eXtemporaneous. This
morning he amused the congregation by
saying:
''Accept very unusual gift from me, an
apology, and if my discourse should be too
long, or too short or too ragged, please un-
derstand that in changing my coat before L
came left my notes at home. L am sorry
to initiate so many who have Sunday
clothes and change them when they go
about in the week and leave their religion
behind with their garments. l will speak
to you from one word, the word 'Beautl-
full" 1t is contained in the third chapter
Of Acts, second verse: Now a certain man
came from his mothers womb was carried,
whom they laid daily at the gate of the
temple which is called Beautiful The
temple represented the Jewish religion and
the gate by which you entered was called
Beautiful, and in this respect, while prob
ably it arose from the highly decorative
work that had been employed upon it, yet
it had also moral meaning to it. The
way OF the beautiful is the way of entrance
into the sanctuary, if only we understand
what is meant by beauty. One may be
surprised to contrast the Old Testament
and the New ON that subject. With one or
two exceptions, the word beauty is not
mentioned in the whole New Testament.
On the other hand. it is mentioned often in
the Old Testament, and mentioned, too, to
describe character and quality. The beauty
of holiness is mentioned significantly. The
beauty OF conduct is also mentioned.
GOD Is CALLED THE BEAUTIFUL
in the Old Testament. Now, in the New
Testament, though it does not mention
beauty as the Old Testament does, never
theless, we have specification of qualities,
of thought. of feeling-an analysis OF the
soul and Of all its members and declarations
that cannot be construed in any other way
than as eXhortatiOnS to beautiful conduct.
What sermon there is in real, full,
lovely Christian life, walk and conversa-
ton. Every single quality that belongs to
Christian character should be carried up to
the condition Of beautifulness. That is the
aim; and this, too, not by flash; not beauty
occasional, rare, used only as medicine is,
but steady beauty that rises like a star and
continues to shine with steadfast ray,
The light that has in it all the primary
colors carries them always, without any
discontinuity, and so the great qualities
which grace inspires, which are rooted in
nature, but are developed by grace in the
human soul. These qualities are, every
one of them, to be carried up toward the
line of beauty. They are intrinsically so.
Religion is beautiful, which is the compre-
hensive term for all the moral qualities that
90 to make perfect manhood in Christ,
Jesus. 1t is beautiful, not as man holds it,
not as men experience it, who have not yet
developed it up to its present state and its
highest condition; but there be many things
that are when right most beautiful, but we
are not SO when they are wrong, as you
can find by eating grapes. On
THEIR WAY UP TO LUsCIOUSNEsS
they are repulsive, and so many of the
qualities intrinsically beautiful, as they
have been brought to their ripest state, on
their way up are not so beautiful. Moral
qualities like physical eXcellencies, have a
| beginning. Some attain more quickly and
easily than others the relish of the beauti-
full; some are the result only of long striv-
ing. Some grow like the autumnal flowers,
only when they feel the coming breath Of
frost itself But every quality that goes to
make the true Christian as Christ longs to
see him, is an element that if carried up to
its full extent touches the lines of the beau
tiful, that is to say, when presented to an
educated, moral sense on earth or in heaven.
inspires them to the same desire of attract
iveness and admirableness, with which
physical beauty attracts the ordinary eye
and extracts it, and the same is true in re-
gard to conduct, for conduct is the child OF
! feeling. There is in other words ten
dency of all high, spiritual excellence to
try to incarnate itself, a kind of mystic
analogy. might draw, if were fond OF
sweet things, between the
| INCOMING INTO THE WORLD
| of the divine nature, and incosing itself in
human flesh and being subjected to the law
of time and space and matter, and that
which in us is forever seeking to incarnate
itself. We seek to give our thoughts form.
| We seek to give our feelings an expression
in conduct. We are seeking incarnation of
that which is inward and rarest and noblest.
! so that it shall have some physical and out
ward expression, so of conduct. Whatever
is graceful, noble, free, large, manly, lordly
in courage, is beautiful, and because it is
beautiful it belongs to the religious perfec-
ton of man, and all conduct that has in il
| the element of heroism, how beautiful it is!
| The fidelity that costs the self-denial that
finds its reward in the fruition of that
which is served; the angels of the cradle
and the crib; those protestant saints,
maiden women. that, having no family,
adopt the children and the household of
those with which they dwell, and spend love
and time and all service and pain even,
and watchfulneSS for the sake of others.
How beautiful is this quality of conduct.
We are fond of calling them old maids, and
| shameless representations are abounding in
poetry and in the illustrated magazines,
gaunt, long and sharp features, undesirable
in physiognomy: and yet l tell you that
these are the protestant saints, whose life
may be externally most humble, but whose
want of the things that comfort ordinary
life is
GODS GREAT GRINDING WHEEL,
by which is brought out in them the sanity
qualities, patience, gentleness, sweetness.
| We don't usually call these of our own
family old maids. l have been brought up
by an aunt, a woman as full of knowledge,
as full of moral quality as have ever met,
| full of sanity love, full of service. I look
upon her as next standing in order to my
own blessed mother and no one should
dare in any trifling matter to call Esther an
old maid. She is an unmarried angel, that
is ALL There may be some that have lacked
| the wedding and lacked the other qualities,
too, but if there be there are multitudes
enough to redeem the kind from their re-
proaches. from the inuendoes and of an
unmannerly ridicule, and you shall find all
through society scattered instances-for you
never find pearls in heaps, but only in small
and usually lonely shells-instances of
heroism and magnanimity in conduct that
should excite the admiration of mankind.
Religion seeks to enrich all feelings and
carry them by education up to that point in
which they themselves are intrinsically
beautiful, both in their melodies and in har-
monies, for the combinations of
emotions is to be thought of as well as
their individual beauty and excellence,
and so also their whole conduct, until the
man is established in his outward and in
ward life in such as that everybody that