St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1888-04-14
THE TRUE SHEkiNAH.
Man the One Grand Ideal In Poems and
Pictures

Man the One Grand Ideal in Poems and
Pictures.
AS with pictures, so with poems.
The poets Office is to be voice. moi
of one crying in the wilderness to
knot of already magnetized acolytes'
but singing amid the throng of men
and lifting their common aspirations
and sympathies $50 first clearly re-
vealed to themselves) on the wings OF
his song to o purer ether and wider
reach of view In the great poets
there is an exquisite sensibility both
of soul and sense that sympathies like
gossamer sea moss with every move.
ment of the clement in which it floats.
but which is rooted on the solid rock
of our common sympathies. Paint US
an angel, if you can, with floating
violet robe, and face paled by the
celestial light; paint us yet ofteneE
Madonna, turning her mild face up
ward and opening her arms to wei.
come the Divine glory; but do not inn
pose on us any aesthetic rules which
shall Danish from the region of art
those old women scraping carrots with
their work-worn hands, those heavy
clowns taking holiday in a
dingy pot-house, those rounded
backs and stupid weather beaten
faces that have bent over the spade
and done the rough work of the
world, those homes with their tin
pans, their brown pitchers, their
rough ours and their clusters of
onions. In this world there are so
many of these common, course peo-
pie. who have no picturesque sen til
mental wretchedness! It is so needful
we should remember their existence.
else we may happen to leave them
quite out of our religion and
philosophy, and frame lofty thee ries
which only fit world of extremes.
Therefore let art always remind us
of them; therefore let us always have
men ready to give the loving pains Of
a life to the faithful representing of
common things-men who see beauty
in these commonplace things and de-
light in showing how kindly the light
of Heaven falls on them. And such
men will always represent the higher
art of their day. 1t is in vain that
we look for genius to reiterate its
miracles in the cid arts; it is its
instinct to find beauty and holiness
in new and necessary facts, in the
field and roadside, in the shop and
mill. Proceeding from religious heart
it will raise to divine use the rail-
road, the insurance office, the joint
stock company, our law, our primary
assemblies. our commerce, the galvanic
battery, the electric jar, the prism
and the chemists retort, in which we
seek now only an economical use.
What more than regal mystery en-
circles the poorest of souls for usei
Well said St. John Chrysostom, with
his lips of gold: 1.-The true Shekinah
is Man." There is but one temple in
the world. and that is the body OF
man. Bending before man is a rever-
ence done to this revelation in the
flesh. We touch Heaven when we lay
our hands on o human being The
greatest of the works of man is less
thing than the meanest man, for the
meanest man has within HIM passions
and emotions and high longings and
strivings which no art can fully inter-
pref. The real value of the Had or
the TRANSPORTATION is as signs Of
power; pillows or ripples they are OF
the stream of tendency; tokens of the
everlasting effort to produce, which
even in its worst estate the soul be-
trays. -Lippiacotts Magazine.